Dear Gamedevs : Long Hair Doesn't Work That Way

Jay Castello writes: "Long hair in video games never has realistic physics and would always inconvenience the character. Why not embrace a greater variety of pragmatic styles?"

[garyanderson]

It's one of those things that breaks immersion, if only for a moment.

[annoyedgamer]

Your website is terrible. Keep shilling. The ban hammer will strike soon. Cliqst, Newnormative and others.

[DedicatedDark]

Who the fck approves this garbage.

[GregMicek]

Ohhh, what others?

[nveenio]

I've never been playing a game and got sucked out of the experience with thoughts of how I wished the character was just a little more frustrated with her hair that day.

[letsa_go]

Maybe you should develop new hair physics since you seem to know more than the developers.

[rainslacker]

Hair is extremely complex in real life. To make it realistic would take some rather exhorbitent resources which can be better spent elsewhere.

More pragmatic styles is cool and all, but that gets old.

But, there are quite literally hundreds of things with every character design which can break immersion. This is like complaining that a characters weapon clips under their flamboyant outfit designs. Maybe we should make their outfit designs more pragmatic to resolve the issue.

It'd get boring fast, because if you try to resolve every little thing that breaks immersion, it tends to lead to a homogenization of design which just isn't that interesting.

[samden]

I don't know if you read the whole article but it goes from talking about immersion breaking to pushing a political agenda. This was approved not because it is a think piece on hair, but for its agenda.

[rainslacker]

I didn't read the article at all. Based my comment on what was said here. Generally, articles like this which seem like they want to tell developers how to do their job tend to be condescending and mostly uninformed.

I saw it was some political agenda later down, and that makes it even worse, and even more glad that I didn't click.

If the comments indicated that it was a good article in some way, then I may have read it.

[SCW1982]

Only game I have seen do it extremely well was Horizon and even that has some issues.

[Tech5]

Horizon's hair is still too video game like and stiff, it also doesn't apply to everyone in the game. Nvidia is still one of the best with hair simulation https://youtu.be/ozrrkjJtBR...
Hopefully next generation is the era when games will start using better simulation.

[SCW1982]

Its a tech demo

[bluefox755]

Don't know why you got some many downvotes. Horizon hair is pretty damn good compared to most hair in games. It's not perfect obviously (apparently ultra realistic hair is very taxing on the graphics), but it's definitely serviceable.

[chris235]

i got pulled out repeatedly out of the immersion in horizon BECAUSE of the hair. yea they put much details into it, but i was constantly thinking "oh yea, we know it, the main chick only got this hairdo because the devs wanted to show their ability to create this mob"... didn't work for me. at all. the whole chick was uninteresting asf.

[Dirtnapstor]

Tell you what, Lara's hair in ROTTR drove me insane. It was as if her hair was alive, slinking around on its own accord with every micro-bob of the head. Not natural at all. I will say it certainly looked good, but it just didn't sit right with me.

[Razzer]

"also chip away at this association between long hair and womanhood, reducing the sway that these cultural values have over us."

For a second, I thought this site had an article without an agenda. lol...silly me

[Kornholic]

The important work of a feminist critic.

[OldGuyStillGaming]

It's improved a lot
Just think about those ps1 and ps2 days

[Oddmania]

Alice's hair in 'Alice: Madness Returns' looked pretty great.

[mastershredder]

Dead Gamer: If the focus of the game was the hair, maybe it would really mater. Let's involve tones resources and programing just to the hair to appease your inability to enjoy a game in it's entirety.

[rainslacker]

Like Bayonetta? hair was "alive" in it.:)

[SinkingSage]

Dear writer: I'd like to see you try and program hair physics.

Also, it's just a game, stop acting like this is a big deal, why does digital hair get on your nerves so much?

I can see quite clearly it's an agenda piece, you're tired of long hair representing femininity etc, etc...
Guess what, that's not gonna change, just as beards will always be seen as a sign of masculinity. It's innate, it's human nature.

Why is it that so many cultures, separated, for thousands of years, before the printing press, before television, before the internet, all had something in common: Women sported long hairstyles, it represented the classical woman figure, it still does... It's human nature, it's instinct, it's mother nature.

[bluefox755]

Oh, this website again. Almost clicked on it, whew.

[Inzo]

Aloy says hi!

[BLizardXD]

and goodbye as we move forward in time to 6 TFlops of power and better features for 2017 and beyond.

[Inzo]

Lol, 6 tflops hey? But can it play TLOU2? Sorry but 6 tflops and better looking strands of hair isnt going to give you better games, at least not with MSs lack luster dev teams, thats just the reality of it so you enjoy your tech demos and leave the gaming to the gamers.

[bluefox755]

My PC has 9 tflops, and there's almost nothing available that looks as good as Horizon. Talented developers will trump raw hardware power ANY day. Hardware means nothing if you don't have any developers that know how to take advantage of it.

[jaycptza]

have fun playing those 6TF.

[samden]

uh, wut?

person A: "video game characters, hair"

person B "6 TERAFLOPS IN 2017!!! FUTURE!!!"

@bluefox755, spot on, Horizon and UC4 are great examples. But you have to admit that Battlefield 1 on PC is downright GORGEOUS!!!

[DedicatedDark]

Rise of the Tomb Raider hair was amazing.

[CobraKai]

Oh how I wish I didn't read this drivel. I thought it was more about the technical aspects of hair and how it has/will evolve in games. Not about how a strand of hair doesn't bug a character in a gunfight.

[SarcasticDuck]

the far we came, people b*tching and crying about hair physics in games

[SyWolf]

Think you can do a better job creating hair that acts exactly like it does in real life? If you can you should patent that technology and license the crap out of it.

[DevilOgreFish]

As of 2014 Nvidia hairworks has been free to all developers.
https://developer.nvidia.co...

[SyWolf]

It's goood but not true to life for human hair. Better than TressFX though

[rainslacker]

There are some really good hair physics tools out there.

They're just really resource intensive for what ammounts to a rather insignificant part of the actual game....which is why you don't see them much....or they are only available for more powerful hardware...at least if they run in a respectable manner without leeching other resources. Hair in general is extremely complex both in real life, and in game.

[TheOttomatic91]

Dear SJW "journalist" fuck off and try to focus on actual news.

[memots]

let me guess a feminist gaming site looking for hits ?

[ILikeGamesYeah]

Does your hair work under the constraint of a graphics engine?

[meka2611]

Well if the author thinks programming hair is so easy, why doesn't he show the devs how to do it. Hair is a rough thing to program for, and to make it look real would take up resources that could be used elsewhere in the game.

[Nivekki]

'Jay is a freelance games writer specialising in intersectional feminist critique, how to improve games and use them to improve the world, and cute dogs.'

That is all you need to know. Tired of this shit, utterly tired of it.

[Matology]

I think its time I unleash Barry on the situation - he loves trolling and a good fight with bitches!
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[Matology]

OMG - I just played Tomb Raider ROTR and thought there was something wrong - it was the hair all along.