Kqed Science News

The animation industry has long struggled to get Black hair right — from the infamous “Killmonger locs,” named after the Black Panther character and copied across video games, to the stiff, oversized afros of The Sims 4. As it turns out, hair animation tools were built almost exclusively with straight hair in mind. Two researchers, A.M. Darke and Theodore Kim, recently published a landmark paper about the physics of animating curly, coiled, and afro-textured hair. Morgan sits down with A.M. and Theodore as they discuss the surprising pushback they encountered in the animation industry, the findings of their paper, and the uphill battle they faced in getting this field of study recognized within academia.  Guests:  A.M. Darke, artist, game designer, and an associate professor of Performance, Play, & Design at UC Santa Cruz Theodore Kim, Professor of Computer Science at Yale University  Further reading:  Lifted Curls: A Model for Tightly Coiled Hair Simulation - Alvin Shi, Haomiao Wu, A.M. Darke, and T