"If you do a deep dive into the technical literature ... you see that all of the supposedly foundational papers on this topic ... feature just straight hair," said Theodore Kim, an author on the study and professor of computer science at Yale University. Kim previously worked for Pixar Research and has received screen credits in several animated films, including "Coco," "Incredibles 2" and "Toy Story 4."
Kim said that his colleagues at Pixar have to work hard to achieve a realistic result when animating coiled hair. Oftentimes, quality animations require hours of manual artistry because there are limited tools available for capturing this hair texture and streamlining the process.
"They're very dedicated, and they're very skilled, so they can make it work, but it wasn't the algorithms that supported them," Kim said about his peers.
A.M. Darke, another author on the study and associate professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the department of performance, play and design, was central in identifying and describing these phenomena. She took pictures and slow-motion videos of her hair, and recruited friends and family to help the computer scientists understand different features of coiled hair.
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