New 7.1 hairstyle looks nothing like the winning hairstyle from the 2023 contest

[Sindele]

My real question is, what are the tri and texture size limits the team is operating under for hair? Have these standards actually been updated since the PS3 era?

I struggle to believe this is an artist failure any more or less than every other crunchy, weak hairstyle they've dropped over the past several years - it's just a more immediately visible one. The core issue is the engine's poor handling of transparency and the fact that tri limits in particular don't seem to have come up sufficiently to compensate for hairstyles that need more detail than just normal maps can provide.

[Villa101]

This is actually embarrassing, i feel like this expansion kinda sold itself on "new diverse land of people and cultures" the first opportunity to create a new asset in that direction, hair. A thing that historically has been lacking in that respect since the game came out, and its done poorly. This combined with the teams strange statements about aspects of ff16 really feel like those in charge don't really care about actually committing to aesthetics of this diverse idea that contradicts whatever aesthetic they have in their head. But I guess we were wrong to expect any better after looking at berets hair in ff7r

[Jangle]

I remember seeing the original art for this hair and thinking it looked really cute, the way square enix has implemented it it looks nothing like curls/textured hair. I really hope they can consider redoing this and putting the proper effort in to respect the original artists' vision.

[Rikaku]

Even if this says "inspired" by the contest winners, I feel like the fact that majority of responses here on the forums and elsewhere have largely been "I didn't even know it was supposed to be that one" is pretty telling. While the previous hairstyle entries done in the past contest pre-2023 were also 'inspired by', I felt like each one was still close enough that you could point to the artwork by the artists and readily identify the hairstyle in-game that inspired it. That one fact alone to me says that this hairstyle needs to be looked at and addressed.

Many players were very excited over a curly-style hairstyle to be in the game, and especially given the graphical updates we just had with Dawntrail. It should not be impossible to put in a hairstyle that is faithful to the creation and I hope the team revisits this hairstyle.

[Iscah]

In addition to the general complaints, I feel like something the in-game version is suffering from is the absence of the "yellow" section and replacing it with a more severe parting line.

There is also no sign of shorter strands emerging from the overall shape of the hair, changing its basic concept from an evenly spread ball of short strands to an awkward, ragged style that has been cut to different lengths in different sections.

It also has an oddly 2D look about it, which seems to be a common problem with hairstyles after the graphics update rather than a specific issue with this one, and I've been noticing it a lot when I've been making comparison screenshots. (e.g. here, here and here -- the hair reflects light in the old graphics but looks flat in the new graphics.)

[Zero-ELEC]

That's truly terrible execution of that hairstyle, I didn't even realise it was meant to be that one until people pointed it out. What a shame.

[glatissant]

Writing to add my voice to this thread. I don't think the in-game model looks like what the original submission intended it to look like: a curly textured style. Why pick this as the winner if it is not going to be faithful to the original artist's vision? It's somehow more disappointing that it's been done badly than if it had not been done at all. Please fix this.

[Jannosuke]

Not only does the preview looks like it's an incomplete hairstyle, it also looked like it's designed without considering how it'd look like on certain face models. I feel like it looks awkward on this particular Au Ra model, but imo it has to do with the hairstyle looking like it's not complete.

[Gyabo]

Adding my agreement. If the original design was going to be so thoroughly ignored, what was the point? It's disrespectful to the designer and all the players who were looking forward to seeing this hairstyle in game.

[Aerisuna]

This is so bad. There's no way making textured hair is that impossible. So many games have loads of textured hair, this is just sad.