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

[Astronis]

Genuinely asking, how were you able to render fluffy textures on non-character models such as environmental assets in the form of bushes or the fur of certain creatures, most notably alpacas, if said polygon count issue exists?

For bushes and round plants, a lot of them are done with billboards, which are flat polygons with a texture on them, then overlapped several times to give the impression of randomness and volume. If you look at the plants in FFXIV at certain angles, you'll see they're made up of clumps of six flat planes arranged in hexagons. They do a similar thing for fluffy miqo'te tails, which are long tubes with four planes of fur sticking out at right angles. The few hairs that have very curly bits in them are formed similarly to the way miqo tails are.

The fluffy alpaca hair is a material shader that makes the roundish model look like it has a lot more depth than it does. Alpacas don't have a lot of polygons at all, they just have a texture and shader on them that makes it look like they are made of curly fluffy fur. That's something that might work for player character hair if the hair was very curly, but the design in question wants ringlets rather than tight curls, along with the ability to dye the tips of the ringlets. Something like that would be harder to do convincingly with a shader.

[Rolder50]

However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.

So impossible to do that third party modders were able to add curly hair just fine even BEFORE the graphical update

[DiaDeem]

third party modders were able to add

cofcofvierahrothhatscof

[lolnotacat]

Hello.

Thank you for all your feedback on the hairstyle that will be implemented in Patch 7.1. We would like to apologize for the major confusion we have caused.

For this patch, we started work to implement "Natural Curls" from the winning entries of the Hairstyle Design Contest, based on the idea of adding not only straight hair but also a variety of other hairstyles.

However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.

Therefore, the finished result is a hairstyle that has not been implemented as Natural Curls, but as a wavy bob hairstyle, which is called "Doing the Wave" in-game.

However, since we did use the winning entry as a reference in the development process, we included a statement to that effect in the patch notes. We are deeply sorry that this has resulted in a great deal of confusion and concern.

Although we were not able to make it happen this time, the development team will continue to strive to implement many more hairstyles in the future. As for Natural Curls, which was not implemented in Patch 7.1, we will persevere in our efforts to look for other ways to implement this hairstyle.

We appreciate your feedback and hope you continue to enjoy FFXIV!

I find the poly count excuse to be a bit spurious since this is an issue that modders have (once again) worked around for years.

[Gaddes]

Hello.

Thank you for all your feedback on the hairstyle that will be implemented in Patch 7.1. We would like to apologize for the major confusion we have caused.

For this patch, we started work to implement "Natural Curls" from the winning entries of the Hairstyle Design Contest, based on the idea of adding not only straight hair but also a variety of other hairstyles.

However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.

Therefore, the finished result is a hairstyle that has not been implemented as Natural Curls, but as a wavy bob hairstyle, which is called "Doing the Wave" in-game.

However, since we did use the winning entry as a reference in the development process, we included a statement to that effect in the patch notes. We are deeply sorry that this has resulted in a great deal of confusion and concern.

Although we were not able to make it happen this time, the development team will continue to strive to implement many more hairstyles in the future. As for Natural Curls, which was not implemented in Patch 7.1, we will persevere in our efforts to look for other ways to implement this hairstyle.

We appreciate your feedback and hope you continue to enjoy FFXIV!

Cue the clarion call for a modder who will replace this new hairstyle with a version that actually looks like the concept hair, using the same limitations...

[MediocreIndigo]

I'm glad that the devs are still going to try to implement the hairstyle as it was originally intended, but at the same time, it's kind of ridiculous that the game has so few options for textured hair after all these years. I do think the devs have been putting more effort into diversity lately, but I really hope they actually commit to it long-term.

[Feetism]

1st post btw

All i want to know is if Viera will ever get this hairstyle. I dress in very Japanese style glams. The Shishu gozen kimono being my favourite and tail clipping is outrageous on it, but the bun part of the Kanzashi only looks good with some hair, ESPECIALLY the hime cut. I just really want it on Viera, they're tall and pretty with white skin akin to Geisha. They added the princess curls for Viera which has a similar silhouette at least so i hope to god Viera will finally get the hime cut. For god sake, MALE ROEGADYN HAVE IT!

[Rokke]

friend and I had gil to burn

new hair is Bad™ both in that it's nothing like the winning design but also that its legit terrible on its own merits lmao

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]new hair is Bad™ both in that it's nothing like the winning design but also that its legit terrible on its own merits lmao

Damn they're Shinji Matou'd lmao.

[Emitans]

friend and I had gil to burn

new hair is Bad™ both in that it's nothing like the winning design but also that its legit terrible on its own merits lmao

It would have been better to not release it at all....