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When the life-simulation game Paralives was released in early access, Danielle Udogaranya’s hand ached at the thought of making new Black hairstyles for it. It wasn't because she didn't want to create for the game. Udogaranya, better known as Ebonix, has spent over a decade creating custom content for life-simming games with the goal of helping people see themselves on digital screens.
Her hesitation stemmed from the physical toll it takes to craft the perfect digital coil, braid, and kink—painstakingly long hours and tedious precision. “I thought to myself, why am I still having to do this?” Udogaranya, a technical artist who has a degree in psychology, tells WIRED. Fans of games like The Sims spend time flipping through her sites, downloading custom hair packs inspired by real-life styles not otherwise available in-game.
As of now, the Ebonix Patreon has over 115,000 members, and hundreds of both free and paid content items. The reason behind the demand for custom content in life-simming games is both simple and disappointing: Natural Black hairstyles have been historically underrepresented, and the technology used to make them has been slow to improve. “With new games coming out now, I'm still seeing the issues, and I'm still seeing the ‘Killmonger locs.’ God forbid we get more than three options,” Udogaranya says, in reference to the stiff, short-dreaded style featured by Michael B.
Jordan’s character in Black Panther that became a go-to for many games as well as some other films. Similar examples can be seen in old and new franchises alike, including Tekken 8 , Spider-Man 2 , Apex Legends , Horizon Zero Dawn, and more. The reason for this Black hair default?
Textured hairstyles in games have been reliant on code that was not made for them. “If you're making straight hair, it’s very easy to taper the ends and then make it cute,” Udogaranya explains. “But when you’re trying to add a black texture on it, it looks like a hot dog.” Thus, immovable, cylindrical “Killmonger locs” are simpler to make than other natural styles.
Black hair in video games has long been a design afterthought—at best—since some of the first Black characters entered the scene. In early 8-bit era games, like SEGA’s Heavyweight Cham p, which came out in 1976, Black hairstyles appeared to emphasize minstrel-like stereotypes. During the rise of fighting games in the ’80s and ’90s, where more characters per game were introduced, Black hair was limited because Black player selections were limited.
For example, in Street Fighter , there was only one Black character out of the 12 options. When The Sims came out in 2000, the game allowed limited customization, with hair swatches connected to different face options. Though the game allowed for three skin-tone swatches—fair, medium, and dark—natural hairstyle options were virtually nonexistent.
In the decades that followed, 3D animation and customization in gaming continued to flourish, but Black hair has trended toward only a handful of swatches, most of which provided little to minimal movement. However, there have been efforts to tackle this industrywide issue. Dove and Open Source Afro Hair Library launched Code My Crown in 2023, which provides a “complete and free guide for coding textured hair and protective styles in video games,” according to a press release.
And, while most of the natural hairstyles in The Sims 4 come from expansion and stuff packs costing around $10 to $40 each, EA has begun to release free downloadable content for players looking to diversify hairstyles. Its latest DLC provides one new natural hairstyle with its pack of six outfits. Despite these pushes, Udogaranya wanted to make natural hair creation easier and more user-friendly.
“After doing some research, and looking at all of the hair tools that are available still to this day, Black hair has just been accommodated in tools that are primarily created for straight hair.” Udogaranya came across the scholarly paper C urly-Cue: Geometric Methods for Highly Coiled Hair . Published in 2024, it presented new coding techniques to improve both the look and movement of Black hair in 3D animation. With this insight, Udogaranya coded a plug-in for Blender—the free, open-source 3D creation app she normally uses to make custom content.
The Loc & Kinky Strand Generator Tool allows fellow custom content creators to make textured styles that normally could take weeks in under an hour. In just a few clicks, a user can switch from a curl to a coil to a loc. Udogaranya trained her own local AI to assist with automating the processes she did by hand and to fine-tune the code, but no generative AI was used.
To use the tool, creators still have to design by hand and can’t type in prompts to generate their styles. “The whole point of [the Loc & Kinky Strand Generator] tool is that when you do go to draw a strand or apply the actual modifier to a strand, it immediately gives you that kink,” Udogaranya says. Though the life-sim gaming industry has struggled with diversity, there have been efforts for improvement—in some cases, thanks to Udogaranya herself.
In addition to making custom content, she has also served as a gaming consultant for The Sims 4, Life by You, and Love Island: The Game. For other IPs, such as Paralives , Udogaranya notes that there is a shift in interest for Black hair inclusion. Because of this, Udogaranya hopes to eventually make the Blender add-on an independent app and create a licensable version.
She tells WIRED that there has been interest from creators for games like Paralives , Roblox, and Second Life , as well as from game developers like Triple-A studios. The tool is still under development but has been undergoing beta testing. Udogaranya says the test feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive.” Elements of the tool are also patent-pending.
Udogaranya hopes her tool will help eliminate the time, effort, and monetary barriers both content creators and game developers have when it comes to Black hair representation in games. “There’s limitations on the exploration of your identity and self-love and self-worth when the tools that you need are genuinely just missing,” she says. “ I'm ready to get rid of all of that and provide the absolute basic identity identifiers when it comes to games and animation.”
Source: WIRED
