‘Killmonger Locs’ Are Everywhere in Video Games. This Artist Is Sick of It
‘Killmonger Locs’ Are Everywhere in Video Games. This Artist Is Sick of It
电子游戏里到处都是“杀人魔洛克斯发型”，这位艺术家受够了
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. 当生活模拟游戏《Paralives》发布抢先体验版时，Danielle Udogaranya 一想到要为它制作新的黑人发型，手就开始隐隐作痛。
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. 这并不是因为她不想为这款游戏创作。Udogaranya（更为人熟知的名字是 Ebonix）花了十多年时间为生活模拟游戏制作自定义内容，目标是帮助人们在数字屏幕上看到自己的身影。她的犹豫源于制作完美的数字卷发、辫子和发结所带来的身体负担——那需要极其漫长的时间和繁琐的精确度。
“I thought to myself, why am I still having to do this?” Udogaranya, a technical artist who has a degree in psychology, tells WIRED. “我心想，为什么我还要一直做这种事？”拥有心理学学位的技术艺术家 Udogaranya 对《连线》（WIRED）杂志说道。
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. 《模拟人生》（The Sims）等游戏的粉丝们经常浏览她的网站，下载那些受现实生活启发、但游戏中原本没有的自定义发型包。目前，Ebonix 的 Patreon 拥有超过 11.5 万名会员，并提供数百种免费和付费内容。
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. 生活模拟游戏中对自定义内容需求背后的原因既简单又令人失望：黑人的自然发型在历史上一直代表性不足，而用于制作这些发型的技术改进缓慢。
“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. “现在新游戏层出不穷，但我依然能看到这些问题，依然能看到那种‘杀人魔洛克斯发型’（Killmonger locs）。要是能给我们提供超过三种选择，那真是谢天谢地了，” Udogaranya 说道。她指的是迈克尔·B·乔丹在《黑豹》中饰演角色所留的那种僵硬的短脏辫发型，该发型后来成了许多游戏和其他电影的首选。在《铁拳8》、《蜘蛛侠2》、《Apex英雄》、《地平线：零之曙光》等新老游戏系列中，都能看到类似的例子。这种黑人发型“默认设置”的原因是什么？游戏中的纹理发型一直依赖于并非为它们设计的代码。
“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. “如果你制作的是直发，很容易就能把发梢修剪得好看，” Udogaranya 解释道，“但当你试图在上面添加黑人发质纹理时，它看起来就像根热狗。”因此，僵硬的圆柱形“杀人魔洛克斯发型”比其他自然发型更容易制作。
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 Champ, 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. 自第一批黑人角色出现在电子游戏中以来，黑人发型在设计上长期以来（充其量）只是事后的补充。在 1976 年世嘉推出的《重量级拳王》（Heavyweight Champ）等早期 8 位机时代游戏中，黑人发型似乎是在刻意强调类似“吟游诗人表演”的刻板印象。在 80 和 90 年代格斗游戏兴起时，虽然每款游戏引入了更多角色，但黑人发型依然受限，因为黑人角色的选择本身就很有限。例如，《街头霸王》中 12 个角色里只有一个黑人。2000 年《模拟人生》问世时，游戏允许有限的自定义，发色样本与不同的脸型选项绑定。尽管游戏提供了三种肤色样本——浅色、中色和深色——但自然发型的选项几乎不存在。
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. 在随后的几十年里，游戏中的 3D 动画和自定义功能不断发展，但黑人发型往往只有寥寥几种样本，且大多几乎没有动态效果。不过，业界已经开始努力解决这一问题。多芬（Dove）和开源非洲发型库（Open Source Afro Hair Library）在 2023 年推出了“Code My Crown”，据新闻稿称，该项目提供了“一份完整且免费的指南，用于在电子游戏中编写纹理发型和保护性发型的代码”。此外，虽然《模拟人生4》中大多数自然发型都来自售价约 10 到 40 美元的扩展包和物品包，但 EA 已经开始为寻求发型多样化的玩家发布免费的可下载内容。其最新的 DLC 在包含六套服装的包中提供了一款新的自然发型。
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.” 尽管有这些推动，Udogaranya 还是希望让自然发型的创作变得更简单、更人性化。“在做了一些研究并查看了至今仍可使用的所有发型工具后，我发现黑人发型只是被硬塞进了主要为直发设计的工具中。”
Udogaranya came across the scholarly paper Curly-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. Udogaranya 偶然发现了学术论文《Curly-Cue：高卷发几何方法》。该论文发表于 2024 年，提出了新的编码技术，以改善 3D 动画中黑人发型的外观和动态。受此启发，Udogaranya 为 Blender 编写了一个插件——这是她通常用来制作自定义内容的免费开源 3D 创作软件。
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. “Loc & Kinky Strand Generator”工具让其他自定义内容创作者能在不到一小时内完成通常需要数周才能做出的纹理发型。只需点击几下，用户就可以在卷发、螺旋发和脏辫之间切换。Udogaranya 训练了自己的本地 AI 来辅助自动化她原本手工完成的流程并微调代码，但并没有使用生成式 AI。要使用该工具，创作者仍需手工设计，不能通过输入提示词来生成发型。
“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. “（Loc & Kinky Strand Generator）工具的核心意义在于，当你去绘制发束或将实际修改器应用到发束上时，它会立即为你呈现出那种卷曲感，” Udogaranya 说。
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. 尽管生活模拟游戏行业在多样性方面一直存在困难，但已经有了改善的努力——在某些情况下，这要归功于 Udogaranya 本人。除了制作自定义内容外，她还担任过《模拟人生4》、《Life by You》和《Love Island: The Game》的游戏顾问。对于《Paralives》等其他 IP，Udogaranya 指出，人们对包容黑人发型的兴趣正在发生转变。正因如此，Udogaranya 希望最终能将这个 Blender 插件做成一个独立的应用程序，并创建一个可授权的版本。她告诉《连线》，《Paralives》、《Roblox》和《第二人生》（Second Life）等游戏的创作者，以及 3A 级游戏工作室的开发者们都对此表现出了兴趣。
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. 该工具目前仍在开发中，但已经进入了 Beta 测试阶段。Udogaranya 表示，测试反馈“非常积极”。该工具的部分要素也正在申请专利。
Udogaranya hopes her tool will help eliminate the time, effort, and monetary barriers both content creators and game developers have when it comes to… Udogaranya 希望她的工具能帮助消除内容创作者和游戏开发者在面对……时所遇到的时间、精力和金钱障碍。