Anti-Racist Graphics Research (SIGGRAPH 2021)

As someone who’s spent a lot of their career working on digital humans and respective tooling, seeing research into curly hair is a breath of fresh hair. It’s really difficult to approximate the same way that straight hair is done and there is definitely a very high amount of Eurocentric R&D in this space, which means anything other than a slight frizz doesn’t move right, and has difficulty in rendering correctly. Hair weight specifically is one that is extremely hard to get right and even harder when it’s wet. I also really recommend watching Theodore Kims talks. He’s ex Pixar and highly respected in the field. He’s done fantastic work in highlighting the lack of research for non-straight hair and non-white skin among other things. This talk has been hugely impactful on me and my own work that many millions of people have seen on the big screen and not realized were digital, in no small part because it highlighted what we were missing. ▶ this video People might not understand the importance, but it’s hugely significant to call out the lack of research so that we as an industry can fill that hole and improve our own work. We need to represent a wide range of digital humans , and a lack of technology/research to represent them means our work doesn’t hold up as strongly.

The problems being discussed are more than just the ability of film at the time to capture things , it's the education around it. Shirley cards and books around that time were built to normalize white skin and blonde hair. It wasn't even considered a problem at the time that black skin wasn't reproduced well until furniture and chocolate manufacturers complained that their products weren't well shot. There's both a technical and a societal element to it. I suggest watching this video , especially from the 25 minute mark ▶ this video

I like the term this presentation took for situations like this with "anti racist research" ▶ this video Like you said, at the root of that is racism, but the presentation frames it in an interesting way. Not everyone who takes part in this research is racist, but they're the products of racism in society. So color not being accurately reproduced could either be a direct product of racist people or the result of people in a society that doesn't value everyone equally. But I like the wording of "anti racist research" because it pushes the onus to actively trying to analyze if things are fair, rather than assuming they are. Even people who aren't actively racist can benefit their research from trying to push past the biases inherent in society that permiates everything

The difference in exposure is perhaps part of it, but the reality is that film at the time couldn't accurately represent darker skin tones. It's not even just about exposure, but color itself wasn't accurate. That's compounded by how much lighting education is based around white people with blond hair. This talk from SIGGRAPH 2021 is excellent at going into the history of film and lighting and how it favors a very specific look ▶ this video