Learn Everything You Need to Know About Dragon Age: The Veilguard Strand Hair Mechanic

With the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Electronic Arts and BioWare are excited to show off the Strand Hair mechanic that has been implemented into the fantasy title.

For those unaware, the Strand Hair technology is a system that simulates the numerous hairstyles with individual hair strands to give it a more realistic look. Bringing more natural motion to the player's hair, this system was created to bring immersion to the player via the gameplay and cutscenes.

Strand Hair wasn't created for Dragon Age: The Veilguard exclusively, however. You'll find this across many EA titles, as it has been previously incorporated into EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL, and the NHL titles, but it had never been built up to this level and with so much complexity.

In an in-depth blog post on the official EA site, we get a look at the struggles that BioWare faced to implement this system into they fantasy universe. With 3D rendering, more complex environments, and much more, Strand Hair technology was pushed to its limits with the more complex world of Dragon Age, causing issues with transparency and lighting.

Learn all you need to know about the struggles that the team faced with the incorporation of this immersive technology. From hundreds of hairstyles (with thousands of hair strands), horned characters, combat scenes, complex environments, live-rendering for cutscene, and much more, you get to learn about the struggles and fixes that BioWare came up with to bring this system into a fantastical environment.