Quote Originally Posted by Luthien Rogue
What're you talking about? His hair doesn't move at all during the FMV, go watch it again. The hair you see in the screnes Squall provided is behind his body.
You say they animated his hair to flow in front of him and cover his... his lower anatomy. :P And used lighting and the Mako to hide it. How is animating his hair, using lighting and shadows, and adding more Mako going to save more time than creating Sephy with a lower body in a non-animated scene? o_O
*Looks at own post. Wonder's where self said anything about animated hair*

All I meant by what I said is that his hair, which is solid and unmoving, was CG'ed to be in front of his lower parts. I didn't mean that it actually conviently flys around, and happens to cover his nether regions. And as for saving time, all I meant by that is that it would obviously take longer to make more of a CG model that they probably wouldn't be showing anyway because it could be considered 'nudity'. Around the time FFVII was released, that would of been a big no-no, and while it probably wouldn't of gave it a higher rating, it could make some parents questionable about the games content. It doesn't take a lot of effort to black/obscure the lower part of a CG model before placing using it in the environment of the FMV.

But then again, I can see what you mean in some shots when it comes to the layers. The only explanation I can think of for that is that the backgrounds/environment had already been created, and the character model of Sephiroth was placed over it.

We'll never know the answer for sure unless someone contacts Square and they respond. It's entirely possible that Sephiroth is missing his lower half, sure. But it seems rather strange to me for Square to make something like that that you only see for a few seconds in-game, when later in the game you see the very same Sephiroth that was encased in crystal, deep in the Northern Crater, legs attached. Overall, I just figured it was a subtle way of dealing with the nudity issue.

EDIT: Sorry, to clear up what I meant, when I said "animate" I didn't mean animate as in, a moving object or body part (ie Sephiroth's hair). I just meant to put into CG. You can "animate" an object, but that doesn't mean it has to be moving.