Avatar Photo Creation & Upload Instructions

Instructions for Producing Useable Photos

To produce good photos that can be successfully used in creating your 3D likeness several keys elements must be kept in mind.  The quality of the photos you that give to us largely determines the quality of the 3D head that we can create. Ideally you should provide us with both a front and a side view of your face. If you can only obtain a front view, we can create your 3D likeness utilizing only this view, but keep in mind that the 3D head created from one view won’t be as accurate as that created from two views.  Unlike nearly all other sites, Avatar Studio actually builds a true 3D mesh that matches the geometry of your entire head and face. Most sites claiming to be 3D are actually just mapping the frontal photo that you provide onto a generic or nearly generic 3D mesh. This approach yields very good results from the front view of the face but the front and slightly side oriented views are all that can be displayed successfully via this method. At Avatar Studio we really need to create the entire head so that when we place your avatar into the theme of your choice, images can be captured from any point of view needed. 

When creating the facial photos place the subject in a well lit area.  We recommend taking the photos inside rather than outdoors.  Outdoor photos make it difficult to position the subject in such a way that light falls evenly across the whole face without having the subject facing into the sun and thereby forcing them to squint. The background behind the subject really doesn’t matter as our example photos clearly indicate. The photos that you send to us should have all parts of the face well illuminated and evenly lit.  Try to avoid blurry photos or action shots taken at a party or family event. The sharper the images are that you send to us, the greater the resemblance there will be between the actual person and the final 3D Avatar that is created. The expression on the subject’s face should be as neutral as possible.  The photos of the face should show little or no emotion.  This neutral expression allows us to then create any expression we need when placing your likeness in a chosen theme or scene. The subject’s hair should be moved far away from the face so that the entire face shows clearly.  For females this will probably require tying back the hair so that it is completely off the face. Also remove any facial jewelry such as ear rings or metal objects associated with a piercing since we can not  easily remove these when creating the 3D head. It is also important to try and maintain the same distance between the camera and the subject for both the front and side view images. In addition please remove any glasses or spectacles worn by the Avatar candidate before taking the required photos. Concerning male facial hair, if the subject has a beard or mustache in the photos sent to Avatar Studio this facial hair will appear in the final 3D avatar created. In the near future the option to have Avatar Studio remove the facial hair will be available. As a final note don’t be concerned about the race or ethnic origin of the stock avatars shown in any scene you desire since the team at Avatar Studio can place any race or ethnicity into any scene.

If you are acquiring a group avatar product such as Romeo and Juliet where there are two possibilities for placing 3D heads just repeat the steps listed below for each avatar that you want to insert into a Theme or scene.

A closing thought about the creation of 3D faces.  There are several methods for converting 2D photos into 3D faces. Most of these approaches rely upon mapping the intact photo onto some geometric mesh that at best only approximates the actual structure of the face in question.  These methods produce great results as long as one is looking at only the front of the 3D face. Unfortunately these same methods yield disastrous or non existent results in any other view.  The method that Avatar Studio chose is to extract from the 2D photos enough data to rebuild the facial geometry very accurately.  This deconstruction of the data residing in the photos and the reconstruction of the actual facial geometry and the rebuilding of the facial texture maps produces a final result that is slightly different from the approaches mentioned earlier. Our faces will not have a one to one correspondence with the photos they came from since the skin anomalies (rashes, red spots, moles etc) that are present on nearly every photo will probably not be present in the final 3D avatar head.  This produces a very accurate but somewhat idealized version of the actual person.  Since humans are wired from birth to be incredibly sensitive to recognizing the vast subtleties in the human face this can make our 3D model appear to be marginally less accurate when compared to the original photo than one produced by alternate methods.  However if a head is produced by both methods and then someone who has seen the individual in the photos but does not have the photo for comparison will nearly always choose our head as being the most accurate.  In short our process is the most accurate but has the byproduct of slightly idealizing the avatar candidate.

Step One:  Create a Photo of the Front View of the Face

Notice the neutral to slightly frowning expression 

Step Two:  Create a Photo of the Side View of the Face

Again little to no expression is evident. Notice that
the front and side views of the face are roughly the
same size or scale.

Step Three:  Upload the photos to Avatar Studio

After your photos are stored to your computer, return to this page.  You will see the link to continue at the bottom of this page.  Select that link, then click the browse button on the next page to browse to your photos and upload them.

Resultant Avatar created from the Photos Shown Above: