How to change avatar facial configuration to real life

[ral61]

When I choose my avatar for SL, I found one that "closes-in" on my RL-appearance, and is slightly different from my own.

Is there a way to imprint a RL-configuration on a (classic avatar) using textures or a selfie?

[Alwin Alcott]

6 minutes ago, ral61 said:

When I choose my avatar for SL, I found one that "closes-in" on my RL-appearance, and is slightly different from my own.

Is there a way to imprint a RL-configuration on a (classic avatar) using textures or a selfie?

yes its possible but you need to have skin creator skills or end with a horrifying look.

[Maitimo]

On 4/1/2020 at 7:26 PM, ral61 said:

When I choose my avatar for SL, I found one that "closes-in" on my RL-appearance, and is slightly different from my own.

Is there a way to imprint a RL-configuration on a (classic avatar) using textures or a selfie?

Not really, unless you are a highly talented and skilled artist with the ability to paint a photo-realistic portrait of yourself, but stretched out in the right proportions to fit the SL head template. Which looks like this:

To use a selfie photo, you'd have to stretch it out over the entire face area on that template, and unless you've taken numerous pics of your face from all possible angles, in perfect clear shadow-free lighting, and merged them together without any seams, it's never going to work.  Or rather, it is possible because I've seen photo-realistic skins of certain celebrities, but it's probably just as difficult as painting it from scratch.

Your best bet will be to try to purchase a skin already made, that looks as close as you can find.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Matty Luminos

[Madelaine McMasters]

It's even more complex than Matty has described, and he's described enough complexity to scare off almost everyone.

Any photographs of your RL head are going to include your hair, which you DON'T want on your SL head's skin texture. So, you'll either have to shave your RL head before scanning it, or blend your visible facial features into an existing SL head texture. There are some on the web, I based my SL skin on a freebie skin I found online 10 years ago. Even if you are able to do that, the geometry (shape) of your RL head is unlikely to match anything available in SL. You'll either have to get a 3D geometry map of your face and use it to synthesize an SL head, complete with appropriate rigging (so you can smile, frown, etc) or you'll have to play with the SL head shape sliders until you get something acceptable. That's how the rest of us do it.

I tried photographing my RL face years ago, blending it with my current SL head texture. The results, after many hours of work, were even worse than Alwin's "horrifying" expectation.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[Lindal Kidd]

There was a tutorial a long time ago on how to stretch a photo to cover the head skin map.  I tried to find it again, but couldn't.  The basics, as best I can remember, were:

• Take a frontal photo, and a picture from each side.  Don't smile, keep your mouth closed.
• Remove the hair from the images
• Using the skin template as a base layer, place the photos on it.
• Stretch and blend the photos until they cover the template
• Merge the layers, save as a PNG or JPG file
• Upload the file to SL and use as a new skin.

But, as I recall, the result was pretty much what Alwin said...mondo creepy!

[Ulfilas Graves]

There are loads of tutorials on this topic and videos of how to do similar on youtube. There are also programs that you can use to paint directly onto a 3D model. 
I'm in the process of gathering information to do my own at the moment. I'm an artist and designer though. Here's an open source program I found literally 5 minutes ago that might be use! https://armorpaint.org/

[Ulfilas Graves]

 

[Ulfilas Graves]

 

[Ulfilas Graves]

This also might be useful if one can get the head mesh into blender

 

[Emma Krokus]

3 hours ago, Ulfilas Graves said:

This also might be useful if one can get the head mesh into blender

 

that sentence - I laughed out loud!

only in SL - or maybe what a mafiosi would say...

emma