How can a home PC create facial recognition & avatar?

[ral61]

I've been wondering if a home PC is capable of creating a facial recognition technique for making a avatar.

Secondlife might have a trade secret to keep from doing  photography  to create your own avatar.

If a method is available, it must be taxing to do it.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Nothing is stopping you from doing a 3D scan of your face using any regular camera you might have, like the one in your phone, and putting that into Blender.

[Lindal Kidd]

There are many ways to do this.

Here's one:

 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

@ral61 Whichever approach you take it's going to require a lot of work if you want something other than a completely static mesh object since it will need to be rigged.  You may be better off trying to find an existing mesh head of approximately the right shape then adjusting it with the appearance sliders and creating a custom skin for it?

[Nalates Urriah]

@ral61 Reproducing your RL look in SL is not so much a computer power thing as it is a skill and knowledge thing. Most computers, regardless of age, can do the computer side of the work. Look for "How to make skin" tutorials at YouTube. All 3D virtual worlds and games use the same techniques. You can add Second Life to your search term to get tutorials specifically for SL.

In 2009 to 2011 making avatars that looked like their RL owner was a popular thing in SL. Several people offered the service or were making tutorials. Not so much any more. So, many of the HOW TO tutorials are from that time period.

Fluffy's recommendation is a good idea. Use a head you can purchase. The skin, which you'll need to make or have made, will make the avatar look very much like the RL you. The skin is made from a RL photo of you. The photo is imported to an image editor or modeling program and stretched to fit the UVMap of the head.

Disney in their amusement parks use a standard head and project an image of the face on the head (recall the Haunted House). It is amazing how well all the different faces look so different on the exact same head. So, the underlying head is not as important as the skin placed on it, for getting the face you want. Unfortunately making skin that fits 3D avatars is an esoteric skill few have or bother to learn. On the other hand... it ain't rocket science.

[victoravatar]

On 9/21/2022 at 8:33 PM, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Nothing is stopping you from doing a 3D scan of your face using any regular camera you might have, like the one in your phone, and putting that into Blender.

wait i have a question. what will it do if he does that?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

49 minutes ago, victoravatar said:

wait i have a question. what will it do if he does that?

The 3D scan will create a rough 3D model of your face. Once you have that in Blender (or your modeling software of choice), you can clean it up, rig it to the SL skeleton, and finally upload it to SL. This will let you have your face on your avatar.

Hopefully everybody understands that this process requires a lot of knowledge and skill, not computer power.

[xLadyxWolfx]

Very easy to do. Cost about $1000 for the software. Plug and play setup tho

 

*Sorry, This response was to the creating of a character that looks actually like you in RL and doing facial recognition animations and then uploading them. IDK if it can link directly to SL though. Definitely let you know when I hit my goal of that buy button. 

Edited October 28, 2022 by xLadyxWolfx

[animats]

From 2015:

https://www.virtualworldsland.com/blog/post/best_second_life_avatar_real_life_lookalikes

 

[Hecate Copperfield]

Why bother when you can have your ideal body and face in SL. 

[Modulated]

5 minutes ago, Hecate Copperfield said:

Why bother when you can have your ideal body and face in SL. 

Maybe their ideal face is the one they already have? Everyone does SL differently.

[Love Zhaoying]

I hope they handle RBF well!

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

9 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I hope they handle RBF well!

This...

[StarlanderGoods]

It can be done, I once did it using an x-box Kinect, but the result was very poorly optimized, it would have t aken me ages to clean it up with the tools I had back then.

also, for obvious reasons it didnt capture the back of my head.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

24 minutes ago, StarlanderGoods said:

It can be done, I once did it using an x-box Kinect, but the result was very poorly optimized, it would have t aken me ages to clean it up with the tools I had back then.

also, for obvious reasons it didnt capture the back of my head.

It seems like recent developments in hardware and software have done a lot to speed up the process of mixing our realities over the last few years.