There’s a 3D copy of me now, and it was generated from just a few photos. I believe it was free.
The site is Avaturn, which I shared last week. You upload pictures of your face and it hands back a full-body avatar with your own head on it, recognizably you, ready to move.
Some context. Avaturn launched at the end of January, from the team behind the in3D app, and the pitch is that it “generates realistic 3D avatars from 2D photos in real time using generative AI,” replicating “their exact face geometry and texture.” Older avatar makers put you together from a limited pool of pre-made parts. This one builds the model of you. A write-up in February says the site asks for three pictures, “taken from the front and the side,” and that what comes back is “a fully rigged 3D avatar that is ready for animation and exportation to any location.” It confirms the price, too: “totally free.” Mine came from a few photos, so the machine is evidently not fussy.
A rigged, animatable likeness of a real person used to mean a scanning rig, a studio and a specialist’s invoice. Now it means a phone, a couple of minutes and no invoice at all. Whatever these avatars end up being for — games, meetings, video, a stand-in that speaks on someone’s behalf — the barrier to making one has gone from professional to trivial, and the verisimilitude is already a little unsettling.
