How to Build Digital Humans? From Priors to Photorealistic Avatars
Wojciech Zielonka, Tobias Kirschstein, Timo Bolkart, Simon Giebenhain, Vanessa Sklyarova, Xiang Deng, Donglai Xiang, Shunsuke Saito, Yebin Liu, Matthias Niessner, Justus Thies
Abstract
This state-of-the-art report provides an overview of controllable 3D human avatar creation. We describe current 3D avatar systems, which typically consist of three stages: (i) learning priors of human appearance and motion, (ii) creating a personalized avatar, and (iii) animating the avatar. To limit the scope, we focus on the prior learning and avatar creation stages. We define current avatar representations and introduce a taxonomy that categorizes existing work along multiple axes, including body regions and employed priors. We review methods for full-body and head avatars, as well as layered representations that decompose the body into components such as hands, hair, and garments. Finally, we outline common underlying principles, reference key literature for newcomers, and discuss open challenges and future research directions.
Topics
Classified with taxonomy v2 on Sat, 5 Sept 2026.