I was wondering if there was a site that could generate a 3D generated version of my face to use as an avatar. I came across the website, evolver.com. It's free as far as I can tell, but I did have to sign up for an account, which lets me come back and edit my characters.
You can create a character from scratch, or upload a photo of your face. The photo must be a straight shot of your face, expressionless, so don't smile. Also crop out the top of your hairline. They suggest uploading an image where there is about 400 pixels between your eyes and the bottom of your chin. You then place 11 markers over your photo telling the computer where your eyes, mouth, nose, chin and cheekbones are.
After a few minutes of waiting for the computer-generated face to be processed, I was a bit shocked at the results. Not so much from the straight on perspective, but I was in awe at how close the computer came at generating the side angle of my head. Without any extra input, they were able to tell that I have lack of a chin. The side view is slightly too narrow, but overall I was baffled at how close it came to generating my head.
You can animate your character doing some preset things, but I didn't like any of the movements they had to select from. The resemblance goes away when my character smiles or yells. So I decided to just take screen shots of my 3D head and animate them in Photoshop for my avatar. Upon further snooping around at the evolver website, I see that I could have had the website create a rotating head gif for me.
I was wondering how close the computers would come to generating other people's heads. I don't know if mine was a fluke, or if the computer can tell depth of facial features from a single Mug Shot. Post your results here.
