Face from a photo

Create face from photo shapes the ped’s head after a photo and lays the photo on the face as skin. It comes out alike, not an exact copy, and everything is worked out in your browser.

Take a good photo

The better the photo, the more alike the head. This gives the best result:

Straight from the front, with the camera at eye height.
A neutral face with the mouth closed, not smiling.
Even light from the front, without hard shadows or strong light from one side.
Without glasses.
With the hair off the forehead and the face.

Tip

The photo can be a JPG, PNG or WEBP of at most 25 MB. The face should fill a good part of the picture, and only one face may show.

Create the face

Select the head, press Face in the inspector and then Create face from photo at the top of the panel. The first time, the face detection loads, about 15 MB, and then the head is measured.
Tick the box saying it is your own face or that you have permission to use it. Without it, no photo can be chosen.
Press Choose photo or drop a photo on the box. The photo shows with the points and the outline the detection found, and the ped shows the result straight away. You can turn the ped while you look.
Read what it says under the photo. A refusal, for example when the photo has more than one face or the face is turned too far to the side, means the photo cannot be used. A warning stops nothing, but says what may come out less alike.
Press Use. The shape and the skin are kept as one step in the history. Change photo takes you back for another photo, and Cancel closes without changing anything.

Good to know

A photo turned a little to the side can be used. When the face is turned more than 12 degrees, the skin on the far side is filled in from the near side, mirrored, since the photo hardly shows that side. Past 30 degrees the photo cannot be used.

What the choices do

Shape the head shapes the head after the photo: the eyes, the cheekbones, the nose, the mouth, the chin and the jaw. Switched off, the head keeps its shape.
Likeness says how much of the shape is used, from 0 to 100 percent. The ped changes while you drag.
Lay the photo on as skin lays the photo on the face as skin. Switched off, only the head is shaped.
Skin from photo says how strongly the skin from the photo shows over the head’s own skin, from 0 to 100 percent.
Under More options is Match the skin tone. It moves the photo’s skin tone onto the head’s own, in every variant of the head. Switched off, the skin keeps the photo’s own colour.
Even out the light, also under More options, takes the photo’s broad light and shadow out, so the game’s own light looks right on the face. Details such as brows and lips stay.

Both choices under More options are on to begin with, and what you choose is kept with the step.

The result

The skin becomes a layer of its own, Face from photo, in the texture editor, directly above Base, in every variant of the head. There you can erase its edge, change its opacity, adjust its colours or remove it, just like any layer.

The shape shows in the Face panel. The sliders show what the photo gave and can be fine-tuned on top, and Remove the photo’s shape takes away the photo’s shape but leaves the sliders as they are.

It is all one step, so Undo takes away both the shape and the skin at once.

What is not taken from the photo

A photo from the front does not show everything. The ears are never shaped after the photo, and neither is the depth, that is how far the nose and the chin stick out: there the head keeps its own shape. The hair is not taken, since the skin is only laid inside the outline of the face.

The eyes and the inside of the mouth are left out, so the eye colour does not come along. You choose it as usual in Skin and face.

The photo stays on your computer

The photo never leaves your device. The face is found by MediaPipe, a face detection from Google that Pedify serves itself and that runs here in your browser. It may not send anything, not even its own usage statistics: it can only reach Pedify’s own website, and nothing about the photo is sent there either.

The photo itself is never stored. What is stored is the finished skin and the shape, in the project on your computer and in the files you export. Press Cancel and the photo is let go and nothing is stored.

That goes for the On this device mode. The AI 3D (sends the photo) mode sends the photos to Google and a picture of them to fal.ai and Tripo instead, and the guide AI face in 3D says how.

Whose face you may use

Warning

Only use your own face, or a face whose owner has explicitly given you permission to use it. That goes for public figures too. You are responsible for having the right to use the photo.

What it costs

A face from a photo costs 50 credits per head, taken when the export succeeds, instead of the price of a changed face shape. That also goes when you only lay the photo on as skin. Moving the sliders afterwards costs nothing more, and undoing the step takes the cost away.