ReadyPlayerMe alternatives?

[JPhilipp]

I love the TalkingHead project but was surprised at how little options ReadyPlayerMe had, considering they were well-funded and positioned themselves as big cross-app undertaking, as I understand.

For instance, all of their head and eye shapes look super similar and are often hard to tell apart. And they have super small variety of clothes. There doesn't seem to be an age slider. Or a fully-free color picker for all the things (what if I need blue skin). Or a slider for a very long nose, etc. etc. And that's not mentioning the many oddities and quirks on their site (like the "Rate us" dialog popping up every few minutes, or a Locked asset saying it's Premium but there's no obvious way to buy it. It all seems like a deserted project.) In sum, I just can't do half the avatars I had planned.

I do understand of course that ReadyPlayerMe maybe only wanted for the apps themselves to create the assets and then sell them, not to have a lot of variety on their site. They also seem to have been planning to ride on the NFT hype.

I wonder what other 3D avatar maker options there would be? Something more casual than diving in to Blender and understanding the rig etc.

Maybe met4citizen, you need to start a new side project to make a BETTER avatar platform. 😄 I'd pay for more options! Do you have a donations button somewhere, by the way?

Cheers!

[met4citizen]

My current impression is that everyone in 3D modeling and animation is just waiting for the wave of generative AI. Some with anticipation, some with fear. Just last month, I took part in a private beta of one of these new tools. Not very convincing yet, but they are certainly coming.

As far as I know, Ready Player Me's original business idea was to somehow marry the fashion industry and the game industry. Unfortunately, that intersection is quite narrow. The game industry knows that most people find realistic human avatars kind of creepy. On the other hand, big fashion brands don't have collections for orcs, goblins, magical rabbits, aliens, wizards, or other fantasy creatures. This has led to a situation where all RPM avatars look like cartoonish runway models. Hopefully, they will find some new business models that let them overcome these creative limits.

At some point, I actually gave RPM feedback by answering one of their questionnaires. Just a week ago, they introduced one thing on my list: body shape customization. A small step, sure, but maybe a good sign.

I'm just a hobbyist, and I have no plans to do 3D modeling or programming full-time. Making a living as a private investor. And no, I don't have a donate button, but I appreciate the thought. Cheers!

[JPhilipp]

Thanks for the insight. This gives me some hope, and I'll provide my feedback and feature wishes to them.

A private investor, very interesting!

[redgetan]

I'm looking for alternatives as well. Ideally, I want an image-to-3d mesh (with the facial blendshapes automatically created), but I have yet to find a decent tool for it.

[met4citizen]

I just learned that Ready Player Me is developing the next generation of their character-building system, currently in private beta. The new system will support, for example, uploading custom base models.

[gregggreg]

I figured out that Avaturn avatars (https://avaturn.me/) are Ready Player Me compatible and work well in this project. You can scan your own face (or your friend's) and it makes a decent looking, less cartoony avatar out of it. However, they don't make it easy to actually extract the generated models. It is possible, but you have to sign up as a free developer and then utilize one of their integrations which returns the avatar URL.

[ks588hn]

@gregggreg Could u please specify more details how can i import avaturn avatar to the talking head? I think i am unable to find http form of .glb file, all it gives me ist local file.

[gregggreg]

@ks588hn Avaturn will not host the GLB for you like Ready Player Me does. You will have to host the GLB yourself somewhere to use it.

[anmol1905]

I figured out that Avaturn avatars (https://avaturn.me/) are Ready Player Me compatible and work well in this project. You can scan your own face (or your friend's) and it makes a decent looking, less cartoony avatar out of it. However, they don't make it easy to actually extract the generated models. It is possible, but you have to sign up as a free developer and then utilize one of their integrations which returns the avatar URL.

Hey @gregggreg and @met4citizen , I am interested in using Avaturn avatars as well but in the showAvatar function it throws the error blend shapes not found. Did you manage it in the code or there is an option to export blendshapes as well in avaturn

[anmol1905]

Hey @gregggreg and @met4citizen , I am interested in using Avaturn avatars as well but in the showAvatar function it throws the error blend shapes not found. Did you manage it in the code or there is an option to export blendshapes as well in avaturn

Ok I got it! I used this example script and exported the Avatar in "T2" type. After that I got the blend shapes

[met4citizen]

@anmol1905 Thanks for letting us know! I’ve only used their service once, and at that time, I unlocked the export through their Discord bot. The GLB file I received did include blend shapes. This was a few months ago, though, so things might have changed since then. - I haven't used their service again because I found the avatar a bit creepy — probably because I used a photo of myself as input! 😂

[ks588hn]

@anmol1905 thanks for info👍 did u manage how to make avatar talk? How to do that?

[met4citizen]

I just logged into Avaturn editor to test and downloaded the 'Avatar (T-Pose)' (see screenshot below). The GLB file included all the necessary blend shapes, including visemes, and it worked out-of-the-box. I didn't have to run any script. - If you have successfully made RPM avatars talk using the TalkingHead class, you can simply replace the GLB file.

[anmol1905]

Yes, basically their discord bot does not work anymore. I used their example code to export the glb file because for some reason the default T pose model did not include the blendshapes for me. I just passed the glb file URL to the showAvatar function and everything worked just like with readyplayerme avatars! I did not have to change anything in TalkingHead class.

[ks588hn]

I am currently working with avaturn models with TalkingHead object and the problem is that character is not blinking at all.
Example code

await head.showAvatar({
                        url : './my_local_avaturn_model.glb?morphTargets=ARKit,Oculus+Visemes,mouthOpen,mouthSmile,eyesClosed,eyesLookUp,eyesLookDown',

I also recreated the blenshapes with build-extras-from-arkit.py
to be sure that i am not missing these.
Does anyone approached the same problem and found a solution?
There are also some following problems for example LookAtCamera(t) is not working the best, character is just looking at random coordinates.