About Custom & Personal Characters.

[LeoStarDragon1]

I hope that this is a simple question to answer! But uh, as anyone been able to make their characters look like him or her self without using pictures the way those celebrity ones are made?

I was just reading an answer Galraen wrote to a question, and I wondered if he made his character look like the avatar he uses. Then that reminded me of the other question I wanted an answer to.

If it can be done, how long does it usually take? If you get the face just right, do you then seek a body to match your real one, or are you happy to have the default bodies?

I lack the capital to start such a venture myself, but I just wondered as I wrote the above, if there is a company out there that could scan a picture of you and then convert the scanned image into a computer game character for you to use in your various games. If not, perhaps one of you may have a future in such a business.

[Belthan]

In principle, if you have headshots from multiple angles (straight on and profile at a minimum) it seems like you could do a pretty decent job with the in-game facegen. In practice, it's harder than it sounds (I've never gotten a really satisfactory likeness of myself in many attempts). If you find a custom tool or a modder who takes requests, please post the answer. I'm working on a machinima music video and it would be cool to have characters in the video actually look like band members.

[dragon wench]

Not quite the same, but once I tried recreating my Morrowind character in Oblivion based on a number of printed out screenshots that I'd taken from various angles.
It was extremely difficult. And that's just going from game to game... as opposed to bringing an RL image into the picture.

Frankly, I *hate* the face slider in Oblivion, it takes ages to get something you are happy with, even if you aren't trying to copy a particular appearance from somewhere.

[LeoStarDragon1]

Hi, Beltran & Dragon Wench!

Belated Happy Mother's Day and thanks for your replies too!

But anyway, some company named "Abacus" made software they titled, "FACE FACTORY", with the tag lines, "Add-on for use with 'The Sims TM' game!" and "Add Your Own Or a Friend's Face - Quickly and Easily!"

I bought it and it installed okay, but I couldn't get it to work for me.

I recall a home video review by "Siskell & Ebert" about this company with I name I don't remember, that if you sent a photograph of your child to them, they would then use it to make a video movie starring your child! But I haven't heard of them since then. Instead of making an animated character using the face of the person in the picture, they insert the picture into a bubble or something, that the animated characters interact with. So they were disappointed with the results.

The default male Imperial, with the sliders set to the youngest age, sort of reminds me of me, but I couldn't get it to be exact using the sliders either, nor even improve my face by removing the faults I see. (I hate this Cindy Crawford-like mole on my face! By that, I don't mean the shape of it, but the shared location.)

Hm. With all of the celebrity face mods made, I wonder if any of them play the game and are grateful for the time saver!

But in summary, those are the only 2 companies I could think of that do such a thing for profit. I wonder if they still exist.

It's too bad that somebody like "Abacus" didn't make an add-on liek that for Oblivion! Heh, if they did though, I wonder if I could make it work.