# HeadGAN: One-shot Neural Head Synthesis and Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.08261 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08261/

## Key facts

- Cited by 105 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 105)

- [SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12194/) (2022)
- [Thin-Plate Spline Motion Model for Image Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14367/) (2022)
- [StyleHEAT: One-Shot High-Resolution Editable Talking Face Generation via Pre-trained StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04036/) (2022)
- [MegaPortraits: One-shot Megapixel Neural Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.07621/) (2022)
- [Next3D: Generative Neural Texture Rasterization for 3D-Aware Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11208/) (2022)
- [SMIRK: 3D Facial Expressions through Analysis-by-Neural-Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04104/) (2024)
- [DINet: Deformation Inpainting Network for Realistic Face Visually Dubbing on High Resolution Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03988/) (2023)
- [AvatarMAV: Fast 3D Head Avatar Reconstruction Using Motion-Aware Neural Voxels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13206/) (2022)
- [OTAvatar: One-shot Talking Face Avatar with Controllable Tri-plane Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14662/) (2023)
- [Deepfake Generation and Detection: A Benchmark and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17881/) (2024)
- [Real-Time Radiance Fields for Single-Image Portrait View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02310/) (2023)
- [FaceTalk: Audio-Driven Motion Diffusion for Neural Parametric Head Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08459/) (2023)
- [StyleAvatar: Real-time Photo-realistic Portrait Avatar from a Single Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.00942/) (2023)
- [CAP4D: Creating Animatable 4D Portrait Avatars with Morphable Multi-View Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12093/) (2024)
- [LatentAvatar: Learning Latent Expression Code for Expressive Neural Head Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01190/) (2023)
- [VLOGGER: Multimodal Diffusion for Embodied Avatar Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08764/) (2024)
- [Face Animation with an Attribute-Guided Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03199/) (2023)
- [HyperReenact: One-Shot Reenactment via Jointly Learning to Refine and Retarget Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10797/) (2023)
- [DPE: Disentanglement of Pose and Expression for General Video Portrait Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.06281/) (2023)
- [Implicit Warping for Animation with Image Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01794/) (2022)
- [GAIA: Zero-shot Talking Avatar Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15230/) (2023)
- [High-Fidelity and Freely Controllable Talking Head Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.10168/) (2023)
- [DreamActor-M1: Holistic, Expressive and Robust Human Image Animation with Hybrid Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01724/) (2025)
- [VOODOO 3D: Volumetric Portrait Disentanglement for One-Shot 3D Head Reenactment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04651/) (2023)
- [MoCha: Towards Movie-Grade Talking Character Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.23307/) (2025)
- [X-NeMo: Expressive Neural Motion Reenactment via Disentangled Latent Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23143/) (2025)
- [3D Cinemagraphy from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05724/) (2023)
- [CVTHead: One-shot Controllable Head Avatar with Vertex-feature Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06443/) (2023)
- [PV3D: A 3D Generative Model for Portrait Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06384/) (2022)
- [FNeVR: Neural Volume Rendering for Face Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10340/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent attempts to solve the problem of head reenactment using a single reference image have shown promising results. However, most of them either perform poorly in terms of photo-realism, or fail to meet the identity preservation problem, or do not fully transfer the driving pose and expression. We propose HeadGAN, a novel system that conditions synthesis on 3D face representations, which can be extracted from any driving video and adapted to the facial geometry of any reference image, disentangling identity from expression. We further improve mouth movements, by utilising audio features as a complementary input. The 3D face representation enables HeadGAN to be further used as an efficient method for compression and reconstruction and a tool for expression and pose editing.