# NeuWigs: A Neural Dynamic Model for Volumetric Hair Capture and Animation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.00613 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00613/

## Key facts

- Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [Perceptual Losses for Real-Time Style Transfer and Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08155/) (2016)
- [Nerfies: Deformable Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12948/) (2020)
- [Neural Scene Flow Fields for Space-Time View Synthesis of Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13084/) (2020)
- [Weight Normalization: A Simple Reparameterization to Accelerate Training of Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07868/) (2016)
- [Non-Rigid Neural Radiance Fields: Reconstruction and Novel View Synthesis of a Dynamic Scene From Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.12247/) (2020)
- [Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03065/) (2020)
- [Mixture of Volumetric Primitives for Efficient Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01954/) (2021)
- [I M Avatar: Implicit Morphable Head Avatars from Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07471/) (2021)
- [HeadNeRF: A Real-time NeRF-based Parametric Head Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05637/) (2021)
- [Neural Head Avatars from Monocular RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01554/) (2021)
- [Neural Volumes: Learning Dynamic Renderable Volumes from Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07751/) (2019)
- [TAVA: Template-free Animatable Volumetric Actors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08929/) (2022)
- [Learning Compositional Radiance Fields of Dynamic Human Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09955/) (2020)
- [KeypointNeRF: Generalizing Image-based Volumetric Avatars using Relative Spatial Encoding of Keypoints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04992/) (2022)
- [CoNeRF: Controllable Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01983/) (2021)
- [Drivable Volumetric Avatars using Texel-Aligned Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.09774/) (2022)
- [PVA: Pixel-aligned Volumetric Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02697/) (2021)
- [Neural Strands: Learning Hair Geometry and Appearance from Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14067/) (2022)
- [NeuralHDHair: Automatic High-fidelity Hair Modeling from a Single Image Using Implicit Neural Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04175/) (2022)
- [HVH: Learning a Hybrid Neural Volumetric Representation for Dynamic Hair Performance Capture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06904/) (2021)
- [Intuitive, Interactive Beard and Hair Synthesis with Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06848/) (2020)
- [Video to Fully Automatic 3D Hair Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.04765/) (2018)
- [Neural Hair Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.13297/) (2020)
- [SmartPortraits: Depth Powered Handheld Smartphone Dataset of Human Portraits for State Estimation, Reconstruction and Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.10211/) (2022)

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

- [GaussianAvatars: Photorealistic Head Avatars with Rigged 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02069/) (2023)
- [GaussianHair: Hair Modeling and Rendering with Light-aware Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10483/) (2024)
- [Neural Haircut: Prior-Guided Strand-Based Hair Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05872/) (2023)
- [DiffAvatar: Simulation-Ready Garment Optimization with Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12194/) (2023)
- [Human Hair Reconstruction with Strand-Aligned 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14778/) (2024)
- [HHAvatar: Gaussian Head Avatar with Dynamic Hairs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03029/) (2023)
- [MonoHair: High-Fidelity Hair Modeling from a Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18356/) (2024)
- [Perm: A Parametric Representation for Multi-Style 3D Hair Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19451/) (2024)
- [DiffLocks: Generating 3D Hair from a Single Image using Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.06166/) (2025)
- [Automatic Animation of Hair Blowing in Still Portrait Photos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14207/) (2023)
- [Dr.Hair: Reconstructing Scalp-Connected Hair Strands without Pre-training via Differentiable Rendering of Line Segments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17496/) (2024)
- [Quaffure: Real-Time Quasi-Static Neural Hair Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10061/) (2024)
- [PEGASUS: Personalized Generative 3D Avatars with Composable Attributes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10636/) (2024)
- [Gear-NeRF: Free-Viewpoint Rendering and Tracking with Motion-aware Spatio-Temporal Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03723/) (2024)
- [LUCAS: Layered Universal Codec Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19739/) (2025)
- [HairCUP: Hair Compositional Universal Prior for 3D Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19481/) (2025)
- [A Local Appearance Model for Volumetric Capture of Diverse Hairstyle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08679/) (2023)
- [Deepfake Technology Unveiled: The Commoditization of AI and Its Impact on Digital Trust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07363/) (2025)
- [ControlHair: Synergizing Physics Simulator and Video Diffusion for Controllable Dynamic Hair Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21541/) (2025)
- [DGH: Dynamic Gaussian Hair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17094/) (2025)
- [PhysHead: Simulation-Ready Gaussian Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06467/) (2026)
- [GeomHair: Reconstruction of Hair Strands from Colorless 3D Scans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05376/) (2025)
- [HairWeaver: Few-Shot Photorealistic Hair Motion Synthesis with Sim-to-Real Guided Video Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11117/) (2026)
- [CGHair: Compact Gaussian Hair Reconstruction with Card Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03716/) (2026)
- [HairGPT: Strand-as-Language Autoregressive Modeling for Realistic 3D Hairstyle Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08824/) (2026)
- [MoZoo:Unleashing Video Diffusion power in animal fur and muscle simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13857/) (2026)
- [HairLRM: Strand-based Hair Modeling via Large Reconstruction Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15238/) (2026)
- [HairCS: Reconstructing Strand-Based Hair from Hair Cards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16465/) (2026)
- [FHAvatar: Fast and High-Fidelity Reconstruction of Face-and-Hair Composable 3D Head Avatar from Few Casual Captures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23345/) (2026)
- [Head Avatars with Dynamic Explicit Hair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.23861/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The capture and animation of human hair are two of the major challenges in the creation of realistic avatars for the virtual reality. Both problems are highly challenging, because hair has complex geometry and appearance, as well as exhibits challenging motion. In this paper, we present a two-stage approach that models hair independently from the head to address these challenges in a data-driven manner. The first stage, state compression, learns a low-dimensional latent space of 3D hair states containing motion and appearance, via a novel autoencoder-as-a-tracker strategy. To better disentangle the hair and head in appearance learning, we employ multi-view hair segmentation masks in combination with a differentiable volumetric renderer. The second stage learns a novel hair dynamics model that performs temporal hair transfer based on the discovered latent codes. To enforce higher stability while driving our dynamics model, we employ the 3D point-cloud autoencoder from the compression stage for de-noising of the hair state. Our model outperforms the state of the art in novel view synthesis and is capable of creating novel hair animations without having to rely on hair observations as a driving signal. Project page is here https://ziyanw1.github.io/neuwigs/.