# DiffusionRig: Learning Personalized Priors for Facial Appearance Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06711 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06711/

## Key facts

- Cited by 75 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [Efficient Geometry-aware 3D Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07945/) (2021)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [pi-GAN: Periodic Implicit Generative Adversarial Networks for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00926/) (2020)
- [Learning an Animatable Detailed 3D Face Model from In-The-Wild Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04012/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Autoencoders: Toward a Meaningful and Decodable Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.15640/) (2021)
- [Perception Prioritized Training of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00227/) (2022)
- [3D Morphable Face Models -- Past, Present and Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.01815/) (2019)
- [StyleRig: Rigging StyleGAN for 3D Control over Portrait Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00121/) (2020)
- [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)
- [Learning to Regress 3D Face Shape and Expression from an Image without 3D Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.06817/) (2019)
- [Deep Appearance Models for Face Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00362/) (2018)
- [Single Image Portrait Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.00824/) (2019)
- [SfSNet: Learning Shape, Reflectance and Illuminance of Faces in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01261/) (2017)
- [Blind Face Restoration via Deep Multi-scale Component Dictionaries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00418/) (2020)
- [GANcraft: Unsupervised 3D Neural Rendering of Minecraft Worlds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07659/) (2021)
- [FaceVerse: a Fine-grained and Detail-controllable 3D Face Morphable Model from a Hybrid Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14057/) (2022)
- [Learning Physics-guided Face Relighting under Directional Light](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03355/) (2019)
- [Multiface: A Dataset for Neural Face Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11243/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 75)

- [Diffusion Model-Based Image Editing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17525/) (2024)
- [MIGC: Multi-Instance Generation Controller for Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05408/) (2024)
- [Arc2Face: A Foundation Model for ID-Consistent Human Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11641/) (2024)
- [DiLightNet: Fine-grained Lighting Control for Diffusion-based Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11929/) (2024)
- [SMIRK: 3D Facial Expressions through Analysis-by-Neural-Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04104/) (2024)
- [PortraitBooth: A Versatile Portrait Model for Fast Identity-preserved Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06354/) (2023)
- [Deepfake Generation and Detection: A Benchmark and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17881/) (2024)
- [CAP4D: Creating Animatable 4D Portrait Avatars with Morphable Multi-View Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12093/) (2024)
- [InstructVid2Vid: Controllable Video Editing with Natural Language Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12328/) (2023)
- [HeadGAP: Few-Shot 3D Head Avatar via Generalizable Gaussian Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06019/) (2024)
- [DiffusionAvatars: Deferred Diffusion for High-fidelity 3D Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18635/) (2023)
- [MIGC++: Advanced Multi-Instance Generation Controller for Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02329/) (2024)
- [DifFRelight: Diffusion-Based Facial Performance Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08188/) (2024)
- [ScribbleLight: Single Image Indoor Relighting with Scribbles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17696/) (2024)
- [Morphable Diffusion: 3D-Consistent Diffusion for Single-image Avatar Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04728/) (2024)
- [CapHuman: Capture Your Moments in Parallel Universes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00627/) (2024)
- [VINCIE: Unlocking In-context Image Editing from Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.10941/) (2025)
- [DiFaReli++: Diffusion Face Relighting with Consistent Cast Shadows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.09479/) (2023)
- [A Generalist FaceX via Learning Unified Facial Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00551/) (2023)
- [DiffusionAct: Controllable Diffusion Autoencoder for One-shot Face Reenactment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17217/) (2024)
- [UltrAvatar: A Realistic Animatable 3D Avatar Diffusion Model with Authenticity Guided Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.11078/) (2024)
- [A Survey on 3D Human Avatar Modeling -- From Reconstruction to Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04253/) (2024)
- [Data Synthesis with Diverse Styles for Face Recognition via 3DMM-Guided Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00430/) (2025)
- [Restoration by Generation with Constrained Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.17161/) (2023)
- [Reference-Based 3D-Aware Image Editing with Triplanes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.03632/) (2024)
- [Makeup Prior Models for 3D Facial Makeup Estimation and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17761/) (2024)
- [ConsistentAvatar: Learning to Diffuse Fully Consistent Talking Head Avatar with Temporal Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15436/) (2024)
- [GASP: Gaussian Avatars with Synthetic Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07739/) (2024)
- [MagicFace: High-Fidelity Facial Expression Editing with Action-Unit Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.02260/) (2025)
- [Contrastive Decoupled Representation Learning and Regularization for Speech-Preserving Facial Expression Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.05672/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We address the problem of learning person-specific facial priors from a small number (e.g., 20) of portrait photos of the same person. This enables us to edit this specific person's facial appearance, such as expression and lighting, while preserving their identity and high-frequency facial details. Key to our approach, which we dub DiffusionRig, is a diffusion model conditioned on, or "rigged by," crude 3D face models estimated from single in-the-wild images by an off-the-shelf estimator. On a high level, DiffusionRig learns to map simplistic renderings of 3D face models to realistic photos of a given person. Specifically, DiffusionRig is trained in two stages: It first learns generic facial priors from a large-scale face dataset and then person-specific priors from a small portrait photo collection of the person of interest. By learning the CGI-to-photo mapping with such personalized priors, DiffusionRig can "rig" the lighting, facial expression, head pose, etc. of a portrait photo, conditioned only on coarse 3D models while preserving this person's identity and other high-frequency characteristics. Qualitative and quantitative experiments show that DiffusionRig outperforms existing approaches in both identity preservation and photorealism. Please see the project website: https://diffusionrig.github.io for the supplemental material, video, code, and data.