# HumanNorm: Learning Normal Diffusion Model for High-quality and Realistic 3D Human Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.01406 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01406/

## Key facts

- Cited by 88 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in 3D, point cloud and scene generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 51 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Oct 2023.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [3D, point cloud and scene generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/3d-point-cloud-and-scene-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08718/) (2021)
- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [Expressive Body Capture: 3D Hands, Face, and Body from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05866/) (2019)
- [Magic3D: High-Resolution Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10440/) (2022)
- [ProlificDreamer: High-Fidelity and Diverse Text-to-3D Generation with Variational Score Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16213/) (2023)
- [Efficient Geometry-aware 3D Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07945/) (2021)
- [Human Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14916/) (2022)
- [DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01095/) (2022)
- [MVDream: Multi-view Diffusion for 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16512/) (2023)
- [DreamGaussian: Generative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16653/) (2023)
- [Fantasia3D: Disentangling Geometry and Appearance for High-quality Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13873/) (2023)
- [DensePose: Dense Human Pose Estimation In The Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.00434/) (2018)
- [Zero-Shot Text-Guided Object Generation with Dream Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01455/) (2021)
- [Latent-NeRF for Shape-Guided Generation of 3D Shapes and Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07600/) (2022)
- [Instruct-NeRF2NeRF: Editing 3D Scenes with Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12789/) (2023)
- [Deep Marching Tetrahedra: a Hybrid Representation for High-Resolution 3D Shape Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04276/) (2021)
- [MusicLM: Generating Music From Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11325/) (2023)
- [Rodin: A Generative Model for Sculpting 3D Digital Avatars Using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06135/) (2022)
- [TEXTure: Text-Guided Texturing of 3D Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01721/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 88)

- [RichDreamer: A Generalizable Normal-Depth Diffusion Model for Detail Richness in Text-to-3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16918/) (2023)
- [CraftsMan3D: High-fidelity Mesh Generation with 3D Native Generation and Interactive Geometry Refiner](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14979/) (2024)
- [Arc2Face: A Foundation Model for ID-Consistent Human Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11641/) (2024)
- [Hi3DGen: High-fidelity 3D Geometry Generation from Images via Normal Bridging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.22236/) (2025)
- [HumanGaussian: Text-Driven 3D Human Generation with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17061/) (2023)
- [Advances in 3D Generation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17807/) (2024)
- [Lodge: A Coarse to Fine Diffusion Network for Long Dance Generation Guided by the Characteristic Dance Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10518/) (2024)
- [LHM: Large Animatable Human Reconstruction Model from a Single Image in Seconds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10625/) (2025)
- [HumanSplat: Generalizable Single-Image Human Gaussian Splatting with Structure Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12459/) (2024)
- [DreamMat: High-quality PBR Material Generation with Geometry- and Light-aware Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17176/) (2024)
- [MAS: Multi-view Ancestral Sampling for 3D motion generation using 2D diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.14729/) (2023)
- [LLMs Meet Multimodal Generation and Editing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19334/) (2024)
- [Disentangled Clothed Avatar Generation from Text Descriptions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05295/) (2023)
- [Material Anything: Generating Materials for Any 3D Object via Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15138/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on 3D Content Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01166/) (2024)
- [AvatarGO: Zero-shot 4D Human-Object Interaction Generation and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07164/) (2024)
- [SEEAvatar: Photorealistic Text-to-3D Avatar Generation with Constrained Geometry and Appearance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08889/) (2023)
- [DRiVE: Diffusion-based Rigging Empowers Generation of Versatile and Expressive Characters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17423/) (2024)
- [PSHuman: Photorealistic Single-image 3D Human Reconstruction using Cross-Scale Multiview Diffusion and Explicit Remeshing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.10141/) (2024)
- [HeadArtist: Text-conditioned 3D Head Generation with Self Score Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07539/) (2023)
- [GALA: Generating Animatable Layered Assets from a Single Scan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12979/) (2024)
- [TELA: Text to Layer-wise 3D Clothed Human Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16748/) (2024)
- [GarmentDreamer: 3DGS Guided Garment Synthesis with Diverse Geometry and Texture Details](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12420/) (2024)
- [AvatarStudio: High-fidelity and Animatable 3D Avatar Creation from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17917/) (2023)
- [PuzzleAvatar: Assembling 3D Avatars from Personal Albums](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14869/) (2024)
- [Arc2Avatar: Generating Expressive 3D Avatars from a Single Image via ID Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05379/) (2025)
- [Portrait3D: Text-Guided High-Quality 3D Portrait Generation Using Pyramid Representation and GANs Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10394/) (2024)
- [En3D: An Enhanced Generative Model for Sculpting 3D Humans from 2D Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01173/) (2024)
- [A Survey on 3D Human Avatar Modeling -- From Reconstruction to Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04253/) (2024)
- [STAR: Skeleton-aware Text-based 4D Avatar Generation with In-Network Motion Retargeting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04629/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent text-to-3D methods employing diffusion models have made significant advancements in 3D human generation. However, these approaches face challenges due to the limitations of text-to-image diffusion models, which lack an understanding of 3D structures. Consequently, these methods struggle to achieve high-quality human generation, resulting in smooth geometry and cartoon-like appearances. In this paper, we propose HumanNorm, a novel approach for high-quality and realistic 3D human generation. The main idea is to enhance the model's 2D perception of 3D geometry by learning a normal-adapted diffusion model and a normal-aligned diffusion model. The normal-adapted diffusion model can generate high-fidelity normal maps corresponding to user prompts with view-dependent and body-aware text. The normal-aligned diffusion model learns to generate color images aligned with the normal maps, thereby transforming physical geometry details into realistic appearance. Leveraging the proposed normal diffusion model, we devise a progressive geometry generation strategy and a multi-step Score Distillation Sampling (SDS) loss to enhance the performance of 3D human generation. Comprehensive experiments substantiate HumanNorm's ability to generate 3D humans with intricate geometry and realistic appearances. HumanNorm outperforms existing text-to-3D methods in both geometry and texture quality. The project page of HumanNorm is https://humannorm.github.io/.