# E3Gen: Efficient, Expressive and Editable Avatars Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.19203 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19203/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 42 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Perceptual Losses for Real-Time Style Transfer and Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08155/) (2016)
- [Expressive Body Capture: 3D Hands, Face, and Body from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05866/) (2019)
- [ProlificDreamer: High-Fidelity and Diverse Text-to-3D Generation with Variational Score Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16213/) (2023)
- [Training Generative Adversarial Networks with Limited Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06676/) (2020)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [GIRAFFE: Representing Scenes as Compositional Generative Neural Feature Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12100/) (2020)
- [pi-GAN: Periodic Implicit Generative Adversarial Networks for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00926/) (2020)
- [GRAF: Generative Radiance Fields for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02442/) (2020)
- [StyleNeRF: A Style-based 3D-Aware Generator for High-resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08985/) (2021)
- [Deep Marching Tetrahedra: a Hybrid Representation for High-Resolution 3D Shape Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04276/) (2021)
- [GET3D: A Generative Model of High Quality 3D Textured Shapes Learned from Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11163/) (2022)
- [Modular Primitives for High-Performance Differentiable Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03277/) (2020)
- [Rodin: A Generative Model for Sculpting 3D Digital Avatars Using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06135/) (2022)
- [Mixture of Volumetric Primitives for Efficient Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01954/) (2021)
- [Function4D: Real-time Human Volumetric Capture from Very Sparse Consumer RGBD Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01859/) (2021)
- [SNARF: Differentiable Forward Skinning for Animating Non-Rigid Neural Implicit Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03953/) (2021)
- [MeshDiffusion: Score-based Generative 3D Mesh Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08133/) (2023)
- [Single-Stage Diffusion NeRF: A Unified Approach to 3D Generation and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06714/) (2023)
- [SMPLicit: Topology-aware Generative Model for Clothed People](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06871/) (2021)
- [HyperDiffusion: Generating Implicit Neural Fields with Weight-Space Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17015/) (2023)
- [EVA3D: Compositional 3D Human Generation from 2D Image Collections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04888/) (2022)
- [TADA! Text to Animatable Digital Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10899/) (2023)
- [HoloDiffusion: Training a 3D Diffusion Model using 2D Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16509/) (2023)
- [Driving-Signal Aware Full-Body Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10441/) (2021)
- [gDNA: Towards Generative Detailed Neural Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.04123/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [IDOL: Instant Photorealistic 3D Human Creation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14963/) (2024)
- [Generative Human Geometry Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01448/) (2025)
- [TeRA: Rethinking Text-guided Realistic 3D Avatar Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02466/) (2025)
- [Human Geometry Distribution for 3D Animation Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07459/) (2025)
- [HuGeDiff: 3D Human Generation via Diffusion with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04351/) (2025)
- [Hyper Diffusion Avatars: Dynamic Human Avatar Generation using Network Weight Space Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.04145/) (2025)
- [GenLCA: 3D Diffusion for Full-Body Avatars from In-the-Wild Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07273/) (2026)
- [CrowdGaussian: Reconstructing High-Fidelity 3D Gaussians for Human Crowd from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17779/) (2026)
- [AvatarDynamizer: From Static to Dynamic Human Avatars via Generative Dynamic Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.19900/) (2026)
- [DiGS-Avatar: Single-Image Animatable 3D Human Reconstruction via UV-Space Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.20759/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper aims to introduce 3D Gaussian for efficient, expressive, and editable digital avatar generation. This task faces two major challenges: (1) The unstructured nature of 3D Gaussian makes it incompatible with current generation pipelines; (2) the expressive animation of 3D Gaussian in a generative setting that involves training with multiple subjects remains unexplored. In this paper, we propose a novel avatar generation method named E3Gen, to effectively address these challenges. First, we propose a novel generative UV features plane representation that encodes unstructured 3D Gaussian onto a structured 2D UV space defined by the SMPL-X parametric model. This novel representation not only preserves the representation ability of the original 3D Gaussian but also introduces a shared structure among subjects to enable generative learning of the diffusion model. To tackle the second challenge, we propose a part-aware deformation module to achieve robust and accurate full-body expressive pose control. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves superior performance in avatar generation and enables expressive full-body pose control and editing. Our project page is https://olivia23333.github.io/E3Gen.