# ToMiE: Towards Explicit Exoskeleton for the Reconstruction of Complicated 3D Human Avatars

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.08082 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08082/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 45 of its 64 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Expressive Body Capture: 3D Hands, Face, and Body from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05866/) (2019)
- [Animate Anyone: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Synthesis for Character Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17117/) (2023)
- [Neural Body: Implicit Neural Representations with Structured Latent Codes for Novel View Synthesis of Dynamic Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.15838/) (2020)
- [HumanNeRF: Free-viewpoint Rendering of Moving People from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.04127/) (2022)
- [Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03065/) (2020)
- [Animatable Neural Radiance Fields for Modeling Dynamic Human Bodies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.02872/) (2021)
- [Humans in 4D: Reconstructing and Tracking Humans with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20091/) (2023)
- [SNARF: Differentiable Forward Skinning for Animating Non-Rigid Neural Implicit Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03953/) (2021)
- [3DGS-Avatar: Animatable Avatars via Deformable 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09228/) (2023)
- [GaussianAvatar: Towards Realistic Human Avatar Modeling from a Single Video via Animatable 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02134/) (2023)
- [GPS-Gaussian: Generalizable Pixel-wise 3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-time Human Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02155/) (2023)
- [GauHuman: Articulated Gaussian Splatting from Monocular Human Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02973/) (2023)
- [HumanRF: High-Fidelity Neural Radiance Fields for Humans in Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06356/) (2023)
- [Neural Human Performer: Learning Generalizable Radiance Fields for Human Performance Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07448/) (2021)
- [SMPLicit: Topology-aware Generative Model for Clothed People](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06871/) (2021)
- [HUGS: Human Gaussian Splats](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17910/) (2023)
- [ARAH: Animatable Volume Rendering of Articulated Human SDFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10036/) (2022)
- [GART: Gaussian Articulated Template Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16099/) (2023)
- [Drivable 3D Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08581/) (2023)
- [Animatable Neural Radiance Fields from Monocular RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13629/) (2021)
- [Human Gaussian Splatting: Real-time Rendering of Animatable Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17113/) (2023)
- [ASH: Animatable Gaussian Splats for Efficient and Photoreal Human Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05941/) (2023)
- [Neural Parts: Learning Expressive 3D Shape Abstractions with Invertible Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10429/) (2021)
- [DNA-Rendering: A Diverse Neural Actor Repository for High-Fidelity Human-centric Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10173/) (2023)
- [4K4D: Real-Time 4D View Synthesis at 4K Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11448/) (2023)
- [SNUG: Self-Supervised Neural Dynamic Garments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02219/) (2022)
- [Learning Neural Volumetric Representations of Dynamic Humans in Minutes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12237/) (2023)
- [HiFi4G: High-Fidelity Human Performance Rendering via Compact Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03461/) (2023)

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

- [AniCrafter: Customizing Realistic Human-Centric Animation via Avatar-Background Conditioning in Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20255/) (2025)
- [Motion-Aware Animatable Gaussian Avatars Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16758/) (2024)
- [Proxy-GS: Unified Occlusion Priors for Training and Inference in Structured 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24421/) (2025)
- [RacketVision: A Multiple Racket Sports Benchmark for Unified Ball and Racket Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.17045/) (2025)
- [WorldSculpt: Generating Compositional Worlds from Grounded Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05416/) (2026)
- [Visionary: The World Model Carrier Built on WebGPU-Powered Gaussian Splatting Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08478/) (2025)
- [RAGA: Real Time Ray Traced Gaussian Shadow Casting for 3DGS Avatar-Scene Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29329/) (2026)
- [4D Human-Scene Reconstruction from Low-Overlap Captures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.09125/) (2026)
- [FlexiAvatar: Unified 3D Gaussian Human Avatars Under Arbitrary Body Visibility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.19100/) (2026)
- [Scanline-Aware Animatable Gaussian Avatars from Rolling-Shutter Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17314/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we highlight a critical yet often overlooked factor in most 3D human tasks, namely modeling complicated 3D human with with hand-held objects or loose-fitting clothing. It is known that the parameterized formulation of SMPL is able to fit human skin; while hand-held objects and loose-fitting clothing, are difficult to get modeled within the unified framework, since their movements are usually decoupled with the human body. To enhance the capability of SMPL skeleton in response to this situation, we propose a growth strategy that enables the joint tree of the skeleton to expand adaptively. Specifically, our method, called ToMiE, consists of parent joints localization and external joints optimization. For parent joints localization, we employ a gradient-based approach guided by both LBS blending weights and motion kernels. Once the external joints are obtained, we proceed to optimize their transformations in SE(3) across different frames, enabling rendering and explicit animation. ToMiE manages to outperform other methods across various cases with hand-held objects and loose-fitting clothing, not only in rendering quality but also by offering free animation of grown joints, thereby enhancing the expressive ability of SMPL skeleton for a broader range of applications.