# GASP: Gaussian Avatars with Synthetic Priors

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07739 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07739/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Dec 2024.

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

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Zero-1-to-3: Zero-shot One Image to 3D Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11328/) (2023)
- [Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14808/) (2020)
- [Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03065/) (2020)
- [AD-NeRF: Audio Driven Neural Radiance Fields for Talking Head Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11078/) (2021)
- [BiSeNet V2: Bilateral Network with Guided Aggregation for Real-time Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02147/) (2020)
- [One-2-3-45++: Fast Single Image to 3D Objects with Consistent Multi-View Generation and 3D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07885/) (2023)
- [StyleRig: Rigging StyleGAN for 3D Control over Portrait Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00121/) (2020)
- [Deep Video Portraits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.11714/) (2018)
- [Neural Voice Puppetry: Audio-driven Facial Reenactment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05566/) (2019)
- [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)
- [Fake It Till You Make It: Face analysis in the wild using synthetic data alone](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.15102/) (2021)
- [NeRSemble: Multi-view Radiance Field Reconstruction of Human Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03027/) (2023)
- [PointAvatar: Deformable Point-based Head Avatars from Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08377/) (2022)
- [SplattingAvatar: Realistic Real-Time Human Avatars with Mesh-Embedded Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05087/) (2024)
- [Instant Volumetric Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12499/) (2022)
- [Robust High-Resolution Video Matting with Temporal Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11515/) (2021)
- [GeneFace: Generalized and High-Fidelity Audio-Driven 3D Talking Face Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13430/) (2023)
- [Pixel Codec Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.04638/) (2021)
- [Realistic One-shot Mesh-based Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08343/) (2022)
- [FlashAvatar: High-fidelity Head Avatar with Efficient Gaussian Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02214/) (2023)
- [MonoGaussianAvatar: Monocular Gaussian Point-based Head Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04558/) (2023)
- [Multiface: A Dataset for Neural Face Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11243/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [HairCUP: Hair Compositional Universal Prior for 3D Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19481/) (2025)
- [TeGA: Texture Space Gaussian Avatars for High-Resolution Dynamic Head Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05672/) (2025)
- [Using Gaussian Splats to Create High-Fidelity Facial Geometry and Texture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16397/) (2025)
- [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)
- [One-shot Compositional 3D Head Avatars with Deformable Hair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.14782/) (2026)
- [Self-Learning Expression Deformations for Data-Efficient Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05912/) (2026)
- [Relightable 3D Avatar Reconstruction with Semantic-Adaptive Motion-Illumination Responses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.24158/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Gaussian Splatting has changed the game for real-time photo-realistic rendering. One of the most popular applications of Gaussian Splatting is to create animatable avatars, known as Gaussian Avatars. Recent works have pushed the boundaries of quality and rendering efficiency but suffer from two main limitations. Either they require expensive multi-camera rigs to produce avatars with free-view rendering, or they can be trained with a single camera but only rendered at high quality from this fixed viewpoint. An ideal model would be trained using a short monocular video or image from available hardware, such as a webcam, and rendered from any view. To this end, we propose GASP: Gaussian Avatars with Synthetic Priors. To overcome the limitations of existing datasets, we exploit the pixel-perfect nature of synthetic data to train a Gaussian Avatar prior. By fitting this prior model to a single photo or video and fine-tuning it, we get a high-quality Gaussian Avatar, which supports 360^circ rendering. Our prior is only required for fitting, not inference, enabling real-time application. Through our method, we obtain high-quality, animatable Avatars from limited data which can be animated and rendered at 70fps on commercial hardware. See our project page (https://microsoft.github.io/GASP/) for results.