# TeGA: Texture Space Gaussian Avatars for High-Resolution Dynamic Head Modeling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05672 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05672/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 32 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 May 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [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)
- [Nerfies: Deformable Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12948/) (2020)
- [Deformable 3D Gaussians for High-Fidelity Monocular Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13101/) (2023)
- [Dynamic 3D Gaussians: Tracking by Persistent Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09713/) (2023)
- [Cascade Cost Volume for High-Resolution Multi-View Stereo and Stereo Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.06378/) (2019)
- [Mixture of Volumetric Primitives for Efficient Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01954/) (2021)
- [3D Morphable Face Models -- Past, Present and Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.01815/) (2019)
- [GaussianAvatars: Photorealistic Head Avatars with Rigged 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02069/) (2023)
- [SplattingAvatar: Realistic Real-Time Human Avatars with Mesh-Embedded Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05087/) (2024)
- [GANFIT: Generative Adversarial Network Fitting for High Fidelity 3D Face Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.05978/) (2019)
- [3D Geometry-aware Deformable Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06270/) (2024)
- [FlashAvatar: High-fidelity Head Avatar with Efficient Gaussian Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02214/) (2023)
- [Learning Formation of Physically-Based Face Attributes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.03458/) (2020)
- [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)
- [DreamFace: Progressive Generation of Animatable 3D Faces under Text Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03117/) (2023)
- [Gaussian Shell Maps for Efficient 3D Human Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17857/) (2023)
- [A Morphable Face Albedo Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02711/) (2020)
- [GGHead: Fast and Generalizable 3D Gaussian Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09377/) (2024)
- [NPGA: Neural Parametric Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19331/) (2024)
- [URAvatar: Universal Relightable Gaussian Codec Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24223/) (2024)
- [FitMe: Deep Photorealistic 3D Morphable Model Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.09641/) (2023)
- [Normalized Avatar Synthesis Using StyleGAN and Perceptual Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11423/) (2021)
- [Relightify: Relightable 3D Faces from a Single Image via Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06077/) (2023)
- [GaussianHeads: End-to-End Learning of Drivable Gaussian Head Avatars from Coarse-to-fine Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11951/) (2024)
- [Gaussian Eigen Models for Human Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.04545/) (2024)
- [Rig3DGS: Creating Controllable Portraits from Casual Monocular Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03723/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [TexAvatars : Hybrid Texel-3D Representations for Stable Rigging of Photorealistic Gaussian Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.21099/) (2025)
- [AvatarBack: Back-Head Generation for Complete 3D Avatars from Front-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20623/) (2025)
- [Frequency-Decomposed Avatar Representation for Varying Camera Distances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03593/) (2025)
- [LegacyAvatars: Volumetric Face Avatars For Traditional Graphics Pipelines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12285/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Sparse volumetric reconstruction and rendering via 3D Gaussian splatting have recently enabled animatable 3D head avatars that are rendered under arbitrary viewpoints with impressive photorealism. Today, such photoreal avatars are seen as a key component in emerging applications in telepresence, extended reality, and entertainment. Building a photoreal avatar requires estimating the complex non-rigid motion of different facial components as seen in input video images; due to inaccurate motion estimation, animatable models typically present a loss of fidelity and detail when compared to their non-animatable counterparts, built from an individual facial expression. Also, recent state-of-the-art models are often affected by memory limitations that reduce the number of 3D Gaussians used for modeling, leading to lower detail and quality. To address these problems, we present a new high-detail 3D head avatar model that improves upon the state of the art, largely increasing the number of 3D Gaussians and modeling quality for rendering at 4K resolution. Our high-quality model is reconstructed from multiview input video and builds on top of a mesh-based 3D morphable model, which provides a coarse deformation layer for the head. Photoreal appearance is modelled by 3D Gaussians embedded within the continuous UVD tangent space of this mesh, allowing for more effective densification where most needed. Additionally, these Gaussians are warped by a novel UVD deformation field to capture subtle, localized motion. Our key contribution is the novel deformable Gaussian encoding and overall fitting procedure that allows our head model to preserve appearance detail, while capturing facial motion and other transient high-frequency features such as skin wrinkling.