# GTAvatar: Bridging Gaussian Splatting and Texture Mapping for Relightable and Editable Gaussian Avatars

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09162 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09162/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 83 of its 109 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 83)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [pixelSplat: 3D Gaussian Splats from Image Pairs for Scalable Generalizable 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12337/) (2023)
- [Ref-NeRF: Structured View-Dependent Appearance for Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03907/) (2021)
- [MVSplat: Efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting from Sparse Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14627/) (2024)
- [Learning an Animatable Detailed 3D Face Model from In-The-Wild Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04012/) (2020)
- [Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03065/) (2020)
- [Gaussian Grouping: Segment and Edit Anything in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00732/) (2023)
- [Extracting Triangular 3D Models, Materials, and Lighting From Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12503/) (2021)
- [AD-NeRF: Audio Driven Neural Radiance Fields for Talking Head Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11078/) (2021)
- [GaussianEditor: Swift and Controllable 3D Editing with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14521/) (2023)
- [Generating 3D faces using Convolutional Mesh Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10267/) (2018)
- [GaussianAvatars: Photorealistic Head Avatars with Rigged 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02069/) (2023)
- [EMOCA: Emotion Driven Monocular Face Capture and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11312/) (2022)
- [Sapiens: Foundation for Human Vision Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12569/) (2024)
- [HeadNeRF: A Real-time NeRF-based Parametric Head Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05637/) (2021)
- [Joint 3D Face Reconstruction and Dense Alignment with Position Map Regression Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.07835/) (2018)
- [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)
- [Towards Metrical Reconstruction of Human Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06607/) (2022)
- [High-quality Surface Reconstruction using Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17774/) (2024)
- [Instant Volumetric Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12499/) (2022)
- [Single Image Portrait Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.00824/) (2019)
- [3D Gaussian Ray Tracing: Fast Tracing of Particle Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07090/) (2024)
- [Robust High-Resolution Video Matting with Temporal Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11515/) (2021)
- [Relightable Gaussian Codec Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03704/) (2023)
- [SfSNet: Learning Shape, Reflectance and Illuminance of Faces in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01261/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [SpatialAvatar-0: High-Quality 4D Head Avatar with Multi-Stage Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15659/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advancements in Gaussian Splatting have enabled increasingly accurate reconstruction of photorealistic head avatars, opening the door to numerous applications in visual effects, videoconferencing, and virtual reality. This, however, comes with the lack of intuitive editability offered by traditional triangle mesh-based methods. In contrast, we propose a method that combines the accuracy and fidelity of 2D Gaussian Splatting with the intuitiveness of UV texture mapping. By embedding each canonical Gaussian primitive's local frame into a patch in the UV space of a template mesh in a computationally efficient manner, we reconstruct continuous editable material head textures from a single monocular video on a conventional UV domain. Furthermore, we leverage an efficient physically based reflectance model to enable relighting and editing of these intrinsic material maps. Through extensive comparisons with state-of-the-art methods, we demonstrate the accuracy of our reconstructions, the quality of our relighting results, and the ability to provide intuitive controls for modifying an avatar's appearance and geometry via texture mapping without additional optimization.