# 3DXTalker: Unifying Identity, Lip Sync, Emotion, and Spatial Dynamics in Expressive 3D Talking Avatars

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10516 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10516/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Feb 2026.

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

- [wav2vec 2.0: A Framework for Self-Supervised Learning of Speech Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11477/) (2020)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [HuBERT: Self-Supervised Speech Representation Learning by Masked Prediction of Hidden Units](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07447/) (2021)
- [WavLM: Large-Scale Self-Supervised Pre-Training for Full Stack Speech Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13900/) (2021)
- [VoxCeleb2: Deep Speaker Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.05622/) (2018)
- [A Lip Sync Expert Is All You Need for Speech to Lip Generation In The Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.10010/) (2020)
- [Learning an Animatable Detailed 3D Face Model from In-The-Wild Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04012/) (2020)
- [Capture, Learning, and Synthesis of 3D Speaking Styles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.03079/) (2019)
- [EMOCA: Emotion Driven Monocular Face Capture and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11312/) (2022)
- [CelebV-HQ: A Large-Scale Video Facial Attributes Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12393/) (2022)
- [Bailando: 3D Dance Generation by Actor-Critic GPT with Choreographic Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13055/) (2022)
- [FaceFormer: Speech-Driven 3D Facial Animation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05329/) (2021)
- [emotion2vec: Self-Supervised Pre-Training for Speech Emotion Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.15185/) (2023)
- [MeshTalk: 3D Face Animation from Speech using Cross-Modality Disentanglement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08223/) (2021)
- [CodeTalker: Speech-Driven 3D Facial Animation with Discrete Motion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.02379/) (2023)
- [BEAT: A Large-Scale Semantic and Emotional Multi-Modal Dataset for Conversational Gestures Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05297/) (2022)
- [Towards Metrical Reconstruction of Human Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06607/) (2022)
- [Morphable Face Models - An Open Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.08398/) (2017)
- [Learning to Listen: Modeling Non-Deterministic Dyadic Facial Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08451/) (2022)
- [Emotional Speech-Driven Animation with Content-Emotion Disentanglement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08990/) (2023)
- [Multiface: A Dataset for Neural Face Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11243/) (2022)
- [SMIRK: 3D Facial Expressions through Analysis-by-Neural-Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04104/) (2024)
- [DiffPoseTalk: Speech-Driven Stylistic 3D Facial Animation and Head Pose Generation via Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00434/) (2023)
- [FaceDiffuser: Speech-Driven 3D Facial Animation Synthesis Using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11306/) (2023)
- [SelfTalk: A Self-Supervised Commutative Training Diagram to Comprehend 3D Talking Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10799/) (2023)
- [6D Rotation Representation For Unconstrained Head Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.12555/) (2022)
- [FaceTalk: Audio-Driven Motion Diffusion for Neural Parametric Head Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08459/) (2023)
- [Visual Speech-Aware Perceptual 3D Facial Expression Reconstruction from Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11094/) (2022)
- [High-Fidelity 3D Digital Human Head Creation from RGB-D Selfies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05562/) (2020)
- [DualTalk: Dual-Speaker Interaction for 3D Talking Head Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18096/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Audio-driven 3D talking avatar generation is increasingly important in virtual communication, digital humans, and interactive media, where avatars must preserve identity, synchronize lip motion with speech, express emotion, and exhibit lifelike spatial dynamics, collectively defining a broader objective of expressivity. However, achieving this remains challenging due to insufficient training data with limited subject identities, narrow audio representations, and restricted explicit controllability. In this paper, we propose 3DXTalker, an expressive 3D talking avatar through data-curated identity modeling, audio-rich representations, and spatial dynamics controllability. 3DXTalker enables scalable identity modeling via 2D-to-3D data curation pipeline and disentangled representations, alleviating data scarcity and improving identity generalization. Then, we introduce frame-wise amplitude and emotional cues beyond standard speech embeddings, ensuring superior lip synchronization and nuanced expression modulation. These cues are unified by a flow-matching-based transformer for coherent facial dynamics. Moreover, 3DXTalker also enables natural head-pose motion generation while supporting stylized control via prompt-based conditioning. Extensive experiments show that 3DXTalker integrates lip synchronization, emotional expression, and head-pose dynamics within a unified framework, achieves superior performance in 3D talking avatar generation.