[Generated for academic purposes] Affiliation: Digital Arts & Simulation Technologies Date: April 14, 2026 Abstract The creation of photorealistic, fully rigged 3D human characters remains a significant bottleneck in real-time simulation, virtual reality, and indie game development. This paper presents a reproducible technical pipeline combining FaceGen Artist Pro (a photogrammetry-based face generator) with Virt-A-Mate (VAM) (a physics-based real-time simulation platform). We detail the step-by-step process of converting 2D photographs (front/side profiles) into a 3D head mesh, refining texture maps (diffuse, normal, specular), and importing the asset into VAM’s soft-body physics environment. We evaluate the workflow based on three metrics: morphological accuracy (Euclidean distance from source photos), animation compatibility (facial morph targets), and real-time performance (FPS on mid-range hardware). Results indicate that the VAM-FaceGen pipeline reduces character creation time by approximately 70% compared to manual sculpting, while achieving sub-millimeter facial feature accuracy. Limitations include degradation of texture quality around the ears and teeth, and the necessity of manual cleanup in Blender. This study provides a benchmark for low-cost, high-fidelity digital human creation for interactive applications.
A Technical Workflow for Photorealistic Digital Human Generation: Integrating FaceGen with Virt-A-Mate (VAM) vam facegen
Python script for batch renaming FaceGen morphs to VAM convention. We evaluate the workflow based on three metrics: