Daniel Ketchum holds a Bachelor of Arts from East Carolina University where he also attended graduate school. Later, he taught history and humanities. Ketchum is experienced in 2D and 3D graphic programs, including Photoshop, Poser and Hexagon and primarily writes on these topics. He is a contributor to sites like Renderosity and Animotions.
SUPPLIES
Overview
One cool thing about the Internet today is that you can often have a little avatar of yourself on screen. This little virtual you represents you to the world. Unfortunately, it almost never looks like you, since you were forced to select from a group of pre-made avatars when you picked it. But it is quite easy to make a virtual model of yourself that can be animated. There are several programs for doing this, but the easiest and most popular is Poser Pro by Smith Micro. The following steps will show you how to create a virtual model of yourself in Poser.
Step 1
Go to a well-lit room. You want the lighting to be as uniform as possible, so you may need to set up some lamps.
Step 2
Use a good digital camera to take two pictures of yourself. If working alone, you will need a tripod and a camera with a remote or a timer. Unless you have very short hair, you will need to use a skull cap or a rubber band to pull the hair back out of the way. The first picture should be of your face from the front, straight on and level. Try to fill the picture with your face, but without leaving anything important, like an ear, out. The second picture should be your face from the side.
Step 3
Open Poser. Click on the Face Room tab at the top. Load your first image, the one from the front, into the Face Room. In the dialog box that pops up, click on the image where Poser asks so it can understand where the important markers (like the edge of the mouth and the top of the ear) are.
Step 4
Adjust the red line by moving the green dots very carefully. This lets Poser understand the shape and contour of your face.
Step 5
Click on Apply Shape Only to apply these setting to the Poser figure. Now find a texture in your Poser library that roughly matches your skin tone, apply it to the figure, and there you have it. A virtual model of yourself.
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