Welcome to Spiritme's guide for creating your Pro custom avatar! 🌟
Unlike our Lite custom avatars, which offer a quick and easy avatar creation process, our Pro version is all about delivering the highest quality and most detailed avatars, giving you the freedom to film without using our app for a more personalized and refined result.
To ensure your footage perfectly captures your unique avatar with our Dynamic Facial Expressions Engine, it's essential to follow this guide closely. Not adhering to these guidelines could mean a reshoot is necessary.
Remember, sticking to these instructions is key. Ready to start? Let's jump in! 🚀
Setup
For the best results, we suggest renting a video or photo studio. This option usually provides an ideal environment for capturing high-quality footage. However, if that's not feasible, creating your Pro avatar in a home setting can also work well.
Camera
For the creation of your Pro avatar, we have specific camera requirements to ensure the highest quality:
Resolution: 4K resolution is required for optimal clarity. Full HD is the minimum acceptable, but it will result in a lower resolution avatar.
Frame Rate: 30 fps is necessary. Any deviation from this frame rate may impact the final quality.
Camera Position: The camera must be positioned at the same height as the actor’s eyes for a natural perspective.
Orientation: Landscape orientation is required to prevent parts of the frame from being cut off. Portrait orientation is only permissible if it can be guaranteed that you remain fully visible horizontally at all times.
Stability: The camera must remain stationary during the capture to ensure consistency.
Focus: The focus on the face should be sharp.
Lens: A fish-eye lens is not permitted. A 50-70mm lens is ideal for the best results.
Camera Options:
Professional Camera: This is the preferred choice.
Back Camera of a Smartphone: If a professional camera isn't available, the rear camera of a modern smartphone can be used, provided it meets the above resolution and frame rate requirements.
Lightning
Proper lighting is essential to bring your Pro avatar to life with vivid detail. Here's how to achieve the best lighting:
Multiple Light Sources: Ideally, use a three-point lighting setup for even, flattering illumination. This includes:
A Key Light at the front, positioned slightly to one side to add depth to your face.
A Fill Light on the opposite side to soften shadows.
A Backlight behind you, if possible, to highlight your figure and distinguish you from the background.
Alternative Lighting: If a three-point setup isn't possible, ensure that you are well-lit from the front, and you stand out clearly against the background. Avoid strong shadows across your face and body.
Consistent Daylight: You can use natural daylight as an alternative, but ensure it's steady and not too bright.
For either option, the following requirements are mandatory:
Avoid light flickering: Make sure your lighting doesn't flicker.
Avoid Dark Footage: Ensure the environment is sufficiently lit.
Glasses Reflection: If you wear glasses, check for and minimize reflections.
Background
Green screen background is mandatory, because we need to remove background from a footage. Please, ensure that the screen is well lit with no shadows.
Please, avoid wearing any green with a green background.
Options:
Green wall/cyclorama in a studio
Green canvas at home. Make sure that is covers all the frame (at least around contour of your body at all time)
Audio
We use audio to train our AI algorithms to match the lip movement for the actor. Please avoid all background noise and other people talking at the same time.
Options:
Lapel mic (lavalier) or boom mic is ideal. What to pay attention to:
We cannot remove a lapel mic from the video, so please hide well
Make sure the lapel mic is not scratching on any moving clothes
For setup with separate audio-video recording, make sure that audio is perfectly in sync with the video
Camera mic is also ok, but make sure there is no echo and background noise.
Performance
Wardrobe
Some tips:
Clothes must not clash with the color of the background. Avoid wearing anything green.
Keep hair behind the head.
No sunglasses, we need to be able to see the eyes. You can wear eyeglasses, but make sure no glare is visible on them from your lighting.
No low hats and no long beards (short beards is ok).
If you are unsure whether this look is suitable for shooting, please write to us at team@spiritme.tech
Framing
The most universal is a mid torso framing, like on the picture below:
Performance
What should I do during the capture? You need to go through these three activities:
Turn your head left and then right (or vice versa). It helps us to fit your head better.
Calm speaking with a smile (at least sometimes!). It is the main activity; you should talk about anything for ~5 minutes.
Speak with different emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise (~10 seconds for each). This helps us to fit emotions for your avatar better.
It is okay to make mistakes while speaking, take pauses, etc.
Speaking tips:
Stay relaxed, smiling, and calm. Smile while speaking (at least sometimes!). It's essential to make your avatar friendly.
Look directly at the camera.
While speaking, be sure to open your lips wide, but also make pauses and close the lips between sentences.
Don't raise your hands above your shoulders. While speaking, you can gesture, but keep your hands within your belly area and avoid specific gestures like pointing and counting.
Script
What should I say? We don't have a script to read and advise you not to read a text (because you need to look at the camera during the performance). Instead of this, please think about the topic beforehand and find something that brings you joy so that you can easily smile while filming. The language does not matter, only the performance. Choose any topic or use these prompts:
Who was your teen/last crush?
What was your best vacation?
What is your favorite food/restaurant/movie?
Timing – we need 5-10 minutes of you speaking. Before submitting your video, please check if you like the video you shot.
What should I do after the shooting?
Just send us a video to team@spiritme.tech and we create an avatar for you!