Realistic Avatars: Union Avatars
As of when I am composing this, Union Avatar holds a unique position in the market. It allows you to construct your personal identity avatar by utilizing your own photograph. The facial import function operates impressively, maintaining the authenticity of your identity. Currently, partnerships for integration are being established, and your avatar can only be saved as a .glb file.
There is currently a YouTube tutorial available that guides you through the process of converting your .GLB export to a metaverse ready VRM file but the multi-step process involves converting your .GLB file to and .FBX file in Blender and then converting your .FBX file to a VRM in Unity, followed by tweaking your VRM in Unity to make facial expressions work. Experienced metaverse tinkerers are likely to at least partially succeed in this process. There are various hurdles to overcome.
The team has confirmed that they are working on a VRM converter tool, to make this tool useful to non-devs, too.
For now Union Avatars is rough around the edges and not ready for the general public. However, if you are a bit of a geek with some fundamental ability to work with Blender and Unity, and if you absolutely need an avatar that looks like you, this maybe a great pleace to start.
