3DPR: Single Image 3D Portrait Relighting with Generative Priors

Rendering novel, relit views of a human head, given a monocular portrait image as input, is an inherently underconstrained problem. The traditional graphics solution is to explicitly decompose the input image into geometry, material and lighting via differentiable rendering; but this is constrained by the multiple assumptions and approximations of the underlying models and parameterizations of these scene components. We propose 3DPR, an image-based relighting model that leverages generative priors learnt from multi-view One-Light-at-A-Time (OLAT) images captured in a light stage. We introduce a new diverse and large-scale multi-view 4K OLAT dataset of 139 subjects to learn a high-quality prior over the distribution of high-frequency face reflectance. We leverage the latent space of a pre-trained generative head model that provides a rich prior over face geometry learnt from in-the-wild image datasets. The input portrait is first embedded in the latent manifold of such a model through an encoder-based inversion process. Then a novel triplane-based reflectance network trained on our lightstage data is used to synthesize high-fidelity OLAT images to enable image-based relighting. Our reflectance network operates in the latent space of the generative head model, crucially enabling a relatively small number of lightstage images to train the reflectance model. Combining the generated OLATs according to a given HDRI environment maps yields physically accurate environmental relighting results. Through quantitative and qualitative evaluations, we demonstrate that 3DPR outperforms previous methods, particularly in preserving identity and in capturing lighting effects such as specularities, self-shadows, and subsurface scattering.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Published
2025-12-08
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3757377.3763962
Primary Topic
Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

3DPR: Single Image 3D Portrait Relighting with Generative Priors

Bernd Bickel, Thabo Beeler, Tim Weyrich, Wojciech Matusik et al.
Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis
article

3DPR: Single Image 3D Portrait Relighting with Generative Priors

Bernd Bickel, Thabo Beeler, Tim Weyrich, Wojciech Matusik, Christian Theobalt, Gereon Fox, Xilong Zhou, Hanspeter Pfister, Marc Habermann, Fangneng Zhan, Abhimitra Meka, Mohamed Elgharib, B R Mallikarjun, Pramod Rao
article en

Abstract

Rendering novel, relit views of a human head, given a monocular portrait image as input, is an inherently underconstrained problem. The traditional graphics solution is to explicitly decompose the input image into geometry, material and lighting via differentiable rendering; but this is constrained by the multiple assumptions and approximations of the underlying models and parameterizations of these scene components. We propose 3DPR, an image-based relighting model that leverages generative priors learnt from multi-view One-Light-at-A-Time (OLAT) images captured in a light stage. We introduce a new diverse and large-scale multi-view 4K OLAT dataset of 139 subjects to learn a high-quality prior over the distribution of high-frequency face reflectance. We leverage the latent space of a pre-trained generative head model that provides a rich prior over face geometry learnt from in-the-wild image datasets. The input portrait is first embedded in the latent manifold of such a model through an encoder-based inversion process. Then a novel triplane-based reflectance network trained on our lightstage data is used to synthesize high-fidelity OLAT images to enable image-based relighting. Our reflectance network operates in the latent space of the generative head model, crucially enabling a relatively small number of lightstage images to train the reflectance model. Combining the generated OLATs according to a given HDRI environment maps yields physically accurate environmental relighting results. Through quantitative and qualitative evaluations, we demonstrate that 3DPR outperforms previous methods, particularly in preserving identity and in capturing lighting effects such as specularities, self-shadows, and subsurface scattering.

Google (United States) (US), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE), Harvard University Press (US), ETH Zurich (CH), Google (Switzerland) (CH), Max Planck Institute for Informatics (DE), Max Planck Center for Visual Computing and Communication (DE), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 60%
Generative Adversarial Networks and Image Synthesis
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.