When you create a Space, you can upload a custom image to generate a personalized avatar. The system processes your image to create an animated, lifelike digital companion — but it needs the right kind of image to work. Here's a quick guide.
What works
The key rule is: the system needs to be able to detect a face with recognizable features — eyes, nose, mouth, and lips. This applies to both photographs and illustrations. As long as the face recognition model can identify a face in your image, it should work.
- Photographs of real people — headshots, portraits, casual photos with a clear face
- Cartoons and illustrated characters — these can work, as long as the character has recognizable human-like facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, lips). For example, a cartoon character with clearly drawn eyes and mouth will work; an abstract or heavily stylized character without distinguishable features will not.
- Front-facing or slight angle — the face should be looking toward the camera, not in profile
- Good lighting — evenly lit, no heavy shadows across the face
- Sufficient resolution — high enough quality that facial features are sharp, not pixelated
- Single person — one face per image (if multiple people are in the frame, the system may not know which face to use)
- Clean background preferred — a simple or neutral background tends to produce better results, though it's not strictly required
What doesn't work
Will not generate an avatar:
- Faces without recognizable features — any image where the face is missing key features like eyes, lips, or a mouth. This includes robot faces without human-like features, characters with blank or featureless faces, and heavily abstract art styles
- Images with no face at all — logos, landscapes, product photos, abstract images, text-based graphics
- Faces that are partially obscured — sunglasses covering both eyes, masks covering the mouth, heavy face paint, or helmets that hide key features
If you're unsure whether an image will work, or if you're running into issues with avatar generation, reach out to the product team and we'll help troubleshoot.