Want to make your videos more dynamic and engaging by switching up your avatar’s pose, surroundings or attire but lack quality photos in the environments or clothing you need?

Simply create your avatar with the photos you have, type in a text prompt, and let HeyGen work its magic to generate the perfect Look.

Let’s dive in!

What’s covered in this guide

In this tutorial, we’ll cover: 

1. What are Looks
2. Creating your Photo Avatar
3. Generating multiple Looks for your Photo Avatar
4. Adding Look Packs to your Photo Avatar
5. Adding motion and sound effects to animate your Photo Avatar
6. Using your new Avatars in presentations

What are Looks

Looks are varying outfits, poses or backgrounds you can create or generate for your avatars to ensure they match your videos’ needs. 

Your custom avatars can have up to 100 Looks, which can be deleted and replaced at any time.

Creating your Photo Avatar

Photo Avatars are digital representations of yourself created from photos, which are then animated to narrate your videos.

To create a new Photo Avatar, follow this Photo Avatar guide.

Generating multiple Looks for your Photo Avatar

Click ‘Avatars’ on the left nav and select the Photo Avatar for which you want to generate new Looks.

In order to generate the most realistic and consistent Looks in various outfits, poses and environments, you will need to upload at least 10 quality photos.

Select the ‘Upload’ option and either click the ‘Select Photos’ button or drag and drop them into the box and hit ‘Upload.’

Include recent photos of only yourself, showing a mix of close-ups and full-body shots, different angles, expressions (smiling, neutral, serious), and a variety of outfits. Make sure they are high-resolution and reflect your current appearance.

Avoid group photos, hats, sunglasses, pets, heavy filters, low-resolution images, screenshots, heavy editing, or old photos that do not represent how you currently look.

Once your photos are uploaded, select ‘Train Model.’

Once the AI model has been trained, you can then enter a short text prompt to change your Look. Make sure to include the word ‘avatar’ in the prompt.

For example, you can prompt “change avatar clothing to be more formal” or “change avatar outfit to a hoodie in a cozy living room,” or even “put avatar in front of a Christmas tree in a Christmas sweater.”

Click ‘Generate’ and you’ll get quick results!

If you’re not completely satisfied with how your Photo Avatar resembles you, don’t worry—you can improve it! HeyGen allows you to refine your avatar by re-training the model with additional photos.

To retrain your model, scroll down the left panel and locate the "Re-train Model" option. Click on "Upload Photos", upload the new images you’d like to use, and follow the prompts.

Once your images are uploaded and ready, click "Re-train Model" to start the process.

And that’s it! Your model will be re-trained in no time!

Adding Look Packs to your Photo Avatar

Photo Avatars now support Look Packs—pre-curated sets of themed prompts (e.g., office, fitness, medical) designed to help users achieve high-quality results and create all the A-roll content they need with a single click! Good prompts are the foundation of good output, but it takes practice and experimentation to get it right. If you're new to prompting or short on time, using these extensively tested prompts can take the guesswork out of your process!

To add Look Packs to your Photo Avatar, click on 'Look Packs' in the left panel. You’ll see a variety of options to choose from. Select the one that fits your needs best and click 'Generate Pack' to apply it to your avatar.

Adding motion and sound effects to animate your Photo Avatar

To animate a new Look by adding motion, select the Look of your choice and click ‘Add Motion.'

When adding motion, you can now enter prompts to guide the animation and choose between the best available image-to-video models: "Consistent" for a steady appearance or "Expressive" for more dynamic and animated effects.

After adding motion, you can also add realistic background sounds that match your avatar's environment. Simply click 'Add Sound Effects.' If you are not satisfied, you can generate sound effects multiple times.

When your avatar is used in a Project, the background sound will automatically be appear as an audio track whose volume can be adjusted or easily removed.

Using your new Looks in presentations

Once your new Looks have been generated, you can use them in any of your videos.

Add your new Looks to any project by selecting ‘Avatar’ in the left nav, clicking the ‘Photo Avatar’ tab, your avatar and the Look of your choice.

Recap

And there you have it! Multiple Looks from one tool, giving you endless possibilities to match your content's vibe and message.

In this tutorial, you’ve learned:

1. What are Looks
2. Creating your Photo Avatar
3. Generating multiple Looks for your Photo Avatar
4. Adding Look Packs to your Photo Avatar
5. Adding motion and sound effects to animate your Photo Avatar
6. Using your new Avatars in presentations