The dapper AF avatar on your left belongs to TheVirtualGent on Reddit; the "photo" on your right is what he might look like in real life -- a process made possible via Artbreeder, which uses Generative Adversarial Networks to create "children" of an original image along user-selected parameters.
This particular "photo" was created by a Redditor called Ugleh, who gave me the basic how-to of how they made it:
"In Artbreeder you upload a portrait of the avatar, and then start crossbreeding it with real photos of people who look somewhat similar," Ugleh tells me. "You set the style to the real photo and the face to the SL avatar and you get a pretty real looking person." Ugleh plans to make an in-depth tutorial which I'll post when it's ready, but I'm sure my brilliant NWN readers can like figure it out themselves by going here. (And when you do, definitely post your own projects in Comments below!)
Speaking of Generative Adversarial Networks, that's also how August Rosedale creates his AI artists' art.
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