Eternal AvatarPrivate Commission
No. 03  /  The Process

Two sittings.
One likeness.

A person is more than a surface. We capture in two passes, the body and the mind, then resolve them into one.

Where it is kept → Why capture now
The capture pipeline Two parallel capture lanes, body and mind, each with four stations, converging into one likeness that feeds screen, handheld and headset outputs. I BODY 3D SCANMOTION VOICEWORLD II MIND PROFILEINTERVIEWS SPEECHHABITS One LIKENESS OUTPUTS
Plate III · The Capture PipelineBody and mind, resolved into one
The Studio

Fig. c · the production

Comparable in effort to producing a short, mid-budget film or game. Assembled, used, and struck down in private.

The work is nearer to a film production than a photograph. For each commission a capture studio is assembled, in a private and controlled setting, then used and struck down. A discreet warehouse becomes, for a season, an instrument built around a single person.

Most commissions run as a series of sittings rather than a single day. The body is recorded by one team; the mind is drawn out by another. Both are choreographed so the experience is unhurried and dignified, never clinical.

What follows is the shape of the two sittings. The detail of any one commission is set privately with the patron.

The Two Sittings

One team records the surface. Another draws out the person.

I

Sitting One

Physical likeness

A capture team records the body in extraordinary detail.

Volumetric body scan

A full-body rig of many cameras and laser, at the fidelity used to build leading film and game characters.

Motion signature

How this person stands, moves and gestures across many situations, recorded as a movement fingerprint.

The voice

Guided sessions through phonetic scripts to preserve the true grain, timbre and cadence of the voice.

The small print of a life

Clothing and the way it is worn, photographs, and the physical particulars that mark a person out.

World and place

Spatial, visual and acoustic scans of the rooms and places they love, so the likeness has somewhere to be.

II

Sitting Two

Behavioural likeness

A psychology team composes the portrait of a person.

Personality profile

A structured portrait of temperament and disposition, the fundamentals from which behaviour follows.

Those who know them

Interviews with family, friends and colleagues, to triangulate the person others actually recognise.

The life lived

Interviews mapping the experiences, places and events that shaped how they meet the world.

Turn of mind

Analysis of how they phrase things, argue, joke, deflect and decide. The music of their speech.

Rhythm of days

Habits, routines and the ordinary texture of a life, the things that make a manner feel lived-in.

Resolution

Two sittings, bound into one governed likeness.

The surface and the person are then resolved together. The scanned body, the recorded voice and the captured world give the likeness its form. The psychological portrait gives it its manner.

Where intelligence is used to let the likeness converse, it is bound under strict, auditable guardrails to this person's own material, and to instructions the person sets while living. It does not roam, it does not invent a self, and it is built to say plainly what it is.

The sittings need not end. Many patrons return at intervals across their lives, deepening the capture as they change, so the master grows richer with the years.

How a likeness is governed →

Chapter Four

Where it is kept, and who holds the keys.

Trust →