“AI-Powered Face Making: A Fresh Era for FIFA Modding!” ⚽🤖

[by_MuCé]

👋 Hello everyone!​

Let me introduce myself briefly: I’m an old-school face maker 🎮. I used to work on faces and kits way back in the PES 13 days — yep, that long ago! Of course, I had a different nickname back then, and you can probably still find my old work floating around online 🌐.


For about 10–12 years, I’ve been pretty distant from this scene. I’m not really planning to return fully — but 💡 I came up with a creative idea that I wanted to test quickly, just to see how feasible it could be.
So I tried a very basic approach, without any proper texture editing, no spectacular maps… yet I discovered that we can still get great results using an AI-integrated face-making method! 🤖✨
And today, I’d love to share this method with you all.

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🧰​

Here’s a simple list of what I used:

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• Wrap​
• Blender​
• ChatGPT​

I’ll guide you step by step 🪜 and decorate the tutorial with some screenshots. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please share them! Maybe we can develop this method together 🤝 — or you can help pass it on to more experienced and capable creators.

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✅​

First, I gave ChatGPT a prompt to generate a reference photo 🖼️. By providing example photos, I asked it to create a high-quality version.
In the end, it gave me the following image:
📸


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✅​

Next, I explored the 2D image-to-3D model process and found the MetaPerson AvatarSDK site 👉 https://avatarsdk.com/.
Here, I generated a 3D model based on my reference photo.
🗿

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✅​

For the 3rd step, I needed Wrap. I exported both my generated 3D model and the FIFA 3D model as .obj files via Blender, then opened both in Wrap and did a fast wrapping. ⚡


⚠️ Quick tip: Before wrapping, I temporarily deleted the teeth and tongue parts of the FIFA model when exporting the .obj. These areas can mess up the wrapping process a bit.


📌

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✅​

Next, I used Wrap again to convert the AvatarSDK texture to match the game’s UV map. 🎨 This way, everything aligns correctly in-game.


🗺️


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✅​

Then, I opened my wrapped .obj in Blender for some quick tweaks 🛠️ — for example, I noticed some vertex points around the head were slightly off. I used the magnet tool to snap them into place nicely.


🧲


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✅​

Finally, I opened the FIFA model as .fbx and loaded my wrapped .obj next to it. Using Shape Keys, I adapted the wrapped face onto the FIFA model.
⚠️ Note: I didn’t include the teeth and tongue in the FIFA .fbx at first — they were kept as separate meshes. After transferring the Shape Keys, I added the teeth back just before exporting to make sure the vertex count matched, avoiding any in-game issues.
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🎉​

And that’s it! ✅ Both the texture and the model were imported into the game flawlessly. I truly believe we can integrate AI into our workflow to achieve faster and more effective results from now on. 🚀🤝


If you’d like to test it too, feel free to experiment and share your feedback. Let’s push this even further, together! 💪🔥​

 

[by_MuCé]

Honestly, nothing has changed here after all these years. There are still tons of comments and attention on totally unrelated or trivial topics, yet when it comes to truly interesting and high-quality work, there’s zero engagement. Once again, I’m reminded why I stepped away from this scene in the first place.

 

[Sounda1711]

it works with pes bro?

 

[kinjames23]

Could you make a video tutorial explaining it step by step? I think it would be a great contribution to the community.

 

[gigiali123]

I used to make faces for pes 2014-15-16 and have not dealt with it in basically a decade. Decided to start again by watching some tutorials, also using your suggested "AI" method.

Here is the result for pes 2021, my first face after almost 10 years. I used below-mentioned prompt to generate the picture.

"Generate a realistic, high-resolution studio portrait of a this young man based on this face — facing forward, neutral expression, light single-color or transparent background. The image should look clean and detailed for PES 2021 face modding. Use the face in the pictures i sent as reference"

Honest opinion: Obviously, result could have been better in the hands of more experienced face makers. However, i feel like AI generated person still differs from the main one irl, and player face in game/irl do not look like each other 100 %. Although this is not the best method for modelling the face, it is a great addition to make textures.

If i have to summarize, i would say it is totally useful!

Note: I used someone else's face as a base model, that guy looked like this person.

 

[kinjames23]

I used to make faces for pes 2014-15-16 and have not dealt with it in basically a decade. Decided to start again by watching some tutorials, also using your suggested "AI" method.

Here is the result for pes 2021, my first face after almost 10 years. I used below-mentioned prompt to generate the picture.

"Generate a realistic, high-resolution studio portrait of a this young man based on this face — facing forward, neutral expression, light single-color or transparent background. The image should look clean and detailed for PES 2021 face modding. Use the face in the pictures i sent as reference"

Honest opinion: Obviously, result could have been better in the hands of more experienced face makers. However, i feel like AI generated person still differs from the main one irl, and player face in game/irl do not look like each other 100 %. Although this is not the best method for modelling the face, it is a great addition to make textures.

If i have to summarize, i would say it is totally useful!

Note: I used someone else's face as a base model, that guy looked like this person.

Could you make a video tutorial explaining it step by step? I think it would be a great contribution to the community.