--- title: Turning a Girl's Photograph Into a Stunning... description: Belgian character artist Lionel Verlinden shares his workflow for creating a hyperrealistic real-time 3D portrait based on a photograph. The process covers... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/turning-a-girl-s-photograph-into-a-stunning-hyperrealistic-3d-portrait-7j0fxcktc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Turning a Girl's Photograph Into a Stunning Hyperrealistic 3D Portrait | daily.dev og:description: Belgian character artist Lionel Verlinden shares his workflow for creating a hyperrealistic real-time 3D portrait based on a photograph. The process covers... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/turning-a-girl-s-photograph-into-a-stunning-hyperrealistic-3d-portrait-7j0fxcktc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/7j0FXcktC.png og:image:alt: Turning a Girl's Photograph Into a Stunning Hyperrealistic 3D Portrait og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Turning a Girl's Photograph Into a Stunning Hyperrealistic 3D Portrait **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Belgian character artist Lionel Verlinden shares his workflow for creating a hyperrealistic real-time 3D portrait based on a photograph. The process covers head sculpting in ZBrush using a VFace basemesh, converting to MetaHuman topology, hair creation with XGen in Maya, cloth simulation in Marvelous Designer, texturing in Substance 3D Painter, and final rendering in Unreal Engine 5 with ray tracing. He also details facial animation using Unreal Engine's Live Link Hub tool following Sefki Ibrahim's course. The piece concludes with advice for beginner artists to avoid over-reliance on AI tools and instead practice with scans. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Creating Realistic 3D Portrait Based on AI Concept with UE5](https://daily.dev/posts/creating-realistic-3d-portrait-based-on-ai-concept-with-ue5-khqgwxmn2) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Have a Look at This Photorealistic Portrait Created with UE5](https://daily.dev/posts/have-a-look-at-this-photorealistic-portrait-created-with-ue5-vetebff2x) · 80 LEVEL · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Recreating Lionel Messi in 3D with ZBrush & Substance 3D Painter](https://daily.dev/posts/recreating-lionel-messi-in-3d-with-zbrush-substance-3d-painter-pcovj2lxn) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Making a Beautiful & Cinematic Real-Time Character Using ZBrush & UE5](https://daily.dev/posts/making-a-beautiful-cinematic-real-time-character-using-zbrush-ue5-7v4gjhidi) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Photorealistic 3D Character Created with ZBrush & Substance 3D](https://daily.dev/posts/photorealistic-3d-character-created-with-zbrush-substance-3d-sbxhaj5xn) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#3d](https://daily.dev/tags/3d), [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design), [#unreal-engine](https://daily.dev/tags/unreal-engine), [#metahuman](https://daily.dev/tags/metahuman) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/turning-a-girl-s-photograph-into-a-stunning-hyperrealistic-3d-portrait-7j0fxcktc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Turning a Girl's Photograph Into a Stunning Hyperrealistic 3D Portrait","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/turning-a-girl-s-photograph-into-a-stunning-hyperrealistic-3d-portrait-7j0fxcktc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/turning-a-girl-s-photograph-into-a-stunning-hyperrealistic-3d-portrait-7j0fxcktc"},"datePublished":"2026-07-15T10:31:37.098Z","dateModified":"2026-07-15T10:41:12.194Z","description":"Belgian character artist Lionel Verlinden shares his workflow for creating a hyperrealistic real-time 3D portrait based on a photograph. 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