Copresence
Copresence turns a one-minute smartphone head scan into a fully rigged, photorealistic 3D avatar. Built for game studios, XR projects and telepresence, it exports to Blender, GLTF, MetaHuman and Rapport, or plugs straight into an integration API.
What is Copresence?
Copresence is a Swiss platform that turns a smartphone head scan into a photorealistic 3D avatar ready for production use. The chain is short: a capture app records the face, the recording is uploaded to the company's cloud, deep learning models rebuild the head, and the result comes back a few minutes later as industry-standard 3D assets.
Two product lines sit side by side. The CG Avatars are the ones generally available. They ship as a fully rigged mesh carrying a complete set of FACS blendshapes, topology optimised for real-time rendering, 4K skin textures, and hair supplied either strand-based or mesh-based depending on the renderer. The specifications published for game work mention up to 26,000 vertices, an optional neck and eye rig, automatic mapping onto a studio's own UV layout, and diffuse, specular, cavity, normal and subsurface maps. Downloads are offered in Blender, GLTF, MetaHuman through a dedicated Unreal plugin, and Rapport, the Speech Graphics format used to drive conversational agents.
The AI Avatars form the second line and remain in beta, open only to selected partners. Instead of classical rendering they rely on a model trained per individual, rendered in real time on ordinary hardware, with advanced relighting so the head sits correctly in different 3D environments. The company points them at visual effects and interactive assistants today, and at immersive telepresence later.
There are three ways in. The iOS app performs the capture, a web app lets teams view and download the assets, and an Integration API lets a game or application trigger the whole flow itself. That API works on business accounts and single-use Export Tokens: a console shows a QR code, the Copresence app or an Apple App Clip opens on the player's phone, and the finished assets return to the game through temporary URLs.
Copresence positions all of this against photogrammetry studios, arguing that a five-minute scan at home replaces a studio session. The publisher, COPRESENCE AG, is based in Zurich, left beta with a version 1.0 release, and displays Autodesk, NVIDIA Inception, Epic Games, Microsoft, 2K, Rezzil and Speech Graphics among its partners.
What it does
- Capture a head scan in about a minute with an iPhone
- Generate a photorealistic, fully rigged 3D avatar in the cloud
- Export to Blender, GLTF, MetaHuman or Rapport
- Drop the avatar into Unreal Engine, Unity or any 3D application
- Animate the face through a complete set of FACS blendshapes
- Offer end-user scanning inside your own game or app via the API
- Map the mesh automatically onto an existing UV layout
When to use Copresence / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Copresence is the right fit.
When to use Copresence
- Game studios building character creators that let players appear as themselves
- 3D artists and riggers who need a FACS-ready head mesh without a photogrammetry session
- AR, VR and XR teams putting real likenesses into real-time applications
- Developers integrating end-user scanning at scale through the Copresence API
- Productions creating characters based on real people such as influencers and athletes
When not to use Copresence
- Android users, since the capture app is iOS-only for now
- Anyone who needs a full-body scan rather than a head and face
- Teams counting on the neural AI Avatars, still a closed beta for selected partners
- High-volume pipelines, given the three-avatars-per-month cap on the entry plan
- Buyers who require a signed DPA, a subprocessor list or a security certification
How to use Copresence
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Download the Copresence app from the App Store, available on iOS with Android announced
- Register an account, since only registered users can use the application and the basic account is free
- Turn towards the brightest light available and take off your glasses
- Tie back long hair so your ears stay visible and hold a neutral expression
- Run the scan, moving very slowly, in roughly one minute
- Wait a few minutes while the cloud rebuilds the head as a 3D model
- Log into the web app with your account credentials to inspect the avatar
- Choose an export format among Blender, GLTF, MetaHuman and Rapport, then download it
- Import the asset into Unreal Engine, Unity or Blender, using the plugin for MetaHuman
- For an integration, request a business account and drive the flow with Export Tokens
Pros & Cons
Pros
- A phone replaces a scanning studio, with the avatar returned in minutes
- Assets follow industry standards and land directly in Unreal, Unity, Blender or MetaHuman
- The complete FACS rig makes the head animatable straight away
- A one-month free trial and a free basic account keep the entry cost low
- The API supports end-user scanning at scale, QR code and Apple App Clip included
- Data is stored in a German data centre, with processing announced for Switzerland and the EU
- The publisher is fully identified: legal name, address, UID, VAT number and named directors
Cons
- iOS only, with Android still announced rather than shipped as of 10 August 2026
- Head only, so there is no full-body capture
- Tight quotas, with three avatar unlocks a month on the USD 39 plan
- No refunds on purchased services or subscriptions, save mandatory consumer law
- The licence granted to the publisher is irrevocable and expressly covers training
- No published DPA, no subprocessor list and no security certification
- No retention period is ever stated, and no export format is contractually guaranteed
Pricing & Plans
A free basic account is available and the pricing page advertises a one-month free trial. The cheapest paid entry point is the Monthly plan at USD 39 per month excluding VAT, which unlocks three avatars a month. The Yearly plan costs USD 249 per year excluding VAT for 36 unlocks, and an Enterprise plan is quoted on request. Downloading an avatar for use outside the application requires a paid subscription. No refunds are provided for purchased services or subscriptions, subject to mandatory local consumer law.
- 3 avatar unlocks per month
- with Blender
- GLTF
- MetaHuman and Rapport exports
- 36 avatar unlocks per year
- with Blender
- GLTF
- MetaHuman and Rapport exports
- Blender
- GLTF and MetaHuman exports
- custom integrations and API access
- One-month free trial
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Copresence handles your data.
GDPR overview
The site never claims GDPR compliance in so many words, but most of the machinery is in place. COPRESENCE AG is named as controller, reachable at Tiefenhoefe 10, 8001 Zurich, and an EU representative is designated under Article 27: COPRESENCE GmbH, Speyerer Str. 4-6, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany. Both are contacted at privacy@copresence.tech. The notice lists rights of access, portability, rectification, erasure and objection, while warning that their scope varies with the applicable law and that a request may be refused. Transfers outside Switzerland and the EU rely on standard data protection clauses or legal exceptions. The lead supervisory authority is the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, and the minimum age is 16. The document is dated Version 2.0, July 2023.
Who owns the data?
Section O of the Terms of Use treats the avatar as the work result of whoever created it: the user keeps the copyright and any other intellectual property rights in it. In exchange, the user grants COPRESENCE AG a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide and royalty-free licence to use that result both to deliver the service and to train, research and innovate its own products and services. Everything else stays with the company: the application, the purchasable Assets, the brand and its trademarks. Scans and the derived 3D mesh may qualify as biometric data, and accepting the Terms is what supplies the consent for processing them.
Reuse rights
Users can download their avatar and take it to third parties, but only after paying for the export service: on the free tier the avatar stays inside the application. Once exported, the Terms set no restriction on where the likeness is used, and the company expressly declines any responsibility for that downstream use. Purchased Assets carry a worldwide licence to use them outside the app. Two limits matter: no specific file format is guaranteed, and scanning another person requires consent obtained outside the application. On its own side, Copresence states that it does not sell, share or disclose personal data to third parties, and that avatar scans and user names are never used in marketing campaigns.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The privacy notice states that personal data is processed primarily within Switzerland and the EU, and that the company currently uses a data centre in Germany for storage. The wording, at the moment, makes that a snapshot rather than a commitment. Transfers to countries without adequate protection remain possible, covered by standard data protection clauses or legal exceptions such as performing a contract. Copresence describes appropriate technical and organisational measures, including physical and logical access controls and regular review of their effectiveness, but names no hosting provider, no cloud region and no certification. One caveat on reading the network data: the website domain resolves to an anycast Google address geolocated in the United States, which describes the marketing site's delivery network rather than where user data lives. The Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner is named as the lead supervisory authority.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Copresence.
- Your face is the input: the scan and the derived 3D mesh may qualify as biometric data, and consent is given simply by accepting the Terms
- The licence you grant is irrevocable and expressly covers training the publisher's products, with no documented way to opt out
- A photorealistic likeness is exactly what impersonation and deepfake misuse need; the Terms forbid it, but the exported file leaves with you
- Scanning another person is your legal responsibility, and their consent must be obtained outside the application
- Deleting your account means losing access to your avatars, and backing them up beforehand is explicitly on you
- Nothing is refundable, and liability is capped at CHF 100 for a user who has not paid anything
- The site shows two different Zurich addresses for the company, one in the imprint and another in the privacy notice
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Two very different levels. For an end user, close to none: download the app, register, scan, download the file. The only real skill is following the capture instructions, with good light, no glasses, hair tied back, a neutral expression and slow movements. For a studio, the assets call for the usual 3D competence, and MetaHuman goes through a dedicated Unreal plugin. Integrating the API is a genuine development task: obtaining a business account, authenticating with a REST key and a session token, generating an Export Token per avatar, then collecting the asset URLs.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Behind Copresence
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What equipment do I need to create an avatar?
How long does a scan take?
Which export formats are available?
Does it work with Unreal Engine and Unity?
Is there an API?
What does it cost?
Who owns the avatar?
Is my data used to train the models?
Where is the data hosted?
Is there a minimum age?
Should you pick Copresence?
Copresence does one thing, and does it with unusual precision: it takes a head scan made on a phone and returns a 3D asset a studio can actually use. The technical claims are specific enough to be checked, from a complete FACS rig and real-time topology to 4K textures, a MetaHuman plugin and an API built on single-use export tokens. For a game studio that wants players to appear as themselves, or a 3D artist tired of booking photogrammetry sessions, the proposition is genuinely attractive.
The reservations are just as concrete. Capture is iOS-only, the head is all you get, and the entry plan unlocks three avatars a month for USD 39, quotas that suit an individual artist far better than a production pipeline. The neural AI Avatars, which carry much of the company's ambition, remain closed to selected partners.
The contractual side deserves a careful read. You keep the copyright on your avatar, which is the right answer, but the licence you grant in exchange is irrevocable and expressly covers training the company's products, on data the Terms themselves acknowledge may be biometric. No opt-out is documented. Nothing is refundable. No retention period is stated, no subprocessor is named, no DPA is offered and no security certification is displayed, and the privacy notice still carries a July 2023 date. For someone buying a single avatar, none of that is disqualifying. For an enterprise scanning its users at scale, it is the conversation to have before signing.
The company itself is transparent where many are not: a complete imprint, a Swiss registration number, named directors and a designated EU representative, backed by a seed round of over USD 6 million.
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