PngTuber Maker: a two-image talking avatar from your own photo

Searching for a “PNGTuber maker” usually means one of two things: the idea of building a talking-avatar for a stream, or the free Steam app that is literally named that. This guide is about both, but it leans on the app: PngTuber Maker, from YiMeta, free on Windows and listed as Early Access. Its whole pitch is that you need as few as two pictures, so the job comes down to getting those two pictures right and cutting them out cleanly. For the wider picture, other free apps and setting any of them up in OBS, see what is a PNGTuber; this page is the walkthrough for the one named after the job.

The two pictures that do the work

PngTuber Maker’s own Steam listing says it can turn anyone into a PNGTuber avatar from just two images, and that is the minimum the app is built around: one with the mouth closed, one with the mouth open. Its sound detector swaps between them the moment your microphone picks up speech, so the illusion of talking comes entirely from those two frames, not from any animation the app draws for you.

That makes the pictures the whole job. Three things matter more than anything else about the app’s settings:

1. The camera does not move between the two shots. Put your phone or camera on a tripod, a shelf or a stack of books, and use a timer so you are not holding it for one frame and not the other.
2. Only the mouth changes. Keep your head, shoulders and posture identical. A shift of a few pixels between the two images reads as a twitch every time the avatar starts or stops talking.
3. The open-mouth frame should read as open at a glance, not just technically open. A slightly parted mouth looks like a closed one once it is small in the corner of a stream. Open it further than feels natural on camera; it reads correctly once it is scaled down and swapping quickly.

If you would rather draw the avatar, put the closed and open mouth on separate layers of the same file and export two flat PNGs from the same canvas. The two states line up automatically, and no background removal is needed at all. If the drawing came from paper, a sketchbook or a whiteboard, photograph or scan both versions under the same light and treat them exactly like a photo of yourself: cut the background out of each with getPNG rather than trying to erase it by hand.

Either way, resist the urge to make more than two states before you have tried the app once. It is tempting to plan blinking and a couple of expressions from the start, but a first avatar that is just idle and talking tells you within a minute whether your lighting, your framing and the voice threshold are right. Extra states multiply the retakes if any of those need fixing.

Cutting both frames out on getPNG

A photo needs its background removed before PngTuber Maker (or any PNGTuber app) can use it, because the avatar sits over your game or desktop rather than in a box.

1. Drop the mouth-closed photo on getPNG and download a transparent PNG.
2. Drop the mouth-open photo the same way.
3. Check both in the compare view. The edge should be clean on both, with no colour left over from the room behind you; white halos around a cutout covers what to do if one is not.
4. If you cropped either photo, crop the other by exactly the same amount, in the same editor, rather than trimming each by eye. Uneven crops are the most common reason two otherwise good cutouts do not line up.

The edge tools matter more here than on a photo you will only ever look at once. Clean edge colour takes the colour of your old background back out of the soft pixels along your hairline, which is what stops a faint green or beige rim from sitting there every time the avatar is on screen. Edge shift pulls the outline in by a pixel if the cutout has picked up a sliver of background along one side. Apply the same amount of each to both images, mouth closed and mouth open, or the two outlines will not quite match even once the crop does.

PngTuber Maker publishes no maximum image size or file size for the avatar you import. That does not mean size is irrelevant, just that there is no number to hit: the picture only needs to be as big as the avatar will ever appear on your stream. getPNG’s size presets include a 512 by 512 pixel profile picture crop, which is close to how large a PNGTuber avatar usually sits on screen, and using it keeps both files small with no separate compression step. If you would rather keep the option to make the avatar bigger later, save it at the photo’s own full resolution instead; getPNG never resizes it down on its own, and a transparent PNG of a person against nothing is small regardless, because most of the file is empty.

Setting up the avatar in PngTuber Maker

With two clean PNGs saved:

1. Install PngTuber Maker from Steam and open it. If you would rather see how it looks before importing your own pictures, it ships with premade avatars you can swap in later.
2. Import your mouth-closed image and your mouth-open image, assigning each to its state.
3. Open Animation Settings. Two sliders do the real work: a voice activation threshold, which decides how loud you need to be before the mouth opens, and a mouth-open amount, which controls how far it swings. Speak normally and adjust the threshold until ordinary talking triggers it but typing and background noise do not.
4. Pick a talking animation. PngTuber Maker’s own listing describes a small movement, a float or a wiggle, that plays while the avatar is talking or silent, on top of the mouth swap. It is optional, and worth trying once the mouth threshold feels right, because a still image next to a moving mouth reads a little stiff on its own.
5. Add a background or an accessory if you want one. These are optional layers the app ships with; your own two images are unaffected either way.
6. Try desktop mascot mode if you want the avatar to sit on your desktop outside a stream, which is a feature specific to this app among the three covered in what is a PNGTuber.

Getting it onto your stream

PngTuber Maker runs as a virtual camera, so OBS Studio or Streamlabs sees it as an ordinary video source, the same as a webcam: add a Video Capture Device source and pick PngTuber Maker from the list. That is simpler than the capture-mode question the other free PNGTuber apps raise, where some methods pass transparency through and others need a chroma key filter added in OBS; what is a PNGTuber has the full comparison if you are choosing between apps rather than set on this one.

Add the source, resize it in your scene the way you would any webcam feed, and move on to testing rather than fine-tuning the layout: a scene is easy to rearrange later, and a mouth that does not swap cleanly is not.

When it does not work

• The avatar jumps or twitches when it talks. The two images are not the same size or the subject moved between shots. Retake them without moving the camera, or re-crop both by the same amount.
• The mouth barely opens, or opens too far. Adjust the mouth-open amount in Animation Settings; a frame drawn or photographed with an exaggerated opening gives you more range to work with here.
• It triggers on keyboard clicks or background noise. Raise the voice activation threshold until only speech crosses it.
• A coloured rim shows around the avatar once it is small. Leftover colour from the original background in the soft edge pixels. Use getPNG’s edge shift and clean edge colour before saving either PNG, and apply the same amount to both so the outlines still match.
• You want the avatar on macOS or Linux. PngTuber Maker is Windows only. veadotube mini and PNGTuber Plus, covered in what is a PNGTuber, both run on all three.

Privacy: the photo is still a photo of you

Two photographs, mouth closed and mouth open, are still pictures of your face, usually taken at home. getPNG removes the background inside your browser; the photos are never sent anywhere, and after the first one it keeps working with the connection switched off. The avatar itself, once made, is deliberately the thing you show instead of your face; the photos behind it deserve the same privacy.

The steps, in short

1. Take or draw the two states. Mouth closed for idle, mouth open for talking. Same camera position, same light, same framing for both.
2. Cut both out on getPNG. Drop each photo on getPNG and download a transparent PNG. Crop or size them identically so the two line up when they swap.
3. Add the avatar in PngTuber Maker. Import the two PNGs (or start from a premade avatar), assigning one to mouth closed and one to mouth open.
4. Set the voice threshold. In Animation Settings, adjust the sensitivity so the mouth opens on speech and stays shut for keyboard clicks, and set how far it opens.
5. Add backgrounds and accessories, if you want them. PngTuber Maker ships premade backgrounds and accessories, and a desktop mascot mode, on top of your own avatar.
6. Send it to your streaming software. PngTuber Maker runs as a virtual camera, so OBS or Streamlabs picks it up as a video source without a capture-mode workaround.

Questions

What is PngTuber Maker?

PngTuber Maker is a free Windows app, from YiMeta on Steam and listed as Early Access, that builds a PNGTuber avatar from your own images. Its own Steam page describes it as turning anyone into a PNGTuber avatar with a few easy steps, from as few as two pictures, and it runs as a virtual camera so streaming software picks it up directly (checked September 2026).

How many images does PngTuber Maker need?

Two, at minimum: one with the mouth closed, one with it open. Its sound detector switches between them as your microphone picks you up. You can add more states and premade accessories on top, but two is what the app itself asks for to get started.

Is PngTuber Maker free?

Yes. It is free to download and use on Steam for Windows, and is listed there as Early Access, meaning YiMeta is still adding to it (checked September 2026). It also includes premade avatars, backgrounds and accessories at no extra cost.

What size should my PngTuber Maker images be?

PngTuber Maker does not publish a maximum file size or resolution. What matters is that both images are the same size and the subject sits in the same place in each, so nothing jumps when the mouth swaps. Cut each one out at getPNG's profile picture preset (512 by 512 pixels) if the avatar will only ever be small in the corner of a stream, or keep the photo's own size if you want room to move it around later; either comes back as a plain transparent PNG with no extra compression step needed.

How is PngTuber Maker different from veadotube mini or PNGTuber Plus?

All three do the same basic job, swapping images on sound, and all three are free. PngTuber Maker is Steam-only, on Windows, and adds a built-in virtual camera, premade avatars and a desktop mascot mode that keeps the avatar on the desktop outside a stream. veadotube mini and PNGTuber Plus run on Windows, macOS and Linux, and PNGTuber Plus builds the avatar from separate moving parts rather than whole-image states. What is a PNGTuber compares all three side by side.

Can I use a drawing instead of a photo?

Yes. PngTuber Maker takes any PNG for each state, drawn or photographed. A digital drawing with the mouth on its own layer exports both states from one file with no background removal needed; a photo or a scanned drawing needs the background cut out first, which is what getPNG does.