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Felasco
Known Participant
August 20, 2017
Answered

Is Motion Tracking Good Enough For Face Swapping?

  • August 20, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 1768 views

Hi there, thanks for reading my question.

I see that Elements has motion tracking, which is great.  It looks easy to use, also great.   I'm wondering if the tracking is accurate enough that it could be used for replacing faces in video.

Assuming both faces have the same orientation to the camera would the replacement face stay exactly on top of the original face?   Or is the tracking only accurate enough for things like thought bubbles, where close is good enough?

Would tracking resize the replacement face as needed to match the size of the original face as it moved towards and away from the camera?  Can tracking handle both scale and position?

I'd love to hear from anyone with comments, especially if you're doing this kind of work  yourself.

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Steve Grisetti

    Absolutely! That's how keyframing works.

    In fact, that's how Motion Tracking works. It creates keyframed motion that tracks with the movement of an object.

    You'll be adding Scaling keyframes too, so that your "face" can get larger and smaller as the person you're tracking moves closer and farther from the camera. But it's the same principle.

    And thanks for checking out my videos and Muvipix.com!

    4 replies

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    FelascoAuthor
    Known Participant
    September 6, 2017

    Now that I have some experience with Premiere Elements, I'd have to answer my question above with a no.   Tracking in Premiere Elements seems of little use in regards to something precise as face swapping.  I've yet to discover any use for it actually, or even to get it to work in a basic manner.  Best I can tell, you'd have to upgrade to After Effects to get tracking that's useful for face swapping.

    However, I have been able to achieve some decent face swapping results in Premiere Elements by manually creating keyframes.  It's tedious and time consuming work, but for short clips workable for those with sufficient patience.  It's certainly an improvement over what I was doing previously.

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    FelascoAuthor
    Known Participant
    August 21, 2017

    Thanks again Steve, I'm getting it now.   And BTW, you have a great "radio voice".    Your tutorial vids are very polished.   A great introduction to PE.

      S
      Steve GrisettiCorrect answer
      Legend
      August 20, 2017

      Absolutely! That's how keyframing works.

      In fact, that's how Motion Tracking works. It creates keyframed motion that tracks with the movement of an object.

      You'll be adding Scaling keyframes too, so that your "face" can get larger and smaller as the person you're tracking moves closer and farther from the camera. But it's the same principle.

      And thanks for checking out my videos and Muvipix.com!

      S
      Steve Grisetti
      Legend
      August 20, 2017

      The Motion Tracking tool in Premiere Elements only follows an object's movements in two dimensions -- up and down and left and right.

      It won't enlarge or reduce the size of your overlay to match an object's motion toward or away from the camera.

      F
      FelascoAuthor
      Known Participant
      August 20, 2017

      Steve,

      Thanks for your YouTube videos (watching them now), your website (exploring it now) and your reply to my questions.  Nice work, thanks for sharing it. 

      Ok, I get it about motion tracking, thanks.

      So could I instead animate the replacement face with keyframes?  Can Premiere Elements remember the location and scale of a PIP image/video if I make those adjustments manually along the timeline?   Would it automatically generate the "betweener" frames between the keyframes I have created?

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