How to Add Face to Video | 3 Other Smart Ways Beyond Face Replace
Lora Lopez
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Wanna overlay face on video? Face swap is a common way, but not the only one! Learn how to add face to videos in 3 creative and personalized ways.
Have you ever seen those viral funny memes where your loved anime face is overlaid onto a character, and somehow it fits perfectly, like the scene truly belongs in that anime? Ever wanted to make one yourself, but weren’t sure how?
Or maybe you’ve needed to film a reaction to your favorite idol’s stage or shoot a Try Not to Laugh challenge. How to add face to a video? You may think of face swap, which replaces the original face with yours, and that works, but it’s not the only way. Skip the deepfake craze and explore other ways: adding an overlay face on video, using animated avatars, or motion tracking, all beyond swapping faces.
On This Page
Which Method Should You Pick to Add Face to Video
Add Face To Video and You Will Get This
How to Add Face to Video Beyond Face Swap?
Method 1: Add AI Face Avatar Overlay to Video
Method 2: Manually Add Face Overlay to Video with CapCut
Method 3: Add Face to a Video Flexibly With Motion Tracking
The Bottom Line
Which Method Should You Pick to Add Face to Video
How to put a face on a video? Before exploring the options, let's take a quick glance at the comparison.The truth of the matter is that each of these techniques can be appropriate in different situations, as this chart shows:
• Would prefer to use a desktop app for doing the overlaying work
• Want to apply other effects after overlaying the face
After Effects Motion Tracking
• Are an active Adobe user
• Want to have full control over where exactly the overlaying happens
Face Swap
• Prefer directly replacing the face
• Want the most realistic effect
Add Face To Video and You Will Get This
Seeing is believing; we might as well see what it looks like before the tutorial. You can achieve truly fascinating results when you add face to a video with the right tools and techniques. Here, we showcase some of the stunning effects you can get:
Add Face on a Meme Video Example 1
Ace Attorney characters’ faces are on the What Is Love meme.
Add Overlay to a Video Example 2
Japanese variety shows often add face to video’s corner in a rectangle or circle as a reaction shot.
Image from Monday Late Show 月曜から夜ふかし
Therefore, there are so many things you can do once you figure out how to superimpose your face on a video. Ultimately, the technique boils down to adding a face overlay, or just adding a face shot to your video. Several techs or tools can help you do so.
How to Add Face to Video Beyond Face Swap?
Having checked the examples, now let's move on to the eligible tools and tutorials. Adding an overlay is a straightforward approach to adding an overlay face on video, and it can be very helpful in certain circumstances.
Read on for information on the 3 methods through the overlay technique.
Method 1: Add AI Face Avatar Overlay to Video
You might think of using a webcam to film yourself and add this shot to your video. However, doing so manually can be very costly, as you have to buy an extra camera or use phones instead; also, it will be painstaking to write scripts, add voiceover, and edit the video.
Thankfully, there is an AI Tool, known as Vidnoz free AI video generator, that gives you a chance to choose from many pre-designed avatars or to create your own customized avatar. Thus, you don’t have to appear on the camera and reveal your face.
Vidnoz AI - Create Free Engaging AI Video with Talking Avatar
Easily create professional AI videos with realistic avatars.
Text-to-speech lip sync voices of different languages.
2800+ video templates for multiple scenarios.
What’s more, this free AI video generator is equipped with a handful of useful video editing features and tools, with which you can create a stunning video in 1 stop. So in the end, only your imagination limits you in terms of the results you can achieve.
Key Feature
Add Different Shapes/Styles Avatar Overlay: It provides ready-made AI avatars in circle, half-body, and square shapes. Also, you can change the style of the AI avatars: office, teacher, casual, etc. All are easy to use for your specific needs.
Choose Free AI Avatars of Any Age/Gender/Attire: Vidnoz AI Avatar allows you to choose (or custom made from scratch) a free avatar of any age, gender, or attire as per needs – so you never face limitations in this regard – even if you need a text to speech avatar.
Use With Different Video Templates: A wide range of video templates are ready, whether it is a tutorial you wish to create, a commercial/professional presentation, or anything else of that nature, Vidnoz AI has a good template for it, meaning that you don’t have to create the video from scratch.
Lip Sync Avatar & Diverse Voiceovers: No need to voice over manually, you can generate/input scripts and use the lipsync AI avatar with vivid voiceover in different languages, voice tones, accents, emotions, etc.
Edit & Spice Up Your Video Easily: Vidnoz AI offers you all the tools you need to easily edit and spice up your video with ease -- using elements such as shapes, stickers, images, text, translation, AI scripts, AI video translator, and more to fine-tune and add face filters to existing video, and so on as per your needs.
How to Put a Face on a Video As an Overlay & Make Stunning Videos
These are the steps you need to follow whenever you need to add face to a video as an overlay and create a video in 1 go.
Step 1: Sign up if you have not yet created an account in Vidnoz AI. With an account, you can better use the tool and download your videos.
Step 2: First, choose a horizontal or vertical template in different themes: tutorial, education, festival, breaking news, advertisement, etc. Click Use this template.
Step 3: Come to the editing panel > click Avatar > filter, and click to choose your preferred avatar.
Step 4: Choose shapes and styles for your face overlay avatar. You can easily resize and change the position, and add AI voiceover for it as you need. Then, edit the video as you need and prefer: adding video elements and effects, transitions, music, etc., to spice it up. With everything ready, click Generate to render your video.
If you want to appear in the video, you can also upload your photos and make the picture talk as a talking lip-synced avatar to speak for you.
Method 2: Manually Add Face Overlay to Video with CapCut
Besides the AI-based approach to adding face overlay to the video, there is also the manual technique of doing it: manually adding the face using video editors. CapCut is one that allows you to overlay faces on videos. It provides a desktop version as well as a mobile app.
With the Capcut face overlay feature, it is possible for you to replace the face on a video with another (as if it were a webcam) without straining too much.
How to Put a Face on a Video As an Overlay?
Step 1: Download and install Capcut on your device > import the video and your recorded face video to the software.
Step 2: Drag all the media you need to the timeline > put your face clip on top of the video.
Step 3: You can change the position, size, and shape of it. Go to Mask and change the shape to a circle, heart, etc.
Pros
This approach to adding face to video gives you considerable control over the process
Professional video editing tools and features
Very intuitive user interface and timeline design
Cons
Some advanced editing features are paid to get
No online web-based tool, you have to download the software for use
Method 3: Add Face to a Video Flexibly With Motion Tracking
There is a more flexible way to add face to a video. That is through Motion Tracking, which is one of the features available from Adobe After Effects. With Motion Tracking, you can add dynamic elements to videos, which is what makes it viable for use in adding faces to videos as overlays.
Through the Motion Tracking feature, you can add face to video flexibly (by determining exactly where and how the face is to appear in the video).
How to Put a Face on a Video Using After Effects
Step 1: Download, install, and run After Effects > similarly, import the media.
Step 2: Import the face you wish to add to a video > go to the layer of the video you wish to add that face to, and position the face to be overlaid there.
Step 3: Click on Window, then Tracker, and ensure that the play head is at the point you wish to start tracking
Step 4: Now, pick the points to be tracked (where you wish to have the overlaid face appear)
Step 5: Finally, click on Edit Target (from the tracker menu), select the layers you’d wish to overlay, and then click OK for the overlay to take effect
Image from Adobe After Effects
Pros
Gives you full control over where the face overlay takes place
Can be done even offline if you have Adobe installed
Makes it possible for you to use clip art images as video faces
Cons
It is technically challenging
The face change is not seamless (and therefore, the end result may not be very realistic looking)
The Bottom Line
As we have seen, beyond face swap, there are indeed more creative ways to add face to a video that will add spice and a personal touch to your creations. There are a number of tools and techniques you can use whenever you wish.
Of all the tools with which you can overlay face on videos, Vidnoz AI Video Generator comes across as the best: on account of the seamless results it delivers, as well as the fact that it is an easy tool you can start using for free right now. We would, therefore, recommend that you use Vidnoz AI!
Lora Lopez, an IT- centric SEO writer, delivers concise tutorials and software reviews to solve common IT challenges. With a focus on user-friendly content about AI tools, she offers practical solutions and insights to help readers effortlessly navigate the dynamic world of information technology.