Every court keeps an official portrait, and it is not vanity. It is administration. When a face must appear in a hundred places — announcements, covers, seasons of work — recognition cannot be renegotiated at every appearance. It is settled once, in one likeness, and that likeness is then presented everywhere. Face swaps work on exactly this principle, and they fail for exactly the reasons official portraits are so carefully made.
What makes a likeness official
One file, chosen deliberately and then never casually replaced. Front-facing, because a court is greeted face first. Evenly lit, because a likeness that depends on one dramatic light will agree with almost no target it is presented onto. Composed in expression, because serenity transfers and a grin dates. And large enough — at least as large as the largest face it will ever be asked to fill, since a small likeness stretched over a large target announces itself at once.
Presenting it well
- Match the geometry first. Target and likeness should agree in head angle within roughly thirty degrees, with light falling from the same side. Most failed presentations were decided at this step, before any model ran.
- Use the same file for video. A second likeness for clips creates a second muse. The video face swap takes the identical source, so the lady in motion is the lady of the stills.
- Grade the result into the set. A short pass through the editor, matching light and colour, seats a presented face quietly among its neighbours. Skipping the grade is what makes swaps look pasted.
- Hold the consent record with the likeness. If the face is a real person’s — your own, or a collaborator’s — the file rests beside its documentation: who, what scope, what term. A likeness without its record is an unfinished commission.
When the presentation strains
Read the failure like a court reads a petition: in order. Angle first, then light, then resolution, then obstruction — hair, hands or ornaments crossing the face. Each has its remedy, and none of them is “run it again and hope.” Hope is not a procedure. At BlockChina the swap chambers price every presentation before it runs, which is one more reason to prepare the pairing properly: ceremony is cheaper than repetition.