DaVinci Resolve Surface Tracker For Face VFX

It turns out that DaVinci Resolve 18 new Surface Tracker is quite good for tracking faces. The tool tracks a mesh with a large number of vertices which in turn acts as a grid warp ensuring that the element we're tracking to the plate also warps with the surface folds.
Consider this tutorial covers V18 beta 1. It is likely there will be many changes to the Surface Tracker prior to the official release.
Like I mention in the video, Mixing Light has release my two part tutorial on beauty work in Resolve using Surface Tracker. You can watch part one for free by using this link: bit.ly/surface...

[@blender_wiki]

Igor the Legend is back.

[@stivosaurus]

Jacking up the contrast to get a better track is a clever trick! Thanks!

[@Hdhead]

That's a helpful strategy for any type of tracking. It's useful here also because the mesh vertices are placed automatically based on the contrast in the image.

[@wo0dy]

CAll me stupid, but you should 100% make a video on how you did that LA at the end, to get it to track. I have been searching for hours for a way to get text on a surface track and nobody seems to do it anywhere, this was so clear! Thankyou!

[@Hdhead]

No, you call me stupid, I already showed how to track the LA to the face in this video. I don't get it. BTW, if you're not on V18 and still want to track stuff to faces, check out planar tracker video in my channel. In some cases a planar tracker is all you need.

[@colinmason7398]

Actually you can do two layers in one surface tracker node, just add a Layer Mixer in between and it should solve the issue

[@jmalmsten]

Yeah, I too was wondering why he didn't merge the two nodes before piping them into the surface tracker

[@marshallross3373]

Pretty slick. Thanks for sharing.

[@Lowkeh]

Oh, I'm glad to see that DaVinci is delving into mesh/surface tracking as well.
I wonder if its capabilities and results will be comparable to BorisFX Mocha Pro's _PowerMesh_ and the AE/DaVinci-plugin _Lockdown._

[@carlomacchiavello]

It’s first iteration beta of mesh tracking, and work fine, mocha and lockdown do more different things (I use both, mocha from 18 years), but I’m very happy from first results with resolve surface tracking.

[@infox8]

thank you the video, excellent tricks

[@jamied6166]

This is great, thanks!

[@CptCurk]

thank you for producing this content ! :)

[@outdoorsinontario3037]

This is so gr8!!! Can’t wait to try it tonight! Woo

[@Hdhead]

The tracker is also available in Fusion now. It's much easier to use it there then what I show in the video.

[@jaceksliwczynski6387]

Dziękuję! Zrobiłeś Świetny tutorial.

[@petergallizzi2040]

Excellent video, thanks!

[@_delleps_]

THANK YOU!

[@videomediaart]

Thanks for your video 🙏 it is a good tutorial 👍🏻

[@damienthorn2917]

wow, great video

[@SeanMiller318]

Great tutorial. 👍👍

[@jmalmsten]

Several of the new features are so obviously compositing centric. It kind of confuses me to no end why they aren't in fusion. I am guessing they may be using code/tech only available in the color page... But even so. They are so clearly compositing. Why not port them to Fusion from the start?

[@TheKumstis]

Fantastic!

[@adrianalback5085]

in studio 18.6 , when I drag in my matt image, it does not have the 5 buttons like your does and I have to add a mattcontrol node. not sure why...

[@AbdiPianoChannel]

Mocha came up the mesh trucker some years ago.

[@Hdhead]

Yes. And other tools have it too.

[@dy6079]

This is just like mocha!

[@Hdhead]

But built in.

[@dy6079]

@@Hdhead seems a lot quicker process than adobe.

[@lordlem]

For the PNG file that you made in photoshop (the scratches) did you create it at scale with the video as a reference? Whenever I do this I end up having to re-scale whatever I am dropping into the composite. Also do you know if this will work with an actual PSD file instead of a PNG and honor the transparent BG in the PSD file?

[@Hdhead]

Yes, I painted it on a couple of clean layers above a freeze frame of her face.

[@Photovintageguy]

I guess you could also animate the icon, or pump in a video from fusion.

[@Hdhead]

Yes, that is correct. I did a tear drop test animated in Fusion. There is an alpha setting in the tracker that instructs it to use alpha from each frame. The default setting is alpha from the first frame only, I think.

[@robot-2704]

@@Hdhead I think you can. Go to the Results tab and under "Overlay / Alpha" change "First frame" to "Each frame" and it will use each frame of the second input.

[@referencetom1276]

Do you know if this can be used somehow for facial motion tracking? Great tutorial!

[@Hdhead]

What specifically do you mean by facial motion tracking? Could you describe what kind of effect you're after?

[@planet_asylum9059]

is this only available in studio? when I try it in free i get a giant watermark

[@Hdhead]

If you're getting a burn-in it's likely a Studio version only feature.

[@kobiohanna]

Moch pro mesh tracker ...

[@SereneBobcat]

So strange that this is not in the fusion page, Are they planning to merge/consolidate Fusion into the Color page eventually?

[@Hdhead]

I have no idea. I hope so.

[@markdonald5919]

thank you but there is no this effect in free version ((((

[@Hdhead]

Oh, that's too bad. I don't have the free version and never can remember what's missing in it.

[@insertanynameyouwant5311]

gotta ask, why do your color wheels look bigger and somewhat cleaner, is it a different theme or what? I like it

[@Hdhead]

No idea, that's just what they look like in 18 on my windows machine.

[@insertanynameyouwant5311]

@@Hdhead this man also runs 18 in his video, and that`s how it looks on my computer as well th-cam.com/video/-bKMAnelJpY/w-d-xo.html

[@blender_wiki]

New 18 wheel look

[@JoeBusic]

Resolve is made originally for 2,5k resolution. That resolution will make the color wheels bigger. Give or take... :) Resolution and scale influence UI significantly.

[@TechDisruption]

I tried it but it wouldn't do the tracking on 2 different clips.

[@Hdhead]

One word. Beta.

[@quickpickle]

Wasnt this possible in davinci 17 also? I think i remember trying it.

[@Hdhead]

It's a new feature BMD announced for V18 a couple of weeks ago.

[@adambyggmastar8939]

Is this available for the free version aswell?

[@Hdhead]

I'm not sure. I suspect it is available.

[@rubinbesureis9943]

Do you think this could potentially be used as deep fake by overlaying a face with someone else's face with this technique?
Let me know your thoughts.

[@Hdhead]

Probably yes to some limited extent. But this is not anything like deep fakes. There is no machine learning aspect to this.

[@rubinbesureis9943]

@@Hdhead lovely. Thanks for your reply.

[@williamcousert]

Can the new Surface Tracker be used to duplicate the aging effect flomotion did with Mocha Pro a couple years ago?

[@Hdhead]

I don't know that effect.

[@williamcousert]

@@Hdhead m.th-cam.com/video/CT-qI83rbGU/w-d-xo.html

[@jasonavila_camOP_DP_Actor]

Is this in the free version or only the paid version of Davinci resolve 18?

[@Hdhead]

I used the paid version for the tutorial. I don't know if this tool is in the free version but I suspect it is.

[@flipnap2112]

I dont believe its in the free version.

[@driesalkemade]

Amber heard, are you watching this?

[@benargee]

That timing tho.

[@Mimeniia]

OMG deep fakes are getting scarier.

[@pedroarruda7878]

Sorry but, first, try to improve your sound quality.

[@Hdhead]

Pedro man, you're killing me. I just bought a $200 microphone and used it on this one. People have been complaining about pops and sibilance on my older videos where I used a headset. What can I improve? I know next to nothing about audio production.

[@ABlackbirdCalledSue]

@@Hdhead To be honest, it sounds good to me. The levels may be a tad low, but your voice sounds clear to me. I hear a bit of background noise, but nothing overly distracting.

[@Hdhead]

@@ABlackbirdCalledSue Thanks for the feedback.

[@referencetom1276]

@@Hdhead I have listened with a 300 euro worth Sennheiser headset. Your sound quality is great, clean. Pedro must be one of those audiophile guys, who seam cannot be satisfied no matter what :)

[@blender_wiki]

@@Hdhead mico sound very good but your voice is a bit distorted maybe your gain is too high or your micro is too closd and try to export in TH-cam lufs standard level. If you dont know much about sound get iZotope Rx ozone Is doing a great job mastering automatically for people without sound experience.

[@badGamr]

For the PNG file that you made in photoshop (the scratches) did you create it at scale with the video as a reference? Whenever I do this I end up having to re-scale whatever I am dropping into the composite. Also do you know if this will work with an actual PSD file instead of a PNG and honor the transparent BG in the PSD file?

[@Hdhead]

There is no harm in scaling as long as you're reducing in size, but yes, I did paint them in separate layers atop the first frame of that clip in Photoshop. The resulting frames were the same aspect ratio, and same resolution as the clip.

[@badGamr]

@@Hdhead Thanks Igor!

[@DGVFX]

Great result, can it be used with a video layer instead of a png? For example blood driping from the cut.

[@Hdhead]

@@DGVFX Yes. I did another test with a rolling teardrop.

[@badGamr]

@@Hdhead I tried it with a video as the ext matte element and while it worked it did not play the ext matte video. It just used the first frame of the video. Is there a trick to get the ext matte video to play?