Swap the lead in a finished AI episode: H3 Max Recast for 20 s

To change who plays the lead in a finished episode, send the video and one to four photos to H3 Max Recast on Sume. It keeps the source's motion, camera, cuts and sound and swaps the people. A 20-second source costs $7.50 at 768p, the default, and $11.25 at 1080p, at the billed rate of the list price times 1.25.

What it takes

The arithmetic

Billing follows the source length rounded up, so a 20-second episode costs 20 x $0.375 = $7.50 at 768p and 20 x $0.5625 = $11.25 at 1080p. A 30-second source, the maximum, is $11.25 or $16.88. Those are the prices for one pass, and a failed attempt or a second try is a second charge.

As a season line, ten episodes of 20 seconds recast at 768p would be $75.00, and the same at 1080p $112.50.

Prepare the source

The no-shot-over-15-seconds rule is the one that surprises people. If your episode has a single 25-second take, cut it into two shots first, because the model needs cuts to handle. Inspect the file with the video-inspect endpoint to see its length, and trim extra seconds off the end so you do not pay for them.

Choose the photos

• Use one clear, front-facing photo per person you want in the shot.
• Match the number of photos to the number of people being replaced, up to four.
• Use only people who have agreed to appear, and do not use a real person's likeness for a character without consent.
• Compare the first still of the result with the original before approving, since a swap changes the face but keeps everything else.

Recast or re-render

If the lead is only wrong in some shots, re-rendering those shots with a reference image is often cheaper than recasting a whole 20-second episode. Recast is the right tool when the performance, camera move and sound are already right and only the face is not. For your own avatar in a short cameo, the Face Swap route is the other option.