If you’ve seen green screen work, you might be thinking that it looks very cool but a lot of work. Not to worry, simple green screening can be done right in vmix! If you don’t know what it means to use a green screen, it is simply making a solid background colour, usually but not always green, and making it invisible. This allows you to change the background into anything you want!
If you are doing camera-based green screen work, be sure that a solid colour is chosen; it doesn’t have to be green but make sure the speaker is not wearing it! Try and get as even and bright of lighting as possible, and keep the screen as smooth as possible if it is a cloth or other material.
Watch this video for a walkthrough of how to play with a green screen, or read on for text instructions.
Make sure you have a camera, or other input, with a solid colour in the background. On this input, click the gear, and go to the colour key option from the list on the left-hand side of the popup window. Click the little box that says colour key so it gets a check in it, then click the dropper in the middle. This will bring a close-up of this input up as a popup. use the dropper to select the colour in the background that you want to be rid of. If this is a camera, try not to click a part that is in shadow. Below there are settings for adjusting the tolerance of the colour selection, including a set of three presets labelled 1, 2, and 3. Clicking 2 will most likely remove the colour how you want, but if there are a lot of shadows or other problems so may have to chose another preset or play with the key sliders.
Now that you have an input with the background removed, you can use it in combination with other inputs however you wish! You can layer inputs on top of each other on the fly, as you would with a title, by using the numbers below the input preview (1-4) and put an image up then layer the green-screened on top with the 1. Rember that 1 is the top layer and 4 is the lowest layer if you are doing more than one at a time. Or you can start a multi-layer input that has everything you want together already lined up how you want. Make a blank input, go to multi-view, and add whatever layers you want and move them around so you are happy.
There are all kinds of ways you can get creative with a green screen! You can record someone inside for a good clean sound but put them outside so it looks bright and cheerful. Or by layering lyrics with the choir in different ways than just a box in the corner. It’s a great tool for putting a personal touch on your production.
Happy Steaming and God bless.
