If you are finding it difficult to multitask certain things at the same time you may find it helpful to make keybind shortcuts so you can do them at the push of a button instead. If you find yourself doing the same sequence of inputs week after week, it is helpful to know that you can set evens to trigger after each other. Using shortcuts and triggers can make things a lot easier during a live production. Please enjoy this video walkthrough on how to use them or read on for text instructions.
A Shortcut is when you set a global instruction in vmix to make a specific action happen when you hit a chosen key or button. A Trigger is when you set instructions so that something happens at the same time something else does, like a video or countdown ending or whenever you bring up the camera etc.
To set a shortcut begin by going into settings at the top right corner of vmix. In the menu on the left side of the window, chose shortcuts, fourth from the bottom. Choose Add, to make a new shortcut. Make sure that whatever device you want to use for your hotkey is plugged in; if you do not have a specific device for this your keyboard works just fine. Where it says Key/Control select the Find button. When the window opens, click the key on your keyboard or device that you want to use for the shortcut and it will show in the window. Click OK. Now we are going to assign the task. There are lots of options here; it can put a title on an overlay, start a countdown timer, move what’s in the preview over to the production window, mute an audio input, or interact with any other input type in a variety of ways. Explore your options and think about what actions you have trouble doing quickly or do frequently. The Function dropdown menu and selects what action you want this shortcut to do and the Input dropdown will choose the input it interacts with so chose the combination that does what you need it to. Make sure you give this shortcut a title so that it will save in vmix properly. You can also give it a description if it will help you stay organized, but that is optional. Select OK and you should see your shortcut listed on the table! You can make as many shortcuts as you need, and even assign multiple actions to the same key to have things happen at the same time, such as bringing the countdown timer on screen and starting the countdown.
Now, let’s set up a trigger. Go to the input that will trigger the action and select the gear and select the Triggers section from the side menu. Here you can tell the input what you want it to do in response to something happening, such as ‘on completion go to this specific video’ or ‘when this camera comes up, wait 2 seconds and put a title overlay on’. There are three menus to fill to make your trigger, first what event you want to cause the trigger, then what function it should perform, and what other input it should interact with. So if you want a video to play after the countdown finishes, you would put ‘on completion fade to video input’. Next, fill in how quickly it should transition and if you would like a delay in milliseconds. A second is 1000 milliseconds so 500 is half a second and 2000 is two seconds. Now just click add and you will see your trigger script in the menu. You can then go to another video and do a similar thing, using this to chain a whole sequence of events together if needed.
This is something that can really help make things easier if you can get the hang of it. Start with some simple things and go from there! Happy Streaming and God bless.
