{"id":22,"date":"2020-03-31T21:48:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T21:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/?p=22"},"modified":"2020-11-05T21:54:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T21:54:22","slug":"green-screen-webcam-for-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/green-screen-webcam-for-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Screen Webcam For \u00a35"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Amaze your friends and irritate your work colleagues by setting up your own custom video background to webcam calls for a total outlay of \u00a35!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Commercial software is out there which will attempt to extract your image and replace the background \u2013 but it\u2019s (a) expensive to buy and (b) demanding on the processor. Far cheaper to go old-school and use <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chroma_key\">chroma keying<\/a> \u2013 this will enable you to use open source software to replace your background, and seems to run fine on my pre-i3 box which I got off eBay for \u00a350 a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Get Green Screen Fabric<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Search eBay for \u201cgreen screen fabric\u201d. You should be able to buy 1\u00d71.6m \/ 3x5ft fabric for around \u00a35 \u2013 larger amounts will cost more correspondingly but I managed to get it working with this size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can jury-rig a way to hang it behind you (my own solution involves a stepladder, mop pole, g-clamp and 4 large paperclips) or buy a backdrop stand for around \u00a320 more (search eBay for \u201cphotography backdrop stand\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Install Open Broadcaster Software<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is free. Go here: <a href=\"https:\/\/obsproject.com\/\">Open Broadcaster Software project<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Install the OBS-VirtualCam Plugin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is also free. Go here: <a href=\"https:\/\/obsproject.com\/forum\/resources\/obs-virtualcam.539\/\">OBS VirtualCam Plugin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Set up ChromaKey output based on your camera feed, and make that available as a virtual camera<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The basics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Set up a profile with 3 sources \u2013 your webcam, your microphone (for audio) and a media source (which should be below your webcam in the layering order).<\/li><li>On the webcam, right-click, pick \u201cFilters\u201d and add \u201cEffect Filter\u201d of \u201cChroma Key\u201d. You may need to tweak the settings slightly to get a clear image<\/li><li>On the media source, set up whatever you want. Don\u2019t worry if it\u2019s wider than the camera.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some more detailed instructions (the latter includes how to make the output available as a camera):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/streamshark.io\/blog\/chroma-key-software-live-streaming\/\">https:\/\/streamshark.io\/blog\/chroma-key-software-live-streaming\/<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/broadcast.gg\/custom-webcam-output-with-obs-virtualcam\">https:\/\/broadcast.gg\/custom-webcam-output-with-obs-virtualcam<\/a>\/<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. Pick your background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both static backgrounds and videos are possible by setting them up in OBS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amaze your friends and irritate your work colleagues by setting up your own custom video background to webcam calls for a total outlay of \u00a35! Commercial software is out there which will attempt to extract your image and replace the background \u2013 but it\u2019s (a) expensive to buy and (b) demanding on the processor. Far &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/green-screen-webcam-for-5\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Green Screen Webcam For \u00a35&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthew-morris.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}