vMix Virtual Set Tutorial

vMix has a unique and powerful way of handling virtual sets that both gives the user amazing creative control and strong technical capabilities like camera movement and reflections.

For this tutorial you will need a camera aimed at a greenscreen (or a clip of someone on greenscreen) and a video clip you will use for your b source (to put in the screens).

To add a virtual set go to Add Input and choose virtual sets. Click Browse and navigate to the folder containing the virtual set and angle you'd like to load and click Select Folder (the folder in question will be a name like A_Wide). You will see the folder selected next to the Browse button, next click OK. If you don't already have a virtual set from us there is a demo set by us available on vMix's website: http://www.vmix.com/purchase/products.aspx.

When your talent camera, screen clip, and virtual set are loaded your inputs list may look something like this.

Configuring a virtual set in vMix is fairly straightforward. Click the Setup button.

You will find 5 layers in the Layer dropdown indicating Background, Room, Screens, Talent, and Overlay. It's possible, depending on the set that you may not have all of these layers. Background is generally what you see out the window, making changing skylines easy. Room is the set itself and shouldn't need any adjustment. Screens in this case is going to be the clip you loaded to put into the screens.

With the Screens layer selected choose your clip from the list of inputs. You should see your clip pop into the screens in the set. Do the same thing with Talent only this time choose your greenscreen camera (or clip). Last is the Overlay layer, most likely a desk but possibly anything obstructing the talent.

Below are several buttons to reset any adjustments you might make to the set, whether a layer is visible, or export the set to a new folder. The Visible button can be useful to turn a set with a desk into a set without a desk.

Next we'll be making some changes to the green screen input. Click the gear icon in the lower right corner to bring up the input settings window.

Click Colour Key to bring up the chroma key settings and then click Auto Chroma Key. That should be all you have to do, it's pretty good.

Next click the Position Tab and adjust the crop settings to remove any parts of your shot that don't belong. X1 is the left side of the screen, Y1 is the top. X2 is the right side of the screen and Y2 is the bottom.

Close out the input settings.

The finished virtual set composite should be your two inputs seamlessly integrated into the virtual set complete with reflections and camera movement.