Customised background for Microsoft Teams
March 20, 2020 7:31 AM Subscribe
I want to add a fake background to Microsoft Teams video calls. I want a greenscreen-like effect, where I can put an arbitrary image/video behind myself to (shoddily) fake that I'm in anther location.
To be clear, this is for a cheap joke so it doesn't need to be convincing; to some extent, the more obviously fake it is the funnier it will be.
I don't think I can do this in Teams itself, but is there some software that will e.g. take my webcam input, add this effect, and present the output stream as if it's coming from a webcam that Teams will accept as an input?
I'm on Windows 10 or, if Teams can work on Linux, Linux Mint.
To be clear, this is for a cheap joke so it doesn't need to be convincing; to some extent, the more obviously fake it is the funnier it will be.
I don't think I can do this in Teams itself, but is there some software that will e.g. take my webcam input, add this effect, and present the output stream as if it's coming from a webcam that Teams will accept as an input?
I'm on Windows 10 or, if Teams can work on Linux, Linux Mint.
My colleague did this. He said he used Open Broadcast Software (OBS) and ran the output into Teams as a virtual camera. I did some cursory looking into OBS and it seemed beyond my novice skills, but it’s definitely possible.
posted by oxisos at 8:57 AM on March 20, 2020
posted by oxisos at 8:57 AM on March 20, 2020
Pretty sure this is something you can do directly from Teams now. I was in a meeting yesterday and everyone was bluring their backgrounds and replacing it with images.
There's a press release here that shows it in action.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:04 AM on March 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
There's a press release here that shows it in action.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:04 AM on March 20, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh scratch that, I guess I just saw bluring, it looks like the image feature doesn't come out until later this year.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:05 AM on March 20, 2020
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:05 AM on March 20, 2020
Best answer: You can do this on Windows pretty easily, and without spending any money. If you use good software and fiddle with the lighting a bit, it actually comes out shockingly well.
This is a blog post from a couple of years ago about how to do it. There are a couple things that have changed since this post, though. For instance, the UI in OBS isn't exactly as the post outlines.
OBS is an open source app that's like a photoshop for video streams. This is the software that will take your camera input, subtract out some color, and replace it with a video, image, etc. OBS itself will not show up as a camera in Teams though. For that you will need to add OBS VirtualCam.
You can also use an all-in-one commercial package like Wirecast, but it's very spendy. It's a little more user friendly and all in one, though. Also there's a free 30 day trial.
There are a number of gimmicky camera apps that have a chroma key feature but the quality is much, much worse than OBS, and on some of them, you have to pay few bucks to unlock it (e.g. ManyCam).
For anyone else who comes across this post that uses macOS, I haven't figured out a way to do this on the Mac that's good and cheap. The blog post I linked above no longer works as security changes in more recent versions of macOS no longer allow for the Syphon injection trick to work. You could probably disable SIP and get it to work. OBS works fine, there's just no virtual camera plugin for mac.
If you really want to get this to be good, get yourself a cheap green screen backdrop. Then you're gonna want to fiddle with the lights so there aren't really any visible shadows, etc.
As for videos to use as your new backdrop, I've had good results with jellyfish.
posted by jeb at 10:24 AM on March 20, 2020 [4 favorites]
This is a blog post from a couple of years ago about how to do it. There are a couple things that have changed since this post, though. For instance, the UI in OBS isn't exactly as the post outlines.
OBS is an open source app that's like a photoshop for video streams. This is the software that will take your camera input, subtract out some color, and replace it with a video, image, etc. OBS itself will not show up as a camera in Teams though. For that you will need to add OBS VirtualCam.
You can also use an all-in-one commercial package like Wirecast, but it's very spendy. It's a little more user friendly and all in one, though. Also there's a free 30 day trial.
There are a number of gimmicky camera apps that have a chroma key feature but the quality is much, much worse than OBS, and on some of them, you have to pay few bucks to unlock it (e.g. ManyCam).
For anyone else who comes across this post that uses macOS, I haven't figured out a way to do this on the Mac that's good and cheap. The blog post I linked above no longer works as security changes in more recent versions of macOS no longer allow for the Syphon injection trick to work. You could probably disable SIP and get it to work. OBS works fine, there's just no virtual camera plugin for mac.
If you really want to get this to be good, get yourself a cheap green screen backdrop. Then you're gonna want to fiddle with the lights so there aren't really any visible shadows, etc.
As for videos to use as your new backdrop, I've had good results with jellyfish.
posted by jeb at 10:24 AM on March 20, 2020 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: jeb's solution worked perfectly, thanks!
The linked blog post is a little out of date; at least on Windows, it's easier than it sounds, and there's no messing around with Server/Client configurations. Briefly:
I installed OBS (latest version for Windows) and then OBS Virtualcam. Then I went to the blog linked by jeb and followed the steps in the blog until 2f. Then instead of using a static image I added a "browser" source and chose an instance of Chrome with a youtube video running, and resized it to take up the whole background of my shot. (Using a local video file or static image also worked as expected. hurrah!)
Both Skype and Teams accept the virtual cam as an input, with one wrinkle. If I have OBS running and then launch any program that tries to use my webcam (Skype, Teams, etc), the new program just sees a black rectangle as the webcam feed, and the webcam image in OBS freezes. So I need to (i) Open OBS and start the virtualcam, (ii) launch Skype/teams and change the setting to the virtualcam instead of the webcam, then (iii) keeping Skype/Teams/etc open, close and re-open OBS with the virtualcam to unfreeze the input stream. Took me a few minutes to figure out, but only takes a few seconds to actually do.
My "greenscreen" is a sheet of green fabric I happened to have in my crafts stock, draped over a clothes drying rack and lit by a bright desk lamp. It's not professional quality, but it works remarkably well, and is easily good enough for a cheap gag.
posted by metaBugs at 12:31 PM on March 26, 2020
The linked blog post is a little out of date; at least on Windows, it's easier than it sounds, and there's no messing around with Server/Client configurations. Briefly:
I installed OBS (latest version for Windows) and then OBS Virtualcam. Then I went to the blog linked by jeb and followed the steps in the blog until 2f. Then instead of using a static image I added a "browser" source and chose an instance of Chrome with a youtube video running, and resized it to take up the whole background of my shot. (Using a local video file or static image also worked as expected. hurrah!)
Both Skype and Teams accept the virtual cam as an input, with one wrinkle. If I have OBS running and then launch any program that tries to use my webcam (Skype, Teams, etc), the new program just sees a black rectangle as the webcam feed, and the webcam image in OBS freezes. So I need to (i) Open OBS and start the virtualcam, (ii) launch Skype/teams and change the setting to the virtualcam instead of the webcam, then (iii) keeping Skype/Teams/etc open, close and re-open OBS with the virtualcam to unfreeze the input stream. Took me a few minutes to figure out, but only takes a few seconds to actually do.
My "greenscreen" is a sheet of green fabric I happened to have in my crafts stock, draped over a clothes drying rack and lit by a bright desk lamp. It's not professional quality, but it works remarkably well, and is easily good enough for a cheap gag.
posted by metaBugs at 12:31 PM on March 26, 2020
I ended up having to solve this problem in my work-from-home setup.
I arrived at more or less the same solution as jeb (OBS plus OBS VirtualCamera plugin), with the addition of XSplit VCam. The reason I added XSplit VCam was to do the background removal without having a physical green-screen for chroma key.
Caveat 1: XSplit VCam works better than it probably has any right to, but it likes an uncluttered, unmoving background and no strong backlightling. My first attempt was during daytime with windows behind me, and it did not yield good results. Moving to a location with a mostly-blank wall behind me and where I was lit from the front worked much better.
Caveat 2: Don't expect results to be as good as a high-quality chroma key setup.
Caveat 3: XSplit VCam costs money (about US$20 on sale). However, you can download and run it for free if you just want to see if it works in your setup -- it'll just have a watermark.
Note that if you just want a YouTube video or static image as your background, you can do that entirely within XSplit VCam, no OBS or VirtualCamera required. I'm using OBS because I need to show an application window with me as a tiny talking head in one corner.
posted by sourcequench at 1:30 PM on March 27, 2020
I arrived at more or less the same solution as jeb (OBS plus OBS VirtualCamera plugin), with the addition of XSplit VCam. The reason I added XSplit VCam was to do the background removal without having a physical green-screen for chroma key.
Caveat 1: XSplit VCam works better than it probably has any right to, but it likes an uncluttered, unmoving background and no strong backlightling. My first attempt was during daytime with windows behind me, and it did not yield good results. Moving to a location with a mostly-blank wall behind me and where I was lit from the front worked much better.
Caveat 2: Don't expect results to be as good as a high-quality chroma key setup.
Caveat 3: XSplit VCam costs money (about US$20 on sale). However, you can download and run it for free if you just want to see if it works in your setup -- it'll just have a watermark.
Note that if you just want a YouTube video or static image as your background, you can do that entirely within XSplit VCam, no OBS or VirtualCamera required. I'm using OBS because I need to show an application window with me as a tiny talking head in one corner.
posted by sourcequench at 1:30 PM on March 27, 2020
I discovered a method today that's even easier and also works for Mac users. Download Snap Camera and install it. Inside the app, choose your filter or custom background. Quit Teams, then open it back up again. Go into your device settings for your meeting and you should see that the dropdown menu for camera now has Snap Camera as a choice. So easy!!!
posted by oxisos at 2:47 PM on March 29, 2020
posted by oxisos at 2:47 PM on March 29, 2020
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I have not tried it myself, but I do see various people on the 'net saying it works with Teams.
posted by sourcequench at 7:47 AM on March 20, 2020