How to control vMix layers with shortcuts.

vmix has the ability to add multiple layers of content to your scene without using overlays just like these but sometimes you may need to turn off a layer or switch the content in a layer to something else or move the content to another position this can be tricky to do live so we have shortcuts dedicated to making the process a bit easier [Music] welcome i'm heath from vmix and today i'll be showing you how to use shortcuts to control layers in your production just like the earlier demonstration before we go further you might be asking why use layers when i can use vmix overlay channels for adding content to my scene well yes we do recommend using overlay channels for content that you want to use temporarily or want to remain visible when you switch between scenes but if your content is typically only needed for a specific scene or you have a large amount of content to add you can save up using those overlay channels and use layers instead most editions of vmix have four overlay channels but every scene can have 10 layers added very easily in fact you can have a lot more than 10 layers with a simple trick that i'll touch on later for now let's jump into vmix and set up a layered scene and then set up a few shortcuts to control those layers here we are in the vmix interface if this looks a little bit overwhelming you can check out some of our introductory videos to get a feel for what vmix does and how it works i've put some helpful links in the description if this is you so here you can see that i've already added a few inputs to my production and now i want to add these inputs as layers to my own camera input to do this i click on the settings gear icon on my camera input and then i'm presented under the layers multi-view tab with 10 potential layers to add inputs to so from here i can add the lake video for example and that immediately adds the layer directly over the top of my layer so i can go to edit and from here i can zoom that layer down and then move it into a position that i like it i can then go back to layers and i can add another one such as my logo here i can edit and there we go i've prepared that already to be in the bottom left now back here you'll remember that i mentioned that you can have more than 10 layers and the reason for that is you can create a layered input and bring that in as a layer here this is called nesting layers and we do talk about it in one of our layer videos so i'll make sure that i link that in the description so now we know how to add layers and how to position the layers now it's time to add a shortcut so that we can perhaps turn one of these layers on and off so we'll use a device such as one of these devices here but you could use your keyboard just as easily so we'll use a midi controller to start with this is the apc mini what i'm going to do is i'm going to set up this button here because it's in the top right to turn on and off my top right layer input so i'll go to settings and from here i'll go to shortcuts i'll click on add i'll find that button there we go it's been found by me holding it down i'll click ok i'll go to the function section and i'll search for layer on off there it is there layer on off now a little while ago we made some name changes in vmix so they're now called layers but in the past they were called something else therefore we have some legacy function names and we've got our modern names that use layers so for this one we've got layer on off but the legacy name is multi-view overlay throughout this demonstration i'll be using the modern terms and not the legacy names so i've selected that as the function and now i'll apply it to my camera input and i'll provide an index and the index is the numbered layer from the layer list that you saw before so this is layer one so i'm now applying an on off button for layer one so now when i press this you'll watch my layer turn off and when i press it again you'll watch it turn back on easy as a special known if you're using this function keep in mind that you're not actually removing the contents of the layer you're just changing whether the layer is visible or not this means two things one the content is still using your pc's processing resources even if the content isn't actually showing on screen and two if the layer is off and you change the contents in the layer to something different you just need to remember to turn that layer back on so that you can see the change so now that we know how to position layers and turn them on and off it's time to look at how to take any input and put it into any layer position in our scene and then switch that content with another input an example of this would be a news program where the news anchor has a screen with content that switches from one story to the next story to do this we can use the set layer function also called the set multi-view overlay function i'll now show you a few ways that you can use this function the first is a simple approach if you only have a few inputs that you might want to switch about and the latter options are a bit more involved for this demonstration i'm going to use an x-keys controller now i've already put some labels on these two buttons in the top right hand corner because that's where i've positioned my layer so let's set up the bs button first so i go to settings i go to shortcuts again add again find hold down the b's button okay while holding i go to function i search for set layer there it is there i apply it to the camera input and then i put in the index and the input the index is the layer number and the input is the input that we want to replace that layer so that is input five which is bs okay we click okay and from here when i press the b's button we should see this layer switch and there we go and i'll just quickly set up a second shortcut to return it to the lake so i'll hold down the lake button click ok go to the function click on set layer there it is apply it to the camera it's still layer one but it's input four that's the like input okay and okay so now we can switch between the leg and back to the bs now this next method is a more complex method and uses a dynamic shortcut function called set dynamic input if you want to know more about dynamic shortcuts you'll find a link in the description to one of our videos that goes through this topic in detail but for now all you need to know is that set dynamic input specifies the input number of your choosing you can then use the set layout function we used before to select the layer that you would like that input number to be positioned in this means pressing two buttons one to set the input and one to set the position this is a traditional switching approach and offers a lot of flexibility but also requires more button presses for this next demonstration we're going to use the x keys again but this time you'll see that i've changed the labels on the buttons to reflect inputs along the bottom and then various locations for those inputs to go along the top now before we set up any shortcuts we need to go into the settings and position these layers to reflect these buttons and to do that rather than going to edit like before we have some templates that we provide in vmix that speed the process up so if i scroll to the bottom i can select this layout right here by clicking on it and now each of the layers 1 through 9 are positioned in these quadrants i'll show that by putting something into input 6 which is the middle right let's put the lake there and there we go so i'll turn that off now and now it's time to set up the shortcuts so now from here we can go up to settings shortcuts again and we can create some new shortcuts we'll add the dynamic shortcuts first that will reference these various inputs so i'll click on find and i'll start with the logo i'm holding the logo key down and clicking ok going here typing in dynamic and from here i can select set dynamic input 1 and for this i'm setting the input to be the logo input which happens to be input six okay now for the next one we will find the like button okay yet again dynamic set dynamic input one and for that the lake is input four okay and finally find the bs okay set dynamic input one and the b's are input five okay so now we have our dynamic shortcuts and now it's time to add some positions so we'll go to add again we'll find and let's start with position top right i'll hold that down click ok and for this we use set layer again just like we did before but this time our index will be position three because that's the top right of that three by three box that i showed you before and our input will be dynamic one there we go and i'll click ok and so now if i click ok if i press the top right button it will fire whichever of these buttons i've pressed most recently because that will be the dynamic input set so let's start with the lake i'll press like and now i'll press the top right and there we go we've brought the lake into the top right of my scene and you could do the same with any of these buttons by setting them up and that way when you fire a button like the logo you can send it to any of the positions but we've only set up this one so i'll click it now there we go we've switched to vmix now imagine if we had 20 inputs instead of just these three and wanted to use them with all nine different layer positions you might start to realize that to have the full flexibility of adding any input to any of the nine layer positions will require a lot of buttons and many devices just don't have enough so as a final option for those using an elgato stream deck you might find this alternative a good middle ground between the first method and the second the reason it's only relevant to the stream deck is because this device has a built-in folder feature that we can take advantage of the stream deck requires a vmix plugin to work with vmix let me show you how to set that up first so if we open up the stream deck software from here we need to go to the store by clicking on this and then from there typing in vmix from here we can install the plugin now once that's installed that gives us access to shortcut buttons that we can apply to our keys you can see that this happens live these can be used straight away in vmix but we're going to set up shortcuts inside folders and i'll show you why soon so by right clicking on a button we can create a folder here we can change what the folder looks like and so that means that we can select something like a picture in picture for a top left now if we go into that folder add some shortcuts and give them some labels logo lake and bees now we can use this button and access these buttons as inputs in our vmix production so i'll go back and i'll make a copy of this and i'll paste it right here and from here we'll change that icon to be the top right so now i've got a top left shortcut folder and a top right shortcut folder so we can close this down now because we now have buttons ready to set shortcuts up on so we'll go to settings go to shortcuts we'll click on add and we'll find a button so firstly we need to go into the folder and from here let's click on logo okay so that's now applied the logo button to that shortcut we'll set the function to be set layer like we've used in the past apply that to the camera input and because its index is the top left that's item number one and the input for the logo is input six okay and we'll add one more add find will hold down the lake okay apply set layer to the camera input position one input number four is the lake okay so now we have two buttons set up so if i take this back now if i wanted to send one of those two inputs into the top left position i would click on the top left position folder and then from there i would select logo for example and there we go it's popped up in the top left or we could switch that to the lake and back to the logo the last shortcut that i'll mention is the move layer function also called the move multi-view overlay function move layer will take all of the layer information including the position of the layer and the input associated with the layer and swap it with another layer this means that the inputs on screen will not move their positions but their display order will swap so what was in the foreground before will now be in the background if you have two layers in the same position this will mean that one will be hidden behind the other and this function will swap them revealing the other this is a function that is really needed on the fly so i won't demonstrate setting up the shortcut but with your understanding of set layer i think you'll work out how to use it if you find a need for it just be sure to use it carefully because it will overwrite your position settings for layers and this is especially important for virtual sets now at this moment some of you might be going wait did he just say virtual sets yep i sure did you may not realize this but our virtual sets operate just like layered inputs so that means all of the shortcuts we've used in this tutorial can be used on virtual sets too but that doesn't mean they all should be see the layers of virtual sets have a very specific display order and often have special position parameters that can't be moved because of this we don't recommend using move layer on virtual sets but set layer is a very useful shortcut for them let me quickly show you an example before we finish up so i'm going to go to the add input section and i'm going to add a virtual set i'll select this one and click ok now i'll go to setup and i'll show you that here are our various layers and you can see they're numbered one through to ten i'll put myself into screen one that's camera and in screen 2 i'll put the link there we go what you'll find is if you go to settings you can see now that i've got in layer 3 my camera and in layer 5 the lake so i can use the same set layer features to switch layer 5 to something else such as the bs and here you'll see that switch to be the bees input so it works exactly the same right oh they're the main ways that you can control your layers in vmix using shortcuts if you want to know more about vmix layers or shortcuts or any other vmix related topic you can visit our website at vmix.com check out our training videos help files and knowledge base articles you can also send a support request from there one thing i would ask is that you don't ask support questions in the comments below because it's very hard for us to provide you with good help there and that's it i hope this video has been helpful and left you thinking about good ways to use and control layers in your future vmix productions i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: vMix

Views: 7,612

Keywords: vMix, live streaming software, webcasting, live video production, video switcher, live production software, live streaming

Id: CdNDjF346Y8

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 20 2021