Question / Help How to Make Background Transparent?

avrona

Member
How do I make the actual capture background of OBS transparent, so then when I record it it is being picked up as a transparent rather than a solid background?
 

koala

Active Member
There is no place for a transparent "color" in the common video formats/encoders, so you have to pick and declare one of the existing colors as "transparent". For example some kind of green. Create an image filled with exactly this green and use this as bottom source in OBS. Now, videos you create have this green in places where you want it to be transparent.

In the app you want to use this video, you need a feature to convert this color to transparent. In OBS, you do this with the color key filter. Apply it to the media source where you play the video created above. It's somewhat similar to the green screen technique used in movie production. (In case of real green screens, you rather use chroma key filter instead of color key filter to allow for regions of different brightness of a actual green screen due to the lighting).

The color does not need to be green. Choose any color you like, preferable a color that isn't contained in the actual video, so you don't accidentally make parts of the video transparent you want not to be transparent.
 

mquiroz

New Member
Hello to all!

I have a question or problem. On the Windows version of OBS, when I click on Filters > there is no chromakey option, where can I find it. I am running version 23.2.1 (64 bit).

I would really appreciate all and any help to solve this problem.

Thanks
 

koala

Active Member
In the flters list, press the + at the bottom to add a desired filter. Chroma key is one of them. In case of a video capture device or media source, use the effect filters list, not the audio/video filters list.
 

JessicaDGJ

New Member
I have the same problem as mquiroz. Right click camera, filters, + but there is no Chroma key option. How do I get it?
Screenshot (144).png
 

JessicaDGJ

New Member
I just figured it out!! There is another +-^v (far) below the Effect Filters. I couldn't scroll, but had to resize my window and could access the correct + sign to select Chroma Key.
 

endsofttech

New Member
how about the color transparency % of the color still there you can just see through the background or the color source of your choice.
I want the blue color not to be a solid color but with 60% transparency. let me know if this possible.
1590367599530.png
 

JoeyDLV

New Member
how about the color transparency % of the color still there you can just see through the background or the color source of your choice.
I want the blue color not to be a solid color but with 60% transparency. let me know if this possible.
View attachment 56634
If you still haven’t figured it out. Click once on the screen to select the source of that blue window And on the bottom right (usually) a box with an image of 3 lines that resemble the look of like volume up or down sliders. Click on it and transparency will have its own slider right there.
You may have to double click I’m not 100% sure it’s a single so try both.
 

michaelc

New Member
I wish the program background could be transparent instead of black, for the purpose of using the output in other applications such as keying graphics over other videos.

Scenes have transparent backgrounds, so you can even use a dedicated NDI output of a scene that is transparent, but not the program. This is highly disappointing for me today.
 

krisrok

New Member
michaelc is right of course, it would be great to have a direct way to set the background transparency.

the dedicated ndi output helps when your source already is in the right format but in my case i wanted some advanced scene composition.

i just tinkered a bit and found a setup that works, so i wanted to document it here:
1. add a group
2. add a color source (leave it white)
3. add a luma key effect filter to the color source, set the luma max to 0 to make it fully transparent
4. add a dedicated ndi output filter to the group

now you can add everything else to the group. resizing the fully transparent background color source enables you to set the output's size.
 
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