I\u2019m going to start with the disclaimer: this process involves a number of wonky settings on your computer and isn\u2019t something that runs smoothly \u201cout of the box\u201d with a single click, nor is it an officially supported feature of either Hubs or Zoom. However, if you\u2019re interested in upping your video meetings by appearing as an avatar in a virtual world, and you like messing around with applications and settings, read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve worked on virtual world software for the past 4 years, and I feel way more comfortable, generally, interacting in a virtual space as an avatar. Despite having a painstakingly (and lovingly) camera setup for my video calls, complete with dedicated desk key light and DSLR \u201cwebcam\u201d, I\u2019m increasingly finding that I prefer to be grounded in a virtual space when I\u2019m taking virtual calls. I wrote more about that for the Mozilla Mixed Reality blog, which you can read about here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing is, a lot of people aren\u2019t ready to replace their video calls with virtual world meetings, and that\u2019s A-OK, because now I have a way to join them without being on camera myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At a high level, here\u2019s how I\u2019m setting up my computer to stream my Hubs avatar into Zoom:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I initially installed software to create virtual audio devices so I could stream my desktop video into Hubs with audio playing. I\u2019m using VB-Audio Virtual Cable<\/a> , which adds one virtual audio input and one virtual audio output to my computer. There are other software applications that I\u2019ve been told do this more effectively or easily, but for now, this is the one I installed and I\u2019m stubborn, so it\u2019s the one that I\u2019m sticking with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I go into a Hubs room to stream into a video application, I set my microphone to use my physical mic input and change my system audio output to be my virtual audio output device. This means that I can\u2019t actually directly hear what\u2019s happening in the room on that tab (I really should check out those other software applications that allows me to virtually mix sources) but I don\u2019t need to for this first test, so the limited setup I have now is serving my needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Zoom, I then set my microphone input to be the desktop audio. Be warned that this means that if you don\u2019t have system notifications or application notifications silenced, those are going to come from your microphone too, so make sure that you\u2019re keeping this quiet as needed. I turn all this audio off anyway, but you can anticipate it being annoying if you\u2019re not careful. Then, I switch my Zoom output only to using my physical headphones, so I can hear whatever is happening on the call. If I had a virtual mixer, I could hear audio from both the Hubs room and my Zoom call, but that\u2019s something to tackle in a future post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, so audio is one part of the setup. Let\u2019s talk about the video setup. If you have separate monitors, this might be easier for you (I have an ultrawide monitor, which works great, but after this experiment I\u2019m feeling a lot more likely to invest in a better window management system, let me tell you.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way that I\u2019m doing this is to set up two tabs in Hubs, one that acts as the camera and one that acts as \u201cme\u201d in the call. They face each other uncomfortably close and then I use OBS to set up the shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OBS allows me to set up a scene that can be streamed out of the application and detected as a virtual webcam feed. You can arrange your scene however you like – I set it up so my avatar appears to be sitting in front of a webcam (head and shoulders up) and then stream out to video applications like Zoom and Hangouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the part where having separate monitors can be helpful. Let\u2019s be realistic, at this point in my setup, I\u2019ve got any number of Firefox windows and tabs open, so window management is critical. Once you start streaming out as a virtual webcam feed, you essentially have a portable avatar to take around with you to your meetings. Once you have the basic setup in place that successfully routes your camera and audio into a tool like Zoom, you can really get into the fun stuff. For the examples above, I started by streaming an entire room into Zoom, but with the virtual background feature of Zoom, it\u2019s possible to do some pseudo-AR type video calls where your avatar seems to be streaming from your own living room, in front of the golden gate bridge, or in front of any arbitrary video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To do this, I use my regular setup described above, but instead of being in a virtual room and broadcasting out the entire space, I go into a virtual \u201cgreen screen\u201d studio, where I position my actor avatar in front of a green wall and set up my camera view so that the avatar and green screen are the only things in the space. From there, in OBS, it\u2019s just a matter of enabling the virtual background and selecting \u201cI have a green screen\u201d! Then, the world is your oyster. In the image above, I used my webcam to take a picture of my usual background, and superimposed the avatar over it<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you need to green screen out something from a Hubs room, here’s my streaming room that I use for this: https:\/\/t.co\/bjMBYeTbaO<\/a>\u2014 Liv Erickson (@misslivirose) April 23, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n You can click the link to the Streaming Room scene in the tweet above to get a copy of the streaming room and remix it, or use it as-is to create a room for yourself! If you give this a try, please share your results \u2013 I\u2019d love to see what you come up with!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Virtual Audio Devices<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
OBS Studio with VirtualCam<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Then, when you\u2019re joining your next video call, jump in and choose your virtual camera instead of your physical one, and you, too, can delight everyone with something entirely unexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\nA Virtual Green Screen<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
So, why do all of this?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n