Beginner / Intermediate Guide to Stream Packages on vMix By Emily Cosson

Take inspiration from other live streams to work out what aspects work well and what can be improved to make your stream package highly engaging and entertaining for your viewers. To set-up my graphics, I planned my layouts into thirds, since pinball streams have three main camera inputs; the score screen, the playfield and player view. By planning the layouts with sketches, I was able to establish how to effectively present the most important information to the viewer within these thirds before continuing to create the graphics and layouts.

2. Creating Graphics & Layouts

To create vMix graphics, you can use the editing program that comes with vMix, GT Title Designer, or another editing program like Photoshop. GT Title Designer includes basic tools including shape and text tools however it does not include much stylisation options unlike Photoshop. With GT Title Designer, you can import the file as a PSD file so you can edit any text on the file within vMix which cannot be done with Photoshop files as the tools within the program are not compatible with GT Title Designer and vMix.

For the purpose of making my stream package highly stylised and engaging for viewers, I used Photoshop to create my graphics and imported the files as PNGs. Using my style guide, I formatted the graphic to my planned sketches within Photoshop. To enhance the text graphics for the viewers, I used the texture tool and added black borders to make the text pop from the purple background of my layouts.

After creating the graphics on Photoshop, export these as PNGs to import them into vMix. To make mixing overlays easier in vMix, export the background of the main graphic seperately from the information including the imagery and text, so you can adjust these easier as seperate overlays.

3. Creating Transition Stingers

To make your stream more professional and engaging for viewers, you can create and import stingers into vMix to play every time you transition between different scenes. To create a stinger, you need to import the transition as an Image Sequence rather than a MOV file. So, you can use any program to create your stingers as long as they can be exported as an Image Sequence. For my stream package, I utilised Adobe After Effects, following the tutorial below to create two seperate stinger transitions. The first being a long-form transition being 4 seconds, showing the APOC logo and the second being approximately 2 seconds for quicker transitions between scenes.

How to Make a Stinger Transition in After Effect - Tutorial by EdwardDZN (EdwardDZN, 2019)

4. Setting Up vMix Package

To import overlays and stinger transitions into vMix, use the Add Input tab. The inputs can be organised on the Settings of the inputs to help organise your work space on vMix and make it easier to find various inputs when broadcasting.

To mix overlays within vMix into one main scene, create a Blank Input and use the Layers tab to add seperate overlay inputs, sponsor icons and a background together into one scene. After creating my overlays in Photoshop with a purple background, I decided to add an animated background to make the scenes more engaging and entertaing for the viewers. After importing the MOV file of a royalty-free background (linked below), I selected the Loop tab under the Input so the video repeatedly played in the background of the overlays. The video settings were also adjusted in vMix to darken the shade of purple to match the style guide of this stream package.

After importing your stinger/s as an Image Sequence, use the Overlay settings to set them to play when pressing the Stinger button on vMix. In the Overlay settings, ensure the Efffect Duration matches the milliseconds of the transition length in the program it was created within. The Duration and Stinger Cut Point can be set as milliseconds or frames, I found setting the frame point easier as vMix presents the frame length when it is played on the preview screen. The Stinger Cut Point is the frame which the scene you are transitioning to cuts from the last, therefore make sure to set this frame to a point where the Stinger covers the entire screen so the viewer can not see the switch between the two scenes.

To enhance the professionalism and entertainment factors of the stream package, I also imported a copyright free background track to be played during holding and break screens on the broadcast.

Getting Ready For The Club Minimal Techno - by Panda Beats (Panda Beats, 2024)

5. Testing on Live Broadcast

When live broadcasting, it is important to note how the Audio Mixer works as you can control what audio is playing on your device and what is going out to the live broadcast. If the Audio symbol is green, it means the audio is active and can be heard on your system but when the M (stands for Main) symbol is green, it means the audio is also being sent to the live stream. It is important to distinguish both controls as it can be a useful tool if you are needing to communicate with commentators and do not want this audio to be sent out to the stream. As well, videos within a mixed Layer, automatically turn on audio to play when transitioned in. So, it is important to select and deselect M from audio inputs you do not want to be broadcasted so the correct audio from videos within the layers play once the scene transitions in (see below).

Since I did not use GT Title Designer to create the text titles on the graphics, I cannot edit these directly on vMix. Instead, I created multiple versions of the title and added them within the same scene within Layers. By doing this, the Layers can be unselected if I do not want them to appear on the scene graphic, so these can be easily toggled on and off during a stream to change the titles that appear on the fly whilst live streaming. To edit titles imported from GT Title Designer, simply right click on the imported title, click Title Editor, and replace the text with the new text you want to appear on the graphic.