QACut

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Add your camera to a screen recording ​

For: a demo with a face on it: a product update for customers, a handover for a colleague, a pitch where the person matters as much as the screen.

A screen recording with nobody in it reads like documentation. Putting yourself in a corner of the frame makes it a person showing something, and it costs nothing at recording time, as long as you know you are in frame and can decide later where the bubble goes.

The flow ​

  1. Turn on Record camera in the tray's Studio section. It stays on until you turn it off.
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+R and drag the region. While you record, a live preview of your camera sits in a corner the region does not cover, so you know you are in frame.
  3. Do the demo. Ctrl+Space zooms in where the cursor is, and again to zoom out.
  4. Press Ctrl+Shift+R to stop. In the studio's inspector, set the camera bubble's size, corner and shape: circle or rounded, any corner, any size.
  5. Press Export….

What you get ​

An MP4 in the recording's folder with the camera bubble composited on top of the finished video, in the corner and at the size you chose, over the padded background and the rounded frame. The bubble is drawn by the same renderer as the preview, so it sits where you saw it sit.

Tips ​

  • The bubble is placed in the studio, not while recording. The corner and size you settle on apply to the whole video, and you can change your mind before every export.
  • Everything outside the region stays tinted while you record, and the camera preview lives in a corner outside the region, so the preview is never in the captured footage.
  • The camera bubble is the slow part of an export. Expect a few times real time at 1080p30 with it on.
  • Turn on Record microphone with it for narration; both are composited into the export.

How it works in detail · Download QACut