**Mastering OBS Transitions with Track Matte**

OBS (Open Broadcasting Software) is an excellent tool for streaming and video production, offering a wide range of features to enhance the visual experience of your content. One of the most exciting developments in recent updates is the introduction of track matte, which allows for more complex and sophisticated transitions between scenes.

With track matte, you can create stunning transitions that seamlessly blend one scene into another, adding depth and visual interest to your streams or videos. The track matte feature enables you to separate a masked area from the rest of the scene, allowing you to apply different effects or colors to each section. This opens up endless possibilities for creative transition designs.

To get started with track matte, first ensure that your OBS version is updated to include this feature. When enabled, OBS will give you the option to invert the mask colors, so you can use the opposite if that's necessary for your work. The default setting is black to white, which I described in my previous video on media formats investigation. Since I already made and tracked my mask for the CRT, I simply made a new composition with white and black solids and copied my mask keyframes at the right time to the white solid.

Once it reaches a point where the whole scene is supposed to show Scene 2, not just the masked bit, another full-screen white solid will appear. Otherwise, if I let it push in to black light that, it'll cut back to Scene One for a few frames before the transition ends. This basic technique provides a great foundation for more complex transitions.

**Adding Transitions to Your Composition**

Now you need to put these in the same composition, either side-by-side with the stinger transition on the left and track matte on the right, or stacked with stinger on top. For a 1080p transition, this would either be 3840x1080 for side-by-side or 1920x2160 for stacked. Make sure the timing lines up, of course. This will allow you to experiment with different transition designs and see what works best for your content.

**Exporting and Previewing Your Transitions**

Once you're happy with your composition, export it out with alpha and add it to OBS. Enable track matte, choose the layout, invert colors if needed, and preview to make sure all is working smoothly. This will give you a final look at how your transitions will play back during a stream or video.

**More Possibilities and Future Developments**

What I have done here, while really cool, is honestly the low-hanging fruit of what can be done with this new feature. There's a ton more possibilities and I am very stoked to see what everyone comes up with. In my next video on this update, I'll show another way that your transitions can become more powerful.

**New Creators and YouTube Success**

You know what else I'm stoked for? New creators getting into streaming or YouTube to find a new career path or build an audience. For that, I recommend checking out Marques Brownlee's latest Skillshare course on YouTube Success. Skillshare is our sponsor for today's video and is an online learning community for creatives, where millions come together to take the next step in their creative journey.

Skillshare offers thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people on topics such as graphic design, photography, freelancing, music production - and, of course, video production. They even have classes from familiar faces, such as the new course on YouTube success from Marques Brownlee. It should really be on the top of your list.

Skillshare is for real, working creatives and lifelong learners who are never content being stuck with where they're at and always want to improve. That sounds like a lot of my viewers. It's curated specifically for learning, so there's no ads and they're always launching new premium classes, like MKBHD's. For less than $10 per month with an annual subscription, it's a fantastic deal - but if it's not good enough for ya, the first 1,000 people to sign up with my link in the description will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium.

**Conclusion and Final Thoughts**

Unfortunately despite what some comments had suggested on my media formats investigation video, this does NOT eliminate the need for alpha channel and hardware acceleration for stinger transitions. Hopefully they will one day enable chroma keying for stingers and save us some headache, but today is not that day. I'm showing another way that your transitions can become more powerful in the next video on this update, so stay tuned!

I'm EposVox, the stream professor. Hit the like button if you enjoyed this video, subscribe for more tech education and stream guides, and sound off in the comments with what transition ideas you come up with. See ya!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enStinger transitions are a great way to improve your production value for your live streams  and videos. Stinger transitions are a transition between two scenes where a visual of some  sort - an animated logo, text, or even just a shape in general - enters overtop the first scene  and (generally) fills the frame to hide the transition to the second scene. A new OBS update enhances those transitions by letting you mask certain areas,  combining it with the idea of a “luma matte” transition and can help make them even higher  quality in the future.Here’s an example.I’m EposVox the Stream Professor, and the v27 update for OBS Studio has just entered  beta. I’ve been covering a few of the updates in different videos - I’ll keep an updated  playlist linked in the description so you can keep up with all of my content on it.This update comes with a specific change for Stinger Transitions: Track Matte support.  Track Mattes are basically a way of indicating how a video file should  be masked between two video sources to act as an overlay - typically as a transition  between them. This is used in place of the normal transition point indicators, usually  by saying at what point in milliseconds or which frame in the animation is the transition point. The uses for transitions here actually go beyond what you might traditionally think of  for stinger transitions - that is when a graphic comes in and fills the frame to hide the cut  between two scenes - and allows you to do lots of cool transitions between two scenes that  actually still show the scenes transitioning. Here are some example track matte transitions.Track Mattes work by identifying the black areas as one of the clips  (say the scene you’re transitioning FROM) and the white areas as the other clip (or the scene you’re  transitioning TO). Then in editing software, you’d typically use a track  matte effect and specify which is which, overlay your clips and bam, transition. This differs from stinger transitions which use a graphic on an alpha channel transparent background  to pull in a graphic overtop the scene. Track Mattes don’t require alpha channels - they’re  a non-transparent video and the track matte process is what causes the transparency.  BUT to use them in conjunction with stingers here in OBS does require alpha for the stinger  side of the transition. So unfortunately, my recent investigation into which media  formats are best for media sources and stinger transitions still applies here.To use a track matte with a stinger transition in the new OBS update, add your stinger transition  and check “use Track Matte.” Now you don’t need to specify a frame or time to transition, as it will  follow the track matte. You do have the option of using separate stinger and track matte files, but  to keep them in sync, it’s best to put them in the same file. Let’s look at how I built my example.So for my example transition, I took my usual stinger transition of my CRT animation coming  in and filling the frame, but I tediously masked out the screen and another VHS animation  so that at a certain point it glitches to being transparent. What can I say, I love  torturing myself for these videos and the baby was watching The Wiggles and being good anyway. Now I have a stinger transition that has a window for the second scene to  show up in. While I COULD go on and export this out and set the usual transition point,  both the inside of the CRT and the outside would transition at the same time, which is  less cool.So instead, we need to build our track matte.  With these you need a masking animation of two colors: Black and white. Black indicates  scene 1 that you’re transitioning FROM, white indicates scene 2 that you’re transitioning TO. I will note here that OBS will give you the option to invert the mask colors so you can use  the opposite if that’s necessary for your work, but the default is black to white, as I described. So since I already made and tracked my mask for the CRT, I simply made a new composition  with white and black solids and copied my mask keyframes at the right time to the white solid.  Then, once it reaches a point where the whole scene is supposed to show scene 2, not just  the masked bit, I have another full-screen white solid show up. Otherwise if I just let it push in  to black light that, it’ll cut back to scene one for a few frames before the transition ends. We’re not done yet. Now you need to put these in the same composition, either side-by-side  with the stinger transition on the left and track matte on the right,  or stacked with stinger on top. So for a 1080p transition this would either be 3840x1080 for  side-by-side or 1920x2160 for stacked. Make sure the timing lines up, of course. Now export this out with alpha and add it to OBS.Enable track matte, choose the layout,  invert colors if needed, and preview to make sure all is working smoothly.And wham bam, you have some absolutely sick transitions. I will say that what I have  done here, while really cool, is honestly the low-hanging fruit of what can be done  here. There’s a ton more possibilities and I am very stoked to see what everyone comes up with.  I will be experimenting with some new VHS style transitions with this new  feature - which I will give away some of on our Discord server at Discord.gg/eposvox.You know what else I’m stoked for? New creators getting into streaming or YouTube to  find a new career path or build an audience. For that, I recommend checking out Marques Brownlee’s  latest Skillshare course on YouTube Success.Skillshare is our sponsor for today’s video and  is an online learning community for creatives, where millions come together to take the next  step in their creative journey. Skillshare offers thousands of inspiring classes for creative and  curious people on topics such as graphic design, photography, freelancing, music production - and,  of course video production. They even have classes from familiar faces, such as the new  course on YouTube success from Marques Brownlee. It should really be on the top of your list. Skillshare is for real, working creatives and lifelong learners who are never content being  stuck with where they’re at and always want to improve. That sounds like a lot of my viewers.  It’s curated specifically for learning, so there’s no ads and they’re always launching new  premium classes, like MKBHD’s. For less than $10 per month with an annual subscription,  it’s a fantastic deal - but if it’s not good enough for ya, the first 1,000 people to sign  up with my link in the description will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium. Happy learning.Unfortunately despite what some comments had suggested on my media formats investigation video,  this does NOT eliminate the need for alpha channel and hardware acceleration for stinger transitions.  Hopefully they will one day enable chroma keying for stingers and save us  some headache, but today is not that day.I’m showing another way that your transitions can become  more powerful in the next video on this update, so stay tuned :)I’m EposVox, the stream professor. Hit the like button if you enjoyed,  subscribe for more tech education and stream guides,  and sound off in the comments with what transition ideas you come up with. See ya.\n"