[00:00:00] Today's ATEM Mini tip is answering a question that came in from a viewer. The viewer asked how they can switch camera angles and simultaneously automatically load up a different lower third graphic over each camera. So, something specific or unique to camera 1, 2, 3 and 4.

[00:00:14] To do that, we're gonna need to use macros. Let me show you first what I’ve set up in preparation for this. First I have my four different camera angles; there's camera 1, camera 2, camera 3 and camera 4, then I’ve created a series of lower third graphics. Here they are; there's camera 1, 2, 3 and 4.

[00:00:31] These are simply PNGs with transparency. To load these graphics into the ATEM, go to the Media tab, locate your folder — here's mine; lower thirds — and then start dragging the graphics into the media player. There's 1, 2, 3 and 4. Now back to the switcher, where we'll set up the downstream key.

[00:00:50] You can use the downstream key or the upstream key for this — however, the upstream key provides a lot of additional capabilities that we don't actually need for this, so we're going to save that for something else. The downstream key is totally sufficient. Also the downstream key is the last part of the chain, meaning that this graphic will sit on top of anything else we might create which is perfect for a lower third or a bug or anything like that.

[00:01:12] To set this, up we first need to set up the Fill Source. It's already set to Media Player 1 where I want it and the Key Source is also set to Media Player 1 key. That's what's going to give us the transparency of this PNG file. Now, this PNG is very simple, it's just a on-or-off transparency; there's no drop shadow or gradient or anything like that.

[00:01:30] To apply graphics with gradients drop shadows and so on, you actually have to load the graphic a bit differently, which is something we'll cover in another video. For now we have these simple PNGs already loaded and ready to go. I want my mask off because I’m not masking any of this out and I want my pre-multiplied key turned on. The only thing that's left to do is to turn on the DSK and bring it on air, and there we have it.

[00:01:51] There is our lower third graphic over this camera angle, but of course as I switch camera angles from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, that same lower third graphic is in place. So, now we need to build up macros to automatically switch the camera angle and load up the appropriate graphic.

[00:02:06] So, to do that, we'll go up to the macros menu and select the Create tab and then click “Plus”. I’m going to call this Camera 1 plus LT (CAM 1 +LT) for lower third, and then hit Record. Now remember, anything that you want the macro to do has to be explicitly recorded. So for example, here we're already on camera 1 but the macro doesn't know that, so we have to explicitly switch to camera 1 to load camera 1.

[00:02:30] To do that since we're already here, I’ll just load another camera angle and then come back to this one. I’ll go to camera 2 and then back to camera 1 and that has now just written camera 1 into the script. Technically, I just recorded camera 2 and then camera 1 but the software knows that the camera 1 switch overrides the camera 2 switch and it will only save that one command.

[00:02:49] Next we need to set up the Downstream Key. Once again, everything has to be explicitly stated. So we want to switch to Media Player 1; to do that, we'll switch to anything else and then back to Media Player 1 and the same thing with the key. So, switch away and then back again.

[00:03:03] I don't want the mask, so I’m going to turn that on and then off to make sure that that is told to go off and the pre-multiplied key, I want on, so I’ll turn it off and back on again. Next we need to make sure that the correct graphic is loaded. So, back to the Media tab, again, it's already loaded but we're going to take camera 1 and drag that in just so we know that that loads up when we run this macro.

[00:03:23] Back to the switcher and the last stage is to turn the DSK on. I’ll go ahead and turn it off and then back on again and that completes the macro. I’ll stop recording, and just to test it out, we'll go ahead and turn this off, switch over to camera two, go to the Run command, recall and run this set, which means I only have to click this button and there we go. Camera 1, with the lower third loaded.

[00:03:46] Now we need to repeat this for the other camera angles. I’ll do number 2. Back to the Create tab, I’ll click the Plus again and put “camera 2 plus lower third”, hit Record, load up camera 2. Once again, explicitly say that this is Media Player 1, Media Player 1 key, mask is off, Pre-Multiplied key is on and the media player we're gonna switch to graphic two.

[00:04:11] I’ve been doing it from the media tab but I can also do it from this drop down here. Let's load up camera two. Now once again, we're gonna go ahead and turn the DSK off and back on again, stop recording, and now we're ready to run these. We can now switch from camera 1 with the lower third to camera 2 with its lower third.

[00:04:28] At this point, you'd go ahead and just record the additional macros for cameras three and four. But going through this process can be a little bit tedious and it's certainly prone to error. If you forget to do something, you may not realize that until it's too late and you're running this in production.

[00:04:41] So, in the next tip that I release, I’m going to show you how to start with the “camera 1 plus LT“ that we already recorded and then by modifying the XML file, we're going to go ahead and create cameras 2, 3 and 4 without having to record anything additional.

[00:04:55] And of course as always, don't forget to Like and Subscribe, it's a good way to make sure that I know that you like these tips and want more of them and if you have a specific question or a specific tip that you want to get answered, go ahead and drop a comment below and I’ll do my best to hit it in a future video.