A background that does not distract

Your viewer looks at you for a few minutes, and the room is part of the picture. A pile of laundry or a window with changing light takes attention that should go to what you say. You do not need a studio, but you do need a decision about the background.

Three modes#

Blur keeps the room but softens it. It is the most forgiving mode, since a slightly wrong edge is hidden in the blur. Remove cuts you out and leaves nothing, which you can fill with a colour, a picture or a looping silent video. Replace is the same with a picture of your own. The edge softness, the stability and the hair detail have sliders, so you can trade a sharp edge for a steady one.

If you have a green wall#

A chroma key is there for a green or blue screen, or a colour you pick from the live camera. It is more precise than a model, as long as the light on the screen is even.

Engines#

Several engines make the mask: MediaPipe, BodyPix, MODNet, PP-HumanSeg, and your system's own effect where it exists. They differ in speed, in how they handle hair and in how steady the edge is. Facecast runs them in a worker so the page stays smooth. Try two side by side and keep the one that works with your light.

What is loaded from outside#

This one matters, so we say it plainly. The engines are third-party models and Facecast does not bundle them. The first time you use one, your browser downloads it from jsDelivr, Google model storage or Hugging Face. Those services can see that your browser asked for the file. The camera picture is processed on your machine and is not sent to them. If that is not acceptable to you, use the blur mode of your system where it exists, or a real wall.

Some practical rules#

• Light your face from the front, not from behind.
• Sit a metre from the wall if you can, since blur looks better with depth.
• Avoid shirts the colour of your background.
• Record a ten-second test and look at the edge of your hair.

Save a setup you like as a Look, so it is one click next time.