Hi , I was wondering is there a way to blur or change my background when I am using a webcam on a meeting ?
Could it be done using OBS ?
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I think programs such as zoom now support blur on Linux.
If your meeting software doesn’t support it you can install a software camera device that applies the effect.
This is an example of one:
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It can be done with OBS, and many Twitch streamers do this, but often they’ll use a green screen behind them for a more accurate effect, but you would set this up with layering in the scene. Zoom, Google Meet, also have their own blur effects.
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Great, I do have v4l2loopback installed , but I am not sure what to do now ?
My meeting software does not support the said effect.
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Since you do not say what meeting software is in use it is hard to give an accurate answer, but I can confirm that zoom will both blur the background or insert an image as the background.
How I’ve done that is enabled the module and it exposes the v4lloopback device as a webcam, so the OBS output emulates a webcam and the meeting software has no concept of it is an actual webcam or not.
https://www.scs.stanford.edu/~dm/blog/hide-webcam.html
On the OBS side, you have a few options for methods, but here is one, as an example:
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I want to be able to use the blur effect with any meeting software using OBS.
Thank you , that’s helpful. My issue now is that I am a beginner when it comes to using Fedora so I don’t know how to perform all the needed actions in order to use the effect.
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There are basically two pieces to it. First is the v4lloopback. This is actually included in Fedora already: dnf install v4l2loopback. This should create a new /dev/video# device (ie, if your webcam is already at /dev/video0, you might see /dev/video1 show up, which should be the loopback). If you don’t see that happen after installing it, you might need to load it with modprobe (modprobe v4l2loopback). From here the instructions should be pretty similar to other operating systems when dealing with OBS.
On the OBS side, you’ll need the v4l plugin which you point to the /dev/video device created by the v4l2loopback above (You should see the settings for this in the Tools menu of OBS).
Lastly, you need to add your regular webcam to the scene. You should now be able to stream from OBS to your /dev/video1 (or whatever number the loopback is) and present this to whatever meeting software you’d like as a regular webcam. In order to get the blurred background, you’ll additionally want to add the obs-streamfx plugin to your OBS and enable the blur filter.
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I was able to complete all above.
On the other hand the plugin isn’t appearing in the Tools menu of OBS ?
You might need to restart OBS after you installed it. The plugin location also depends on if you installed it via RPM or flatpak. If by RPM (if rpm -q obs-studio returns something, it’s by RPM, if not it’s probably flatpak), it goes to ~/.config/obs-studio/, if by flatpak, it goes to ~/.var/app/com.obsproject.Studio/config/obs-studio/. You’ll likely need to drop both the v4l2sink and the obs-streamFX plugin data in one of those paths and then restart OBS.
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OK , but I still don’t see
Tools > V4L2 Video Output
that’s what’s bugging me. Also I installed a OBS flatpak , so take you for the path.
Is there a simpler way of doing it , maybe ? Why isn’t there a software which solves the problem. 
So, it turns out there is… OBS now has native virtual webcam support so the v4l2 plugin isn’t needed anymore. You should be able to set OBS Virtual Webcam as the output. I’ll try to test it locally.
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Yes !!! Let me know what do I have to do. 
On first startup of OBS, it asks if I’m using the OBS Virtual Camera, so I selected that option:
I have a Start Virtual Camera option on the bottom right side:
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I was just able to join a Nextcloud Talk call with OBS Camera this way and it’s working through OBS. From here you just need the blur filter.
Great , now what’s the easiest way to use the blur effect ?
How do I activate the auto-configuration wizard ?
I managed to activate the auto-configuration wizard so scratch that.
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After installing it, go to the filters tab:
I don’t think you need to do this as long as you can see the “Start Virtual Camera” button on the right. If you selected the default Streaming, the settings should otherwise be sane.
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