Virtual background for online meetings

[mtbc]

It has been suggested that, on some occasions, I should be discreet about from where I am working. This seems easier to achieve if I habitually use virtual backgrounds in Teams, Zoom, etc., giving rise to the awkward choice of what background. Abstractly, I would prefer it not to be overly striking, not requiring comment, and it is fine for it not to be widely recognized. Though, somebody else at work uses a background that frustrates me in seeming to depict the interior of a room from a work of science fiction, either a bigger-budget effort from no earlier than the seventies, or lower-budget a couple of decades later, but I cannot place it, and I am not used to not being able to place such. Someday I may have to ask. Still, that kind of thing may be an option, among others.

Comments

[aldabra]

I was in a meeting yesterday with someone whose background was, I think, large random triangles in shades of white and light grey, but it could have been an attic room with sloping ceilings. That seems optimal: a plain background which is plausibly architectural but not identifiable.

Or, take a picture of what the wall behind you would look like if you were in the office? Presumably you'd be disguising WFH rather than being in the building.

Or take a picture of your most impressive bookcase and then fuzzify it so people can't see the details, if you're misleading people who don't know what your office looks like.

But be careful not to trust this too far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX7AyuCE1FE

[mtbc]

Ha, oops, great seatbelt.

That gentle triangular background sounds intriguing. Hmmmm. Could be a promising approach indeed.

My impressive books are still in boxes, awaiting floors being finished then bookcases assembled. (-:

[aldabra]

Here you go:

https://unsplash.com/s/photos/bookshelf

[mtbc]

Ha, lots of them indeed. (-:

[pink_halen]

A green screen will definitely make a difference. It will prevent drop out. The non green screen settings on Zoom cause parts of your head to disappear.

I have seen a variety of artificial backgrounds. They may be preferable to a messy office. The holideck is almost upon us.

[mtbc]

Argh. That's disappointing: places I might be more discreet about working from, it's not going to be easy to arrange a green screen at!

[mtbc]

I now discover that collapsible screens and stands may be worth investigating.

[lovelyangel]

I do have a green screen and subject lighting (because – fussy photographer plus mildly NSFW wall art behind me). The green screen works great, and I do have a variety of backgrounds that vary from my own landscape photography... to Makoto Shinkai anime movie backgrounds... to Star Trek backgrounds.

However, the relatively new Blur Background feature in Zoom works really well to mask one's environment. I don't know if that feature is available in Teams or Slack or other videoconferencing apps.

[mtbc]

Alack, Teams is probably the main one I'm having to care about here, I wish it were Zoom instead. I'll try to remember to poke around in Teams to see what I find. (And maybe it'll then eat even more CPU. Though Zoom seems to eat plenty even while waiting for the meeting to start!)

[wpadmirer]

We've done that, but mostly to hide the fact that the room is a mess. (grin)

[mindstalk]

I mostly use astronomy or forest photos. Sometimes anime backgrounds (not featuring Cute Girls) or Lawrence Alma-Tadema paintings.

[mtbc]

Ah, I wasn't aware of him. The Egyptian chess players were a surprise.

[mindstalk]

I hadn't seen that one. It's an odd one: chess the game we know is a fair bit younger than ancient Egypt -- but all the pieces in the painting are the same, and the board has 10 rows, so he must have been using 'chess' more like "board game", I think.

But I like high realism art, and classical subjects, and like the idea of him researching cutting edge research of the time for his paintings. Even if half the women look like English beauties. :p

He also started putting Opus numbers on his paintings, serial numbers basically, to make forgery more difficult. Wiki:

"In 1872 Alma-Tadema organised his paintings into an identification system by including an opus number under his signature and assigning his earlier pictures numbers as well. Portrait of my sister, Artje, painted in 1851, is numbered opus I, while two months before his death he completed Preparations in the Coliseum, opus CCCCVIII. Such a system made it more difficult for fakes to be passed off as originals.[16] "

[mtbc]

It's an odd one indeed, nice to get the occasional surprise. And, heh, I had no idea about the serial numbering. (-:

I've also liked the realistic and classical, e.g., stuff by John William Waterhouse.