VanishCam — webcam disappearance effects

Video is processed on your computer. It is neither recorded nor sent to a server. The preview window and virtual camera show only the video and effects, without overlaid menus, instructions, or text.

For step-by-step instructions in English and Italian, see the user guide.

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Download for Windows

Download VanishCam.exe and double-click it to run the app. You do not need to install Python.

The published EXE may predate the Particles and Goku modes. To use them now, run the local scripts or rebuild the EXE from these sources.

Getting started

1. Double-click AVVIA_LOCALE.bat.
2. In the start menu, choose Normal Vanish, Naruto Vanish, Particles, or Goku with the mouse or the 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys.
3. Step out of the camera frame for 4 seconds while the background is captured. The terminal tells you when you can step back in.

Normal Vanish: Raise your index and middle fingers in a V sign. The dissolve starts as soon as the gesture is recognized and lasts about 3.6 seconds.

Particles: Make the same V sign as in Normal Vanish. Your silhouette breaks into small colored fragments that drift sideways as if carried by the wind. The effect lasts about 2.1 seconds. It captures your silhouette once when the effect starts to keep the video smooth.

Goku: Hold your index and middle fingers straight and together against your forehead for 1 second. Animated vertical comic-style lines run across your silhouette just before you teleport away and linger briefly afterward. To reappear, lower your hand, then repeat the gesture for another 1 second. The return uses the reverse effect. If you break the pose, the countdown starts over. assets/teleport.MP3 plays on both disappearance and reappearance. The terminal shows the countdown for each gesture. The V and R keys are disabled in this mode: the gesture is the only way to disappear and reappear. No text is overlaid on the video.

Naruto Vanish: Bring your palms together in front of the webcam, with your fingers side by side rather than interlaced. Keep both hands visible. As soon as the gesture is recognized, you vanish in a cloud of smoke and a wooden log appears, falls, and remains visible until you press R. No microphone is needed. Naruto mode uses hand_landmarker.task to track both hands. assets/vanish.MP3 plays through your computer speakers when the disappearance starts, including when triggered with V. You can trigger it again after pressing R.

To start a mode without the menu:

local_app\AVVIA_LOCALE.bat --mode naruto
local_app\AVVIA_LOCALE.bat --mode normal
local_app\AVVIA_LOCALE.bat --mode particles
local_app\AVVIA_LOCALE.bat --mode goku

Virtual camera and OBS

If OBS Studio is installed, the app automatically tries to open OBS Virtual Camera. The terminal shows the device name. Use AVVIA_VIRTUAL.bat to require a virtual camera. Select OBS Virtual Camera in the app that will receive the video. OBS's virtual camera must be stopped while this app is producing its output.

To use the effect in an OBS scene, run AVVIA_OBS.bat, add a Window Capture source, select Webcam - Anteprima, and then start the virtual camera from OBS. Alternatively, use Unity Capture as a separate virtual video source:

local_app\AVVIA_VIRTUAL.bat --virtual-backend unitycapture

OBS has only one virtual camera. Do not use it as both an OBS input and output at the same time. See the pyvirtualcam documentation.

Controls

• SPACE: capture a new background.
• R: make the person reappear.
• V: manually start the selected mode's effect.
• F: toggle fullscreen.
• Q or ESC: quit and release the cameras.

The V and R keys are disabled in Goku mode.

You can change the camera, resolution, and maximum virtual-output FPS:

local_app\AVVIA_LOCALE.bat --camera 1 --width 1280 --height 720 --fps 30

To troubleshoot gesture recognition without adding text to the video, pass --gesture-debug. Diagnostic information appears only in the terminal.

Visual assets

The wooden log is an original illustration generated with ImageGen using the supplied image as a visual reference. Smoke is drawn in real time by naruto_effect.py so it follows the person's position and scales with the video. We also considered a CC0 smoke sprite sheet, but the procedural animation adapts better to dynamic positioning without an additional asset. No anime frames or assets are included in the project.

Goku mode uses the MediaPipe BlazeFace short-range model to estimate the forehead position and hand_landmarker.task to track the fingers. The teleport's visual trace is drawn in code, without anime frames.