How to make a facecam plus gameplay vertical layout

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The frame maths

A 1080 x 1920 frame gives you 1,920 pixels of height to share, and every pixel you give the camera shrinks the game. If gameplay gets two-thirds, that is 1,280 pixels for the game and 640 for the camera.

Gameplay shows the most important trade-off in this layout. A 16:9 video scaled to 1080 wide is only about 608 pixels tall, so it would fill less than a third of the frame. To fill 1,280 pixels of height you need to crop the game to a narrow portion, about 910 x 1080 of a 1920 x 1080 source, which is under half its width. Anything outside that portion is lost, and that is often where the killfeed and minimap live.

The formula is: crop width = 1080 x (source height / height of the game panel). For a 1280 x 720 source, 720 replaces 1080 in that sum. For any other resolution, multiply every crop figure on this page by your source height divided by 1080.

Five layout templates compared

No single split suits every game, so choose by what the viewer must see. The sizes below are arithmetic for a 1920 x 1080 source. The last column shows what happens to a HUD label 20 pixels tall in the source, as an illustration of scale.

The 30/70 split is the one OpusClip publishes for its Gameplay layout, as of 8 November 2026. The others are our arithmetic.

Which to start with, as reasoning rather than a measured result:

• Shooters, where the killfeed matters. A thirds stack enlarges the action but drops the corners. If the kill itself is the story and the feed proves it, try full-width game.
• MOBAs and strategy games. The minimap and wider board carry meaning, so start with full-width game or half and half.
• Horror and reaction clips. The face is the payoff, so give the camera more room with half and half.
• Racing, platformers or anything with one central subject. A full gameplay crop with a small camera inset can work if the subject stays near the middle.

If your stream has no camera at all, skip the stack and use Full.

Where captions go in a stack

Keep captions below the seam and inside the game panel, because the top and bottom of the frame belong to the platform’s interface. Using the YouTube Shorts margins on our safe zone overlay page, which are ad-placement figures and only a guide, the top 288 and bottom 672 pixels are at risk. That leaves a band from 288 to 1,248.

On a thirds stack, the seam falls at 640, so the clear part of the game panel runs from 640 to 1,248, only 608 pixels tall. The bottom 672 pixels of a 1,280-pixel game panel, just over half of it, sit in the at-risk zone. Two things follow:

• Aim the gameplay crop so the important action lands high in the panel.
• Keep the camera subject’s eyes below 288, since the top of the frame is also at risk.

That page also lists a TikTok action-button column, 300 pixels wide from 840 pixels down. A HUD element kept at the right edge of the game panel may land under it.

Option 1: Platform layouts

Twitch’s automatic version is the simplest place to start. Its clips help says it makes a portrait version alongside landscape, cropped to keep the camera and gameplay. As of 8 November 2026, to change it:

1. Go to Creator Dashboard, then Content, then Clips.
2. Select the clip and click Edit (the scissors icon).
3. Select Edit Layout, then choose Stacked or Full.
4. On Stacked, drag the horizontal line to resize the two boxes.
5. Apply the changes and click Save Clip.

Do this once and Twitch keeps the layout as your preference for future clips, including ones your viewers make. Layout editing is not available on mobile. If Twitch cannot confidently find your camera or gameplay, such as on an IRL stream, it starts from a centred crop instead.

Twitch’s page is inconsistent on one point. Its how-to section says you can choose any ratio from 16:9 to 9:16, while an FAQ on the same page says the launch of aspect-ratio editing was delayed. Check the option in your own editor.

Option 2: AI clippers and vertical editors

Several tools describe this feature, but none we read publishes how often it works. OpusClip’s layout help describes a Gameplay layout, with 30% speaker view on top and 70% gameplay below, and a Screenshare layout that puts the screen in the top half and the speaker below. You choose them under Clip layout settings on the brand template page, and OpusClip applies them where it can.

When the crop is wrong, OpusClip’s manual reframe opens from the Crop button, by double-clicking the scene, or by pressing X. Hold Shift to change several scenes at once. Its pricing page lists 9:16 reframing and the screenshare and gameplay layout on Starter, and adds object tracking on Pro.

Vizard’s Twitch page says its framing keeps gameplay or facecam in view for 9:16. StreamLadder’s layout page advertises stacked, side-by-side, picture-in-picture and full-screen presets, with custom layouts saved for reuse.

Our facecam and gameplay layout guide sets out what counts as a failure, which you can use to judge your own results. For clip-focused editors, see the StreamLadder review and Crossclip review.

Option 3: Build it for free with FFmpeg

FFmpeg gives you exact control at no cost, if you are comfortable with a command line. Its filter documentation defines the crop filter’s width, height and x and y offset parameters, and says the vstack filter needs inputs of the same pixel format and width. This recipe combines crop with FFmpeg’s standard scale and vstack filters. We derived it from that syntax and have not run it, so try it on a short clip first.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]crop=CAM_W:CAM_H:CAM_X:CAM_Y,scale=1080:640[cam];[0:v]crop=910:1080:505:0,scale=1080:1280[game];[cam][game]vstack=inputs=2[v]" -map "[v]" -map 0:a -c:a copy output.mp4

Replace CAM_W, CAM_H, CAM_X and CAM_Y with your camera’s size and position in pixels, measured from a screenshot of your stream at its real resolution. Crop the camera region to about 1.69:1, or scale will stretch your face. Adjust the 505 offset to move the gameplay crop left or right. The example assumes a 1920 x 1080 source.

For a 30/70 stack, change the sizes to scale=1080:576 for the camera, about 1.88:1, and crop=868:1080:526:0,scale=1080:1344 for the game.

To cut the clip out first without re-encoding, LosslessCut is free and open source. It does not reframe or add captions, so it handles only the trimming step.

What to check on a phone

A layout that looks fine on a monitor can fail on a phone, so judge it on the device. Upload a test as Private on YouTube, or send the file to your phone, then check at normal viewing distance:

• Can you read your facial expression, not just see a face?
• Can you read the one piece of HUD that proves the moment? If not, add it as a caption.
• Does the seam cut through anything important, such as a nameplate or the action?
• Do captions and the camera stay clear of the like, comment and description areas?
• With the sound off, does the clip still make sense?
• In the first second, is it obvious which panel to watch?

Common mistakes

• Camera in a different place on another scene. A fixed crop will be wrong if your layout changes mid-stream, so cut at the scene change and re-crop each part, or use per-segment layouts.
• Cropping out the proof. Check whether the killfeed or scoreboard is still visible, as covered in killfeed and caption occlusion.
• Captions on the seam. Text across the join between camera and gameplay can be hard to read.
• A camera that is too small. Faces need to be readable on a phone.
• Upscaling a low-resolution source. A 720p VOD in a thirds stack is enlarged about 1.78 times, so use the best file you have.

Browse all streamer clip workflows.

Last checked 8 November 2026. Prices and limits change; we re-check monthly.