At a glance
What are the three vertical layouts?
Each one makes a different trade against the same problem: a 16:9 frame does not fit into a 9:16 one.
| Layout | What is on screen | The trade | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Split | Facecam and gameplay, stacked | Both are visible, and each gets less screen | Reactions, and anything where your face is half the joke |
| Fullscreen | One crop of the gameplay, filling the frame | The gameplay is as large as it can be, and whatever falls outside the crop is gone | Mechanical plays where the action is in one part of the screen |
| Blurred | Your chosen picture over a blurred copy of the clip | Nothing has to be cropped tightly, and the active picture is smaller | Wide scenes, UI-heavy games, anything that breaks when you crop it |
Split
How do you put facecam and gameplay side by side for TikTok?
Use Split. You drag one box over your facecam and one over the part of the gameplay that matters, and Boltis stacks them: facecam on top, gameplay below, filling a 9:16 frame.
A slider controls how the height is divided, from 20 percent facecam up to 80 percent. That range exists because the extremes stop being useful: below 20 percent your face is too small to read, and above 80 percent the gameplay is a strip.
Source clip, 16:9
Export, 9:16
Fullscreen
When should you use split screen instead of fullscreen?
Use Split when your reaction is part of the clip. Use Fullscreen when the play is the whole point and your face is not adding anything: one crop box, blown up to fill the entire vertical frame, at the largest the gameplay can possibly be.
The cost is real and worth stating: everything outside that box is gone, including your facecam. If your clip is a mechanical moment that happens in one part of the screen, that is a good trade. If the important thing is spread across a wide view, it is not.
Source clip, 16:9
Export, 9:16
Keeping the facecam
How do you make a Twitch clip 9:16 without cropping the facecam?
Use Split or Blurred. Fullscreen is the only layout that can lose your facecam, because it keeps one crop box and discards everything outside it.
Split gives the facecam a band of the frame that belongs to it, so the gameplay crop can be as tight as you like without touching your face. Blurred keeps the facecam as its own picture over the blurred fill, which is the better option when the gameplay also needs to stay wide.
Blurred
What is the blurred background layout for?
Blurred fills the empty space with the clip itself. Boltis takes the whole frame, enlarges and blurs it heavily to make a background, then places your chosen picture on top of it. You can add the facecam over that as well.
The point is that you are no longer forced into a tight crop to fill the height. You can keep a wide view of the game and let the blur handle the space above and below it, which is what makes this the layout for games where the information is spread out: strategy games, anything with a busy HUD, or a wide scene that stops making sense when you crop into it.
Source clip, 16:9
Export, 9:16
Choosing
Which layout works best for TikTok and Shorts?
There is no layout that wins in general, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling one. The useful question is what your specific clip needs.
- Is your reaction part of the clip? If yes, Split. If your face is just there, you are spending half the frame on nothing.
- Is the action in one place? If yes, Fullscreen will make it larger than either other layout can.
- Does the clip break when you crop it? If yes, Blurred. This is usually a wide view or a HUD you cannot cut into.
Switching costs one click and keeps your boxes and captions, so the honest advice is to look at all three on the clip in front of you rather than picking a favourite in advance.
Presets
Do you have to set the crop boxes every time?
No. Boltis saves the box positions as a preset for the game, so the next clip from the same game opens with the facecam and gameplay boxes already where you put them. Your layout only needs setting up once per game rather than once per clip.
If you are not looking to choose a layout and simply want a Twitch clip converted to 9:16, the free Twitch clip to vertical tool does that in the browser with nothing installed.