You want to start streaming but aren’t sure where to start when it comes to broadcasting software? We’ll go over setting up popular open-source streaming software OBS. The setup of scenes and sources we’ll cover today also applies to other streaming software like Streamlabs OBS, XSplit and others. We like OBS because it's free and flexible. Once you have a handle on OBS, the rest are easy. This will really raise the production value of your Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Live streams or recorded gameplay.
OBS Basics
In OBS, you’ll see from left to right Scenes, Sources, Audio, Scene Transitions and Controls as well as a preview of what you are recording or streaming in a large window above. Scenes and Sources are the meat and potatoes and where we’ll spend most of our time today. A scene is a combination of sources that make a whole audio/video experience and a source is each specific audio or video element that you add into your scene. You can add each source until you have the look and feel you want.
Scenes and Sources
You can start with one scene and add more as you get more comfortable streaming. Create a basic gameplay capture scene first. When adding your sources for your scene, think of the necessary items you’ll want in your stream and add them in one by one. Your game and your microphone are a good place to start. Click the plus sign at the bottom of the Source section and add your gameplay by clicking either Display capture (to capture one monitor of a multi-monitor setup), Game Capture (to capture a windowed or full screen game on either the same or a different monitor) or Video Capture Device (if you are using a capture card to play either from a console or a separate PC). After you select the type of Source you’d like to add, a Properties window will pop up with a few options for you to choose from. For example, here’s the Game Capture properties screen, and I have options like Capture any Fullscreen application, Capture specific window, and Capture foreground window with hotkey, as well as other options like capture cursor, etc. If there are options listed you don’t understand, I suggest keeping it on the OBS default and only adjusting if you have any issues. Click ok and this will now show your Game Capture video in your OBS preview window and now you have added your first source. If you want to also add your game audio to your broadcast or recording, this needs to be added separately, so again, click the plus sign under sources, select Audio Output Capture. Select Desktop Audio and hit ok. You will see your Audio Output now show up in your Audio Mixer to the left, which you can use to adjust volume settings or mute directly in OBS. Note: If you are using a capture card to capture your gameplay, the capture card will automatically capture your gameplay audio so you may omit that step.
Add-Ons
If you want your stream or recording to include your voice, you'll need to add your microphone as a source. Click the plus sign, add "Audio Input Capture" and choose the microphone. And you will also see this appear in the Audio Mixer to the right of the Sources. Here you can adjust levels directly within OBS and use this to balance out your voice vs the game audio as an example. If you want to add a webcam, go to the plus sign and add a Video Capture device. If you want to add an overlay that’s an image file, add an image, choose where that image file is located on your PC and voila. Same thing with a Media source if you’d like to use a video overlay. You can add text using the text source and so on. Once you’ve added multiple sources, you can drag them up and down to bring them forward or backward in the preview window and click and drag to resize as you like until you have things just the way you want them. If you’d like to add sources like alerts, chat widgets, donation goals, etc. there are popular free tools like Streamlabs and Streamelements that can help you set that up and add it into your OBS, often as a Browser source. There are many plugins for OBS such as onscreen timers. Right click on your scene name and name it whatever you’d like. Now you have your first scene.
The buttons on the right-hand side include Start Streaming, Start Recording, Start Virtual Camera if you want to use your OBS preview as a webcam source for video chat Studio Mode, which allows you to prep or change a scene before it goes live, settings and a way to Exit OBS when you are done. As far as your overall OBS settings for Audio, Video, Stream Output and Stream Key, these will vary depending on which platform you want to stream to and if you stream to multiple platforms, you can even set up multiple Profiles to switch between settings. We’ll go over how to find the optimal settings for your setup, bandwidth and preferred streaming platform, as well as how to set up multiple Profiles and Scene Collections, in a separate video.
