HOW TO SET UP YOUR STREAM WITH OBS
HARDWARE COVERED, YOU’VE MET THE MINIMUM SPECS, WHAT NEXT?
YOU’LL NEED THIS
Twitch Account
Create one at twitch.tv
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Download at obsproject.com/download OWN3DPRO Overlay / Elgato Marketplace Overlay
Download at own3d.pro/ or marketplace. elgato.com/
SO, we’ve got the hardware side covered, and you’re all ready. You’ve got your idea of what you want to stream, and how often you’re going to dabble with it. Now, let’s get the boring technical software stuff out the way, shall we?
1 TWITCH ACCOUNT SETUP
The first thing you’re going to want to do is create an account on Twitch to get your channel set up and your live streaming underway. Head to www. twitch.tv and click the Sign-Up button. Enter a username (Twitch will let you know if it’s taken, or compatible with their ToS, so no cussin’), and a password. Insert a phone number or use your email address, then enter your date of birth, after which a verification code will be sent to your chosen email. Enter that, and you’re in.
» Left-click your blank profile picture, and head to ‘Settings’. Once there, click ‘Security and Privacy’, then go down to Security, and set up some additional Twofactor Authentication. We recommend using Authy or Google Authenticator on your phone for this. However, test SMS codes work just as efficiently.
» We won’t go into too much detail, but outside of that, there’s a lot to explore here. Your profile is where you upload details about yourself, and you can go directly to your channel to edit what people see when searching for your stream.
2 OBS FIRST LOOK
Next, head to obsproject.com/ download and pick up the latest version of OBS Studio. This is where you’ll configure your stream settings and overlay, and set your stream. Install that onto your PC, and launch once completed.
» On first launch, you’ll be greeted with an ‘auto-configuration wizard’. This is OBS trying to determine what settings are best for both your internet speed and hardware settings. Select the option most relevant for you. In our case, we’re going with ‘Optimize for streaming, recording is secondary’, and hit Next. Then, choose the resolution you want to stream at (1920x1080 is our recommendation), and the frame rate you want to stream. OBS will then ask you which account you want to connect to. Now, you can enter a Stream Key here (you can find this under Channel settings on Twitch). However, we’re going to hit ‘Connect Account (recommended)’ instead.
3 TWITCH MEETS OBS
OBS will then open up a window asking you to sign in to Twitch. Chuck your login details in here and hit login. Once you’re logged in, hit Authorize when Twitch asks you if you want to give OBS permissions. After a few seconds, you’ll be back in OBS with Twitch connected. On this screen, make sure ‘Prefer hardware encoding’ is selected, and then let OBS run its bandwidth test to best determine your optimal bitrate (you can adjust this later if needed). [ Image A]
» Once completed, your Twitch elements will start appearing directly in OBS as separate windows. You can move these and embed them into the program directly. Pick up and grab the Stream Chat window and attach that to the right side, then do the same with Stream Information on the left.
4 GRAPHICAL UPDATES
Now we’ve got your Twitch account connected, it’s time to get some overlays and graphical elements on here. Stream overlays are unique graphics designs that sit on top of and frame a stream. They’ll give borders to certain elements, highlight new subscribers, show donations, welcome people to the channel, and more. On top of that, they’ll also allow you to swap between ‘Scenes’. Each scene is a unique setup you can customize, so you can have different window sizes or graphics for each one. Ingame and want gameplay to be the main focus? Set up a scene for that. Chatting with viewers? Make a scene for that, too.
» You can build these manually, but a quicker option is to use a pre-made overlay. There are a number of ways you can get these, but to start with, there are two we’d recommend: OWN3DPRO and Elgato Marketplace. OWN3DPRO has a number of free overlays you can use, while also having a premium subscription ($100-140 a year), giving you access to many hundreds of packages, while Elgato’s Marketplace has both free and one-off purchases instead. Most overlays come in at $30-$40, although the latter are a little more difficult to integrate.
5 OWN3D PRO SETUP
For this guide, we’ll be using OWN3DPRO. Head to own3d.tv and click ‘Login to Pro’ on the top right. Once on the Dashboard, click ‘Already have OBS Studio’, then ‘Download Plugin’. Download and install the plugin for OBS, then close and re-open OBS Studio.
» Once in, you’ll be greeted by a new window, OWN3D Pro’s privacy agreement. Agree to the terms and hit accept. Click the new OWN3D Pro option in the top bar, and select ‘Overlay & Alerts Store’. A new window will open—hit login, and a browser will open. Hit ‘yes log me in’, and OBS will have OWN3DPRO’s overlay store open in front of you [ ImageB] .
» There’s not a huge number of free skins, but this is a good place to start. Find one you like, and click the download icon. The plugin will download and pre-load it for you. We’ve picked up the fully animated ‘Simple’ overlay for this demo.
6 CUSTOMIZATION TIME
Now we’ve installed the overlay, you’ll notice three Scenes: ‘Live Scene’, ‘Starting Soon’, and ‘Just Chatting’. Clicking each one will take you to the scene in question. On the right of the Scenes tab, you’ll find Sources. Think of these like Photoshop layers—the topmost element or ‘layer’ sits above the others, and so forth. You can also hide each layer.
» Right now, we want to edit some of the details, such as our social media names. On ‘Starting Soon’, click the down arrow on the ‘Social Media 2’ folder, then find the text for the social media you want. Double-click that, and you’ll be able to change the font, the text, and more [ Image C] . To move an element, click the source until it’s highlighted with a red box, then adjust its size with the corners or move it manually by clicking and dragging.
7 GRAB THE MAKE-UP BRUSH
It’s time for the final detail. First up, let’s get our mug on the screen. To do that, we’re going to need to add a source to each screen—in this case a webcam. For our tech demo, we’ll be using the ‘Just Chatting’ scene to do this.
» Under Sources, click the + button, then select ‘Video Capture Device’, this will be our webcam. Hit ‘ Create new’, call it ‘webcam 1’ or something similar, then hit OK. On the next screen, select the device you want to use as your video capture device. For us, this will be an Elgato Facecam. There are a few settings, including resolution and fps, but we’re going to leave it as default (as the Facecam only records at 1080p60 anyway). Once done, select ‘OK’ [ Image D] .
» You should now see that the webcam has taken over the entire screen. Similarly to the font and type, we’re going to shrink this down. Then, like we would in Photoshop, we’ll move the webcam layer down in Sources until it’s below the other options. You will need to add this webcam to all the other scenes, depending on how you want your stream set up, but the process is the same.
8 GAME FOOTAGE EMBEDDING Next, we’ll need to do the same, but for our PC footage. We’ll head to our Live Scene now. There are a number of frames for updates, alerts, and webcams. We don’t need all these, though, so we can hide a few by clicking the eye icon to the right in sources. In our case, we’ll be hiding Greenscreen, Greenscreen 1, and Webcam. We’ll also move Webcam 1 down a smidge to the bottom right.
» Then, we’ll re-add our webcam again, this time selecting from ‘existing devices’. Then we need to add our game capture of choice. You can do this in one of two ways. Just like with adding a webcam, we need to add a new source. In this case, we can either do ‘Display Capture’, and capture an entire screen (emails and all, so be careful), or ‘Game Capture’. In some cases, Game Capture can be a bit finicky on what it hooks, so we recommend either using the Display Capture method, or alternatively, using ‘Capture specific window’. Once that mode is selected, open up your game, then in the ‘Window’ box in OBS, select the program from the list.
» Whenever that game opens, OBS will spot it, and load it with you. Once you’ve got the game (in our case, Elden Ring), hit ok, and just like the addition of the webcam, you’ll have your source. Again, you’ll need to resize the window, then place it below the relevant graphics overlay.
9 FINAL PREP
There are a few things we need to finish up with before going live. Look at the bottom right side of OBS, then hit ‘Settings’. In the new settings window, check the ‘Audio’ tab, and make sure your microphone and headset (desktop audio) is set correctly. Then go to your video tab, and check that your base and output resolutions are set correctly as well.
» You’ll find some pretty stellar hotkey options here too if you need them. However, we’d highly recommend getting something like a Stream Deck (or even the free mobile app) to really take advantage of those extra buttons, to swap between scenes on the fly.
» With everything good to go, you’re ready to get your face on the internet. It’s time to hit the big button. Click ‘Start Streaming’. The button will turn blue, and you’ll be live [ Image E] .