Customising your stream in OBS

This article is designed for those who are new to OBS and who want to know how to add text and graphics to their stream. This article is a continuation of our previous article, Preparing to stream with OBS, so you should start there if you have not already.

Studio mode

When you open up OBS, you will see a screen like this. 

Choose Studio Mode in the bottom right corner, to change the viewing mode in the programme. 

When Studio Mode is in effect, there are two video windows instead of one. The window to the left, is named Preview and it allows us to see how things look before being aired. The window to the right, named Program, shows us the finished result which will be streamed, recorded or both.

Creating custom scenes

Your final live stream may be made up of a series of different sections, typically including an opening and closing title/placeholder as well as the video content itself. Each section is set up as a Scene in OBS, and you can add text, graphics and video to each Scene under Sources.

The basic live stream will include an opening title, live video content, and then a closing title. That would mean creating three separate scenes which you then switch between as your show goes live.

To create a new scene press + in the bottom left corner of the Scenes box. You can always delete a scene by using the - button in the left corner. We are going to create the following scenes based on the aforementioned example:

1. Intro (an introductory title screen or sequence, usually played for the first few minutes whilst waiting for your audience to get ready)
2. Live (the live content, the main body of the stream)
3. Closing (a closing sequence, usually including credits or similar)

When adding theses scenes, we assign them a name, and it is then possible to change the order by dragging and dropping them. You can also use the arrows on the bottom to adjust the order. When you have created the scenes, you can select them to preview each one. As we have not yet connected each scene with any sources, these will be blank for the moment.

Adding graphics

To add graphics to a scene, we have to assign a source to it. Select the scene, then under Sources use the + to select the relevant source. 

To begin with, we’ll choose Text (FreeType 2) and then Create to add a new text. The title we add in here is not the actual content, but a tag so we can easily find it again under our source list afterwards. Create a suitable name, for example “Title 1” and press OK. The box Make source visible should be ticked. When you press OK the window to add the desired text will appear. 

Here you can add in the text you would like to be displayed, such as “Welcome to today's live stream". You can customise fonts and colours too. 

Browse to select your image file, and OK to add it to Sources. Based on the resolution in the image, you might need to do as you did with your text above and choose “Background image” under Sources, and adjust it so it covers your whole screen.

If the image ends up covering the text, this can easily be solved under Sources, by selecting the image and rearranging the order so that it is below the text. 

You can apply graphics to each of your scenes if you want, including e.g. text which will show over your video.

Switching between scenes

To switch between scenes we use the buttons found between Preview and Program.

To cut between stages, select the desired scene and then Transition. This will cause that scene to become active and it will end up in Preview. Transition and Cut provide a hard clip, both on sound and picture between the scene. If you use Gradient 300ms you will get a short fade between picture and sound between the scenes.

Other resources

Check out this Youtube tutorial on how to set up green screen with Mac and OBS Studio. You should also familiarise yourself with how to set up streaming events in TicketCo if you have not already done so.