OBS Studio 105 - Scenes & Sources - - What are Scenes OBS Studio Beginners Guide to Scenes & Sources
The World of Sources in OBS Studio: Unlocking Your Creative Potential
In the world of live streaming and video production, OBS Studio is an essential tool for capturing and editing footage. At its core, OBS (Open Broadcasting Software) relies on sources to bring your streams to life. A source can be anything from a webcam, microphone, or screen capture to a file or network stream. In this article, we'll delve into the world of sources in OBS Studio, exploring how they work, why they're essential, and how to use them to create stunning live streams.
Understanding Sources in OBS Studio
Sources are the building blocks of your stream. They can be thought of as individual components that make up your overall broadcast. Think of a source like a single piece of footage or audio that's being captured and played back in real-time. When you add a new source to your stream, it becomes part of the mix, allowing you to layer different elements together to create a dynamic and engaging experience for your audience.
If you remove a source but it's still present in other scenes, you can re-add it by going to the "Adding a Source" menu. Selecting the type of source you want to add, then choosing it from the list when it asks you to name the source is as simple as clicking on "Add Source". If you right-click on a source, you can apply de-interlacing and scale filtering if necessary, or add a "Filter" – an audio or video effect that enhances your stream. Filters are essentially tweaks that can be applied to your sources to fine-tune the look and sound of your stream.
Sources can also be resized or re-positioned on your canvas by clicking on the Source, either in the video preview or in the Sources list, and a bounding box will appear. Click and drag to move it around, or use the circle corners to resize. Holding Alt while doing so allows you to crop the Source as desired. A small lock symbol next to individual Source names in your Sources list also allows you to lock a Source in place, preventing it from being moved or resized.
Creating Static Sources
Static sources are perfect for adding some stability and consistency to your stream. These are sources that don't change much throughout the broadcast, such as overlays, graphics, or even static webcam shots. If you have some primary, full-canvas Sources like gameplay, desktop captures, or a full-scene facecam shot that you don't plan on ever moving – i.e., not your overlays – making sure you lock them before moving further is essential.
Using Hotkeys and Macros
Once you've got your static sources in place, it's time to think about hotkeys and macros. OBS Studio allows you to set hotkeys for switching scenes or showing or hiding specific sources. This can be especially useful when using a macro keypad, such as the Elgato Stream Deck, or a foot switch to quickly switch scenes without having to switch windows, fiddle with OBS, or navigate through menus.
The Hotkey System in OBS Studio
When you're working on your stream, it's easy to get caught up in tweaking and adjusting everything. However, using hotkeys can save you time and effort by allowing you to make adjustments quickly and easily. The hotkey system works seamlessly when combined with a macro keypad or foot switch, enabling you to swiftly switch scenes without interruption.
Studio Mode
One of the most useful features of OBS Studio is its "Studio Mode". This mode changes your view from 1 scene to two, providing you with a dual-screen experience that's perfect for making adjustments on the fly. The currently-open scene moves to the right, while the right side remains active and ready to be edited or tweaked.
Using Sources for Dynamic Streams
Scenes are more complex than sources – they're essentially layered views of multiple sources together. Scenes allow you to create a dynamic and engaging live stream experience that's perfect for gaming streams, vlogs, or any other type of content creator. By combining different sources and adjusting their position and visibility, you can create an immersive viewing experience that keeps your audience engaged.
Nesting Scenes
Scenes also offer the option to nest them within one another. This feature allows you to build complex scenes by layering smaller scenes on top of each other. Nesting scenes provides endless possibilities for creative freedom and flexibility in your streams.
Conclusion
Sources are an essential part of OBS Studio, allowing you to bring your live streams to life with different elements like webcams, microphones, and screens. Understanding how sources work and how to use them effectively can elevate your stream from basic to advanced levels. By mastering the art of working with sources in OBS Studio, you'll be well on your way to creating stunning live streams that captivate and engage your audience.
Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, understanding sources is crucial for taking your streaming game to the next level. With this article as a guide, you'll have a solid foundation of knowledge to build upon and take full control of your stream's creative potential.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enThroughout all of these OBS Studio videos,two things you’ll probably hear referredto most are Scenes and Sources.So it’s probably a good idea to make sureyou know what the heck I’m talking about,then, right?The Elgato Cam Link takes your mirrorless,DSLR, GoPro, or camcorder and turns it intoa higher-quality facecam than any webcam couldever provide - without the hassle and headacheof normal USB webcam drivers or their terriblesettings configuration.Get an uncompressed, low-latency 1080p60 signalfrom your camera straight to your stream withthis little device right here.Buy one via the link in the video description.I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier andmore fun, and welcome back to my OBS Studiotutorial course.I have many, many more videos on the softwarein the playlist linked in the description.Check that before asking questions, and checkthe introduction video to learn how this courseworks, if you get confused.Scenes and Sources go hand-in-hand and areessential to setting up a recording or livestream with OBS Studio.Sources are your…well… sources of data for your stream.Video input devices such as webcams and capturecards, desktop monitor captures, game inputs,microphones, images, website overlays, andso on.There are many different source types available.It’s a good idea to familiarize yourselfwith the options available.Audio Input and Output capture allow you toadd audio devices to specific scenes thatyou don’t want to be globally available.Typically, you’d add your input and outputdevices in the “Audio” settings in OBS– but sometimes you want specific thingsadded only within certain scenes – suchas adding a music track to a “BRB” sceneor something like that.I have a virtual audio device set up (thanksto XSplit, ironically) which is always playinga music playlist for my stream.I have that device added only to my “Streamis Starting Soon,” “Be Right Back,”and “Stream is Now Offline” scenes.This way while in those transition scenes,my stream-friendly music is playing, but duringactual stream time, the music isn’t heard.This makes it so that I don’t have to listento the music, either.I use VLC to play back the music.A “BrowserSource” is a super fun one forlive streaming.In Classic OBS, you needed a plugin for thisfunctionality, but it’s now built-in toOBS Studio.This is what streamers use to get their followeralerts and other pop-up elements on theirstreams.By adding a BrowserSource, you can input theURL of a website.This is fine and dandy to showcase a normalwebsite, sure, but it can also be used toautomatically chroma key out alert boxes froma service such as StreamLabs or TippeeeStream.Set a resolution and frame rate appropriatefor your stream settings, and whammo – streamalerts overlaid onto your video.TippeeeStream has a very advanced overlayeditor that you can used to set up just aboutanything, whereas StreamLabs has a solid,but more limited feature set.I use StreamLabs during my streams.We’ll cover these more in-depth in futurevideos in the course.A “Color Source” is just that – a solidcolor.You can give it a width and a height, andchoose the appropriate color for your needs.It’s pretty basic.This can be handy for backgrounds, or if younest scenes within each other, you can setup some advanced masking or layered chromakeying for removing things from a scene – ifneeded.Display Capture is a direct feed from yourmonitor.You can choose between multiple monitors ifyou use more than one, and you can chooseto show or hide your cursor, which is handy.On computers with a single graphics card,this works perfectly, but on lower-end desktopsor laptops with both a discrete graphics cardused for gaming and a graphics handler built-into the CPU, this can be finicky, as the twographics cards handle different things inyour computing experience – and OBS canonly use one at a time.So you may end up with a black screen in yourgame but Display Capture works fine, or ablack Screen for Display Capture but gameswork fine.In this case, you’ll have to set up differentprofiles and Scene Collections for differentactivities.We have a video covering Scene Collectionsmore in-depth in the course.I use Display Capture heavily as that’show I record my tutorials of my desktop!“Game Capture” is great for capturinggames (duh) or fullscreen applications.This creates a hook within your graphics driverto capture the direct feed from the game,much like how older recording programs suchas FRAPS and Dxtory worked.As with Display Capture, if you have multipledisplay devices in your system, there canbe issues with black screens.Just tinker around changing your Display Devicein the “Advanced Settings” to try to fixit.Dedicated video on this is in the course playlist.Adding an “Image” source is what you woulduse for adding stream overlays, webcam frames,and so on.I use an overlay for some of my stream scenes.Many streamers use overlays, watermarks, andwebcam frames to add a little more flair totheir streams.“Image Slide Show” is useful for, well,slide shows!Whenever my stream is just starting, I needto run to the bathroom, or my stream is ending,I use slideshows to cycle between slides saying“Stream is Starting Soon,” “BRB” or“Offline” and slides for my various sponsorsor affiliate codes.This adds a little more professional polishto a stream.If you have a high-end Intel-based systemand an Intel RealSense webcam, and chose toinstall the RealSense driver package whileinstalling OBS, you can set up the RealSensegreen screen webcam view as a source, as well.This is different than normal webcams.Next you can add a “Media Source” - addinga music or video file.You actually have two ways to set this up- “Media Source” or “VLC Media Source.”This is for compatibility purposes with somesystems.If the video isn’t playing back properlyon your system, you can try switching to theother kind of Media source and see if it hasbetter results.This can be used to had a graphic to yourscene that cycles in and out if you enablelooping on the media, or for having a dedicatedscene to just share in a video.I have a scene set up in my Twitch layoutwith a gameplay match I want to share withmy followers.I haven’t used it yet, but if somethingcomes up that requires me stepping away fromthe stream for more than a minute or two (suchas when my cat randomly decides to vomit)I can flick this scene on and give my viewerssomething to watch and talk about insteadof sending them all away due to dead air.If you want to be able to hear the video playback,in your Mixer you can enable audio monitoringfor that source and the audio will play backto you.A video covering audio monitoring and theaudio mixer in more depth is in the courseplaylist.Next up, you can add a scene to your… scene.This may sound confusing, but this kind of“nesting” is an important part of videoproduction.This can be used in some very, very advancedand complicated ways to create some live streamingmagic, but hopefully my examples are straightforwardenough to help it make sense.I primarily use scene nesting in two ways.The first way is to create and organize myoverlays for my live stream.I have a lot of overlays combined into onescene – Follower and Donation alerts forTwitch, Super Chat alerts for YouTube, “NowPlaying” text for music, along with thebar at the bottom of my screen which highlightsmy most recent Follower, most recent Donation,and top Donation of the month.The bottom bar and text sources for the 3names are in a scene of their own, just called“Bottom Bars (for overlay).”Then I have an “Overlays” scene whichadds this scene in, along with the StreamLabsalerts and so on.Then I add this entire scene to all of mynormal scenes such as my gameplay view, webcamview, and so on.By doing this, I can make quick adjustmentsto the overlays and have the changes affectall of my scenes at once, and I can turn offjust the bottom bars with a simple hotkeypress while still having the Alerts show up.It’s kinda neat.Another important use for this is for my facecams.Normally with a video source, if you makea change to the source – such as addinga crop, filter, or so on – it affects thatsource EVERYWHERE in the scene collection.So If I have a full screen webcam scene, anda scene with my webcam over my gameplay andthen I crop off the empty sides of my webcamon the gameplay scene, suddenly my webcam-onlyscene also has the sides cropped off showinga bunch of black space.To work around this, I leave the “webcamonly” scene alone, but then made a new scenecalled “Webcam Nest” which just has thewebcam in it again.But now I add this “Webcam Nest” sceneas the facecam to my gameplay scenes and applythe crop.Now just uses of that nested scene have thecrop, where the original Webcam scene withthe raw webcam source looks just fine.It sounds a little complicated, but once youexperiment with it, it makes a world of differencefor what you can do.Text Sources add text to your scene.Who would’ve thought?You can customize the font, size, and so on.That’s pretty basic.The cool part is that it can automaticallyload text from a text file and keep it updated.This is used to show the “Now Playing”for currently-playing songs, as well as theStreamLabs Stream Labels I use to show myrecent followers and donations and so on.It’s kinda handy.Lastly, we have the two other big source types– Window Capture and Video Capture Device.Window Capture is for what it says, capturingwindows.This is useful when you want to show literallyonly what’s happening within a specificwindow (for showing work in a program or non-fullscreengame) without showing anything else you doon your desktop.And it keeps showing whatever the window isdoing, even if you bring other windows infront of it on your computer.Some streamers use this to show the Twitchchat in their live stream.Window capture is also beneficial becauseit captures the same view of the window, evenif you move it around your screen, whereaswith Desktop Capture you’d have to adjustyour scaling and cropping once you move thewindow.You can still choose whether or not you wantthe cursor to show in the capture.I use this to stream Old School RuneScape.I only want to capture the game, and I wantthe same capture to happen no matter wherethe game is on my screen.Window Capture works perfectly here.Video Capture Device is the fun one.This is for external video devices, usuallyvia USB.This is for your webcams and capture cards,important stuff.I use 2 webcams and 3 capture cards withinmy system, so they’re quite important tomy streams.Add a Video Capture and choose the correctdevice – you’ll recognize it from there.Then you choose “Custom” next to “DeviceResolution” and choose the appropriate options.For example, my Logitech C922 webcam I setit to 720p 60 FPS, but my BRIO webcam is 1080p,60fps.My capture cards all get pulled in at 1080p,60 fps.You can mess around with color spaces, videoformats, and custom audio devices – a necessityfor the AverMedia Liver Gamer HD 2 – butfor most things the defaults are fine.For all sources, you can click the settingcog while selecting the source to change thepreferences again.It’s worth noting that if an added Sourceis removed from all scenes, it will disappearfrom the list of sources of that type andyou will have to set the source up all overagain.If you remove the source, but it’s stillpresent in other scenes, you can add it againby Adding a Source, selecting the type, thenchoosing it from the list when it asks youto name the source.If you right click a source, you can applyde-interlacing and scale filtering, if necessary(you’ll know what those are if you needthem) or add a “Filter.”Filters are basically effects for the audioand video of your source.For video filters, you can crop, mask, addcolor correction, chroma key or green screen,apply camera LUTs, and add a sharpen filter.For audio filters, you can apply additionalgain to make it louder, correct for a delayin your video, add a noise suppressor or noisegate, a compressor to even out your audio,or a more complex VST plug-in.We cover some of these more in-depth in futurevideos.To resize or re-position Sources on your canvas,click on the Source - either in the videopreview or in the Sources list - and a boundingbox will appear.Click and drag to move it around, or use thecircle corners to resize.Holding Alt while doing so will crop the Source,as desired.You will also see a small lock symbol nextto individual Source names in your Sourceslist.This allows you to lock a Source in placeand prevent it from being moved or resized.This is super handy if you have some primary,full-canvas Sources like gameplay, desktopcaptures, or a full-scene facecam shot thatyou don’t want to get messed up.It’s super easy to be working away at movingand resizing Sources and accidentally clickthe bottom layer and move it way out of wack.This helps prevent that and is a huge conveniencebuff.Use it well.Once you have some static Sources in yourscene that you don’t plan on ever moving- i.e. not your overlays - might as well makesure you lock them before moving further.That’s the world of Sources in OBS Studioin a nutshell.Scenes are more simple – they’re a layeredview of multiple sources together.This is absolutely necessary for creatinga dynamic and engaging live stream experience.I use different scenes for my BRB and StartingSoon slides setup, a main fullscreen webcamview for chatting directly with my viewers,my console gameplay and facecam via capturecard, a desktop capture and facecam for doingcomputer things, as well as a window capturefor RuneScape, as I discussed.I also have plenty of extra scenes for nesting,as mentioned before.Scenes get super complex and really help makestreams more professional.If you hop into the settings, you can sethotkeys for switching scenes or showing orhiding specific sources.This gets even better when you use the hotkeysin conjunction with a macro keypad, somethinglike the Elgato Stream Deck, or a foot switchto quickly switch scenes without having toswitch windows, fiddle with OBS and so on.Also, you can go to the right-hand side ofOBS and click “Studio Mode.”This changes your view from 1 scene to two.This is super useful if you need to make anadjustment to a scene – if something isn’tpositioned correctly or something.The currently-open scene moves to the right.The right side is your active scene, the leftside is the scene you have selected or areediting.You can keep a scene live and un-edited toyour audience, then once you’ve made thefix, transition to the new scene.That way your viewers don’t have to watchas you tinker with your webcam positioningor something – that’s just not very professional.If you use hotkeys to switch scenes, the hotkeysdo immediately transition the active scene– the one on the right – regardless ofwhat you’re doing to the scene on the left.This was a longer video than the previousone, but I wanted to make certain we coveredall the bases when it comes to scenes andsources within OBS Studio.They do sometimes add new sources to the mix,but by understanding them this far, you’remore ready to handle anything new the devteam throws at you.I hope this episode of my OBS Studio tutorialcourse has been helpful for you.If it was, drop-kick that like button andsubscribe for awesome tech videos.If you like game streaming, come follow meon Twitch and drop a message in chat.Until next time, I’m EposVox, Happy Streaming!Thanks for watching this episode of my OBSStudio tutorial course.More videos like this and a full master classare linked in the playlist in the video description.Click to learn more.Also consider joining us on Patreon to helpkeep tech education free.Go to Patreon.com/eposvox to sign up.\n"