A beginner's guide to OBS Studio

When it comes to the world of live streaming, there is no software more flexible and powerful than OBS Studio. It tin can power a huge corporeality of sources, effects, and filters in a solo package while also keeping resource downwardly to a minimum, with a completely flexible set of options to accommodate your stream or recording to how you wish.

The beauty of OBS Studio is also in its expandability, with a huge number of possibilities via plug-ins that can add value in both the customer itself and for integration with other services, such as TouchPortal for utilise with a stream deck using your mobile.

While the software has a steeper learning curve than the two competing streaming packages in Streamlabs OBS and Twitch Studio, it doesn't demand to exist. While the setup can look daunting to a coincidental PC user, the interface is not also unlike from that used by Streamlabs to utilise.

Let's look at how yous can master OBS Studio and set-up a high-quality stream. Make sure that you are always launching OBS Studio equally Administrator to ensure that your estimator is allocating enough resources for information technology to run smoothly.

The chief screen

When you first launch the software, the first thing that y'all will see is the large black box in the eye of the application. This is accompanied past several boxes at the bottom of the screen with headings. The large box is the preview, which shows you lot what OBS will capture when you start recording or streaming. Later you begin to add elements to this, the preview will show y'all them and what they wait like on the screen.

The smaller boxes at the bottom accompanied by headlines, such as 'Scenes' and 'Sound Mixer,' are chosen Docks, sections that nowadays OBS elements that you lot can use for customization and analytics. The docks and what they practice will be explained later.

Forth with these, yous will see tabs at the pinnacle that can be used to access certain features, configure the client and your video output using the settings, and salvage or back-upwardly your profile or your Scene Drove. Some of the plug-ins that you tin install will as well have an options tab at the top.

Much similar Streamlabs OBS, this is the screen that volition become familiar to you very quickly. All of your streaming and recording will exist washed from this screen, with the preview interim every bit a window to exactly what it is that you're recording, and the docks giving yous the firsthand controls that stop and start your production.

OBS Docks

At the bottom of your OBS Studio customer will be areas that you either add together, remove or suit things. These minor boxes with elements that you lot can add are Docks, and they are labeled to offer information on what they do. Y'all can see what docks are agile and choose which ones y'all run into by going to View, Docks, and checking the one you want to come across.

They can be moved to almost anywhere on the application by clicking and dragging the dock heading, and and so letting go in the place y'all want it to exist.

Typically, the 3 primary docks that OBS will start with are Scenes, Sources, and Audio Mixer, and they will be the ones you will use the most.

Scenes are a collection of sources together on screen, and you can alternate between. An like shooting fish in a barrel mode to describe this would be during a live music performance, where a change of "scene" typically means switching to a new photographic camera angle or cutting to the presenters. This works similarly on streaming or recording, where yous can change scenes to testify something new.

Sources are any elements that are shown on screen. This tin can exist your camera, your gameplay, graphics and overlays, even images and media files that play over each other in a layered composition.

This ways that the sources at the meridian of the list are the ones in the foreground of your screen and are shown on elevation of the sources beneath it. The sources y'all run across are directly function of the scene you currently have selected, so if yous set one scene up and then create a blank new one, after switching to information technology, you lot volition find that the Sources dock is now empty.

Audio mixer is, equally you would expect, a mixer for whatever audio entering your figurer via a microphone or audio that is existence output by your calculator. You can decide how loud or repose you desire each sound aspect to play through. It's not currently possible to separate the sound on a per-awarding basis in OBS, so you will demand to manage the sound levels on each awarding individually.

The other three docks available include:

Controls – Buttons that allow you to start your stream or a recording, trigger the virtual camera where y'all can employ OBS as a virtual camera for other applications, and access your settings. Studio Mode is also included to assist y'all make transitions past showing you the current scene and the scene you desire to transition to side-by-side, great if yous are decision-making a stream for someone else.
Stats – Provides information on the power usage of the stream. This includes the current FPS for the stream, rendering time for graphics on the screen, and other useful information that can help to manage the technical side of OBS.
Scene Transitions – This acts as the setting for global transitions in your stream, significant that whatever time you switch from ane scene to another, this volition be what the transition looks similar. For example, if you have this ready to Fade, you volition see the scenes fade from i to the other when you lot switch them.

More docks are added when using certain plug-ins, but the six mentioned above are those built-in.

Settings

For configuring your OBS to permit for optimal streaming or recording, you can control everything in the settings, accessed by going to the top bar, File, then Settings. This can as well be plant in the Control Dock, which starts at the bottom right of OBS.

All of the tabs will control and dictate how y'all desire your stream to bear witness on screen, though some tin bear upon how much power your computer uses to keep OBS running smoothly. The settings options include:

General – Covers most of the full general settings when using OBS, including linguistic communication settings.
Stream – Pick which platform yous are looking to stream from, often using a stream key from your chosen platform.
Output – The main settings for determining the quality of the video that you will output, with separate options for streaming and recording. Includes settings to determine which audio rails you desire the audio to be output to.
Audio – Changing audio settings for OBS, including the sample rate of the audio that OBS produces dorsum to you lot, or adjusting the number of audio channels if you are using a surroundings organisation.
Video – Your canvas size by resolution that you lot want your stream to exist, and the resolution that outputs to a recording or stream. The output frames per 2nd can as well be adjusted based on your feed, with the most popular frame rates supported up to threescore frames per second.
Hotkeys – This allows you to assign keys on your keyboard to command almost anything, including switching to scenes and hiding sources. Multiple keys can be used to trigger something (due east.1000., y'all can hold shift and press a push to have a ii-push button hotkey.).
Advanced – Access to more than advanced settings such as changing the video rendering engine, changing the process prioritization on your computer, or adding a delay. Unless troubleshooting is required, you can unremarkably exit these settings alone without issue.

Related: How to find your Twitch stream key

Each department has many options that can help to customize how your stream or recording will wait in terms of quality and size. If you make up one's mind to introduce plugins to OBS Studio to expand upon its functionality, some of them comprise their own set of tools and options to adjust relating to that plugin'southward part. However, be wary that at that place could be some overlap betwixt the settings of those plugins with the global OBS settings.

Setting upward to get alive

Depending on what yous want to practice with OBS, whether it exist recording gameplay for content on other platforms or streaming live to Twitch and Youtube, you will need to set up your OBS for what you want to do.

Scenes

Typically for recording gameplay, you will only need a unmarried scene with the sources y'all need for recording. For streaming, withal, you may want more one to assistance with managing the stream. It's typical of professional streams to have scenes to let your viewers know what the situation is. For example, yous may want a screen to show that y'all're nigh to go live, assuasive you time to do any necessary preparations for your stream away from OBS, such as posting to your social media.

For a basic stream ready-upwards, 4 or five scenes are typical. This is includes:

Starting Scene – A scene to permit the viewers know that y'all are about to go live. You can besides use the Studio mode to make any additional adjustments to your other scenes while this Starting Scene is showing alive.
Merely Chatting – In reference to Twitch's most-watched category, this is a screen with just the streamer on camera to introduce the stream or talk to viewers, sometimes with a graphical overlay to give viewers details on their socials or stream updates. If you don't use a camera, this may not be required.
Gaming screen – This is the primary screen for your action. Information technology will often include a camera that has been reduced in size with the game that yous are playing in focus. If y'all are a non-gaming streamer, this may not exist required.
Be Right Back – If you don't desire to leave your audience with a blank camera screen or a game's interruption carte, a screen to confirm that y'all are away from your stream for a moment will assure viewers that you will be back momentarily.
Stream Catastrophe – At the end of a stream, this tells your audience, and anyone that enters your stream belatedly, that you are finishing. If y'all feel information technology'due south more suitable to end on one of the other scenes, this may not be required.

To add a new scene, click on the + symbol at the lesser of the Scenes dock, and it will prompt yous to give it a name. If you lot need to rename this in the future, you tin can right-click on a scene and apply Rename to change this.

Sources

For each scene, the Sources dock will confirm what sources you have included. They work on a layering arrangement, meaning the source at the tiptop volition be in the foreground of your preview. You will desire to ensure that this is in the order that allows your viewers to see everything that you lot want on screen.

To add a source, click on the + symbols at the lesser of the Sources dock, and a menu with several different source types volition be shown. Each volition add a different blazon of source to that detail scene, and each time you become add a new one, a carte will ask if you desire to add an existing source within OBS or a brand new 1. The types of sources available include:

Audio Input Capture – For an sound device you lot input to the calculator, such as a microphone from your headset or webcam microphone. This will typically be whichever device is registered on Windows, macOS, or Linux as your default input device.
Audio Output Capture – Audio coming from a source within your estimator'south settings for output. This volition typically exist whichever device is registered on Windows, macOS, or Linux every bit your default output device.
Browser – A source that is fix from a browser. This is typically for more than advanced functions, but it can allow you to testify useful streaming things such every bit your Twitch chatbox on screen.
Colour Source – A solid color of your option that you can change the resolution of to fit your canvas.
Display Capture – This will capture the entirety of 1 of your displays rather than a specific program. If you want to prove your whole screen, this will do it.
Game Capture – Grabs any fullscreen application that it can notice as a source, simply yous can alter this to pick upwardly a specific game source if you wish. The game volition need to be running to meet it in the specific window options listing.
Image – Attach an image from your figurer to this source, and it volition display the paradigm in OBS. Beware that information technology needs the correct path to observe the file, so if you move the prototype, you will need to relocate the file in the OBS Source.
Paradigm Slideshow – Similar to Image, simply with a choice of images with change over fourth dimension.
Media Source – Video files, added similarly to image files, can be added equally a source and played on screen.
Scene – add in an entire scene from your Scenes section as a source.
Text – If you want to accept text on your preview, this volition add it, with font backdrop adjustable to your preferences.
VLC Video Source – This volition accept a source running through open-source media player VLC and contain it into OBS.
Video Capture Device – Devices that capture you on videos, such as a camera fastened to your computer or a USB webcam, are added with this source.
Window Capture – Select the window of a currently open application, and it brings that window into OBS.

Once you have incorporated it into OBS, you tin move it effectually your preview and resize it at your leisure. When y'all're happy with the position, yous can click on the unlocked padlock icon side by side to the source in the dock, and it will evidence it now locked in place. You can also turn it off and on by pressing the middle icon.

Audio Mixer

The audio mixer will show you how the audio levels are looking that OBS is processing. Typically, audio will sound good and make clean in well-nigh instances as long every bit the book gauges, which you lot will see when you have audio active on your PC, as long as it says within the light-green confined. If it goes by these into xanthous and red, it typically means that it's coming through likewise loud and could distort.

If this is the case, yous can simply move the bar next to the audio levels down from full until information technology equalizes the audio to no higher than the yellow section. This should keep your sound in make clean society and will also finish your microphone from distorting.

The best way to see if the audio levels sound good yourself is to take a recording of your audio and listen dorsum. What you hear is typically what an audience would hear during a alive stream. You can also toggle the bars to exist vertical or horizontal by right-clicking within the Sound Mixer deck, and pressing the selection to switch it to the contrary orientation.

If you desire to mute an audio source, merely click on the speaker icon to make information technology go blood-red, which will cause it to exist muted.

Go set to go

Finally, when you're ready to make a starting time on your recording, the Controls dock volition give you the easy admission buttons to either start a recording or begin your stream. Make sure that yous are on the scene in your preview that y'all want to begin with.

You can begin recording at whatsoever time, and it volition save by default to your Videos binder in your main documents, but if you want to stream, ensure that you take entered a stream key into the Stream section of the settings. If you don't, it will but bring up an error bulletin.

Otherwise, you'll begin streaming to Twitch and be set to confront the globe in OBS Studio.

For more advanced tips and troubleshooting with OBS, y'all tin can check our ultimate guide to streaming on Twitch, including how to get the most out of OBS Studio.