adding overlays to obs - step by step
23
Nov
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Adding Overlays To OBS – Step by Step

Posted on by Liam Doherty

So you’ve decided to give your stream a new look. If you’ve already got a stream overlay the next step is to learn how to add them to your Twitch, YouTube or Facebook stream using OBS. Luckily one powerful and completely free piece of broadcasting software is available to help. We are of course talking about OBS. This software gives you the ability to add all sorts of graphics and animations to your stream. It’s robustness allows you to create quite advanced scenes and set ups, whilst always giving you full control over the layout.

Contents

How To Add Overlays To OBS

Before getting into the steps it’s important to note that there are 4 different kinds of overlays that can be added to OBS. These are animated, image, browser and text overlays. Each type has a different set up process that we’ll cover to get you set up as quick as possible. Lets start off by showing you how to add animated overlays to OBS.

  1. Launch OBS studio and create a new scene. If you’ve created a scene before which you would like to add an overlay to, simply select it in the Scenes section to make it active. To create a new scene, press the + icon in Scenes section. Typically this button is in the lower left on the default layout.  Enter a name for the new scene and hit OK. 

    An alternative way to create a scene is to Right Click within the scenes area and select Add. A prompt will then show asking for the scenes name. Enter a name a press OK.

    creating a new scene in obs instructions

  2. Create a new media source. Locate the + Icon in the sources section. In the new sources menu select Media Source. There are quite a few different sources available to choose from. For the purpose of animated overlays you have to use the media source.

    An alternative way to create a media source in OBS is to Right Click within the Sources area then Add -> Media Source.

    creating a media source within obs

  3. With Create New option selected, enter a name for the source and press OK. The alternative option Add Existing can be used if you want to make a copy of an existing source. When it comes to naming sources use descriptive names so that sources can be easily identifiable. As your scenes become more complex a good naming convention will help keep everything organised.

    naming a media source in OBS

  4. From the Properties window select Browse and select your overlay file. Once you select browse a new window will show, use this to locate the overlay file on your computer. Once you find the overlay file select it and press Open. Finally enable the Loop option. This ensures the animation will start playing again after it finishes. Select ok to finish adding the overlay to your scene.

    If you don’t see a browse button in the properties window, confirm that Local File checkbox is enabled.