Capturing the mouse cursor in the Program Window for Point Out Areas On a Map

[mmmCalvary]

Hi, I'm fairly new (one year of use) to OBS. I can't find a way to capture the mouse in action in the program window during live streaming. In other words, if the speaker is talking about an area on a map and I am showing him talking but then I switch my source to a map, how can I activate MY mouse cursor so I can move the mouse into the Program window area and point to the proper place on the map?

It would be nice if I could turn on and off this feature so I don't randomly drag the mouse cursor across the screen when I don't want it, but when I want to highlight something for the live stream Internet viewers, I could activate the mouse cursor and move it into the Program window, pointing to text or an object in the view that the Internet viewers are seeing.

Is there anything like this ability? I couldn't find anything in several searches over the past several months.

Matt

 

[lofihap]

Right click > properties > capture cursor -- if that options is available under the source, you can turn the cursor capture on and off as needed.

 

[konsolenritter]

It would be nice if I could turn on and off this feature so I don't randomly drag the mouse cursor across the screen when I don't want it, but when I want to highlight something for the live stream Internet viewers, I could activate the mouse cursor and move it into the Program window, pointing to text or an object in the view that the Internet viewers are seeing.

The mouse is only captured during hovering over the activated programs window (whatever is showing the map).
If the mouse is hovering above the OBS-studios window instead (even over the preview or program window showing the map), it won't be captured by mistake.

Are you using two monitors? Some people prefer to have obs fullscreen on one monitor, the captured window on the other. So no accidential movement should happen.

 

[mmmCalvary]

I don't know what an "OBS-studios window" is. I run OBS on one monitor. When it is open, I have two "windows". The one on the left is labeled "Preview" and the one on the right is labeled "Program".

So when a "map" is active in the "program" window, for example, it would be nice to have the mouse cursor display so I can point to the right spot on the map.

I got one suggestion to right click... Maybe they meant this mysterious "OBS-studios window" which I don't think I have or use. When I right-click on the Program window (has the map being streamed live), I get three choices; Fullscreen Projector (Program), Windowed Projector (Program), and Screenshot (Program).

I did try clicking and highlighting the Source I set up (called "Test Images) which is an "image slide show source" and then click the properties button right above the Sources area. I get nothing there about the cursor. I also right-clicked the Source name (Test Images) for the slideshow in the source box area and that appears to be options for the sources. I see nothing related to the cursor.

I've attached a screenshot of an example. On the left is a church pastor speaking at a Sunday Sermon. This video image is queued up and would be the next image to transition to when I'm ready. What's being streamed right now is on the right side which is the "Program" side and is a map. You can see in the lower left of the image that my scene is called "slideshow" and the source is "Test Images" which was a slideshow that comprised three images, for example.

What I'd like to do, if possible, is when this map is being streamed (per the Program window) is to turn on the cursor display and have the cursor appear on the streamed video on top of the map and for me to move the cursor to point to a specific place on the map that the pastor is talking about. As the cursor moves in to the "Program" window, the viewers would see the mouse moving and point to a specific spot on the map. If I moved the cursor out of the Program window, the cursor would disappear. Also, when I'm done with the map, it would be nice to toggle off the "cursor" so that I don't accidentally stream the cursor when I don't want to.

I hope this is more clear. It's possible that I'm only using 10% of the capability of this amazing free OBS application. But now hopefully those of you willing to help, understand my problem and desire much better.

Thank you! Matt

 

[konsolenritter]

Hi Matt,

programs in Microsoft Windows are organized in windows. That kind of windows i meant.
So OBS is running as a window application with its contents screened in a whole window.
Not to confuse with the preview and program view within that window.

With that in mind, please read my hints again. Sorry for being confusing you.
So i distinguished between obs (as a whole) in its window, and the program that delivers the slides (in another window).

Now i see that you just inserted the slides as slideshow within obs.
Most people use external programs like powerpoint, pdf readers, browser aso. for foreign contents and use a window-capture-source within obs to get its contents into a scene.

That was meant with my post. You hover the mouse over the (external) program, then it can be seen within the stream (if and when you let the mouse cursor be captured too. That was the hint by user "AccidentalsHappen")

With your mouse hovering in the obs window (wherever within that window, even over the program view) its not seen within the stream. Right? As far as i know there is no possibility to blend the cursor hovering above the view within obs into the stream.

So i gave the hint with an external monitor. Often people doing church streaming let obs in fullscreen mode on one monitor and place the external program (in your example, e.g. a powerpoint slide providing the map) on the second monitor. So by moving the mouse over to the second screen it gets visible over the captured map, if you want.)

I hope that fits better for you?

 

[WBE]

You might want to take a look at OBS Studio mouse cursor skin 2.0.0

Just for clarification: capturing the cursor is normally understood within the OBS community as capturing with(in) another program. I.e. having a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, pointing and highlighting with your mouse at that presentation window and capturing PowerPoint presentation including the cursor into OBS Studio. Same goes for games etc.

 

[mmmCalvary]

Hi Matt,

programs in Microsoft Windows are organized in windows. That kind of windows i meant.
So OBS is running as a window application with its contents screened in a whole window.
Not to confuse with the preview and program view within that window.

View attachment 72532
With that in mind, please read my hints again. Sorry for being confusing you.
So i distinguished between obs (as a whole) in its window, and the program that delivers the slides (in another window).

Now i see that you just inserted the slides as slideshow within obs.
Most people use external programs like powerpoint, pdf readers, browser aso. for foreign contents and use a window-capture-source within obs to get its contents into a scene.

That was meant with my post. You hover the mouse over the (external) program, then it can be seen within the stream (if and when you let the mouse cursor be captured too. That was the hint by user "AccidentalsHappen")

With your mouse hovering in the obs window (wherever within that window, even over the program view) its not seen within the stream. Right? As far as i know there is no possibility to blend the cursor hovering above the view within obs into the stream.

So i gave the hint with an external monitor. Often people doing church streaming let obs in fullscreen mode on one monitor and place the external program (in your example, e.g. a powerpoint slide providing the map) on the second monitor. So by moving the mouse over to the second screen it gets visible over the captured map, if you want.)

I hope that fits better for you?

Yes! Thanks, that is very helpful. How to do this right has always been an issue for me. I've read tons of stuff but can't figure out a way to make it work for us. Right now we actually use a second PC that projects to a local projector inside the church. That we do use MS PowerPoint to do. The speaker has a remote control and they decide when to turn to the next slide for the audience inside the church. But in parallel, I've created a slideshow of images as a scene and source. I then "follow the lead" of the speaker for the streaming stuff and when they change a powerpoint slide, I change to the next image in the OBS slide show source.

The speaker uses a laser pointer for the clicker to point to places on the inside service projector screen. I was hoping to use the mouse for me to point to the same location for the streaming audience (sometimes larger than the inside church crowd).

Would you be willing to contact me directly and help me with how to do this? I've briefly tried extending the monitor and having two monitors but I had issues in the past where things got confusing for the hardware. (I use multiple HDMI splitters and switches to allow multiple sources to be switched to any or all of our inside projectors.)

I should also mention I've recently purchased a small four input HDMI video mixer and I had planned on doing something like what you all are talking about where I used the second pc to still do our powerpoint but with the mixer, I could route the powerpoint pc video through the video mixer into OBS and then the mouse movement should be passed on by streaming the laptop video that is used for the internal church powerpoint slides. When I don't want that, I mix in the video from our camera and use OBS to transition or however that will work. I've read that this device I bought interfaces well with OBS but I haven't had time to try it yet.

I'm not sure if there is a way for members to contact each other directly. I see a email icon above at the top of this webpage window that is for "Conversations". Maybe that is a way for you and I to establish a private conversation and then possibly to take it to a phone call from there if needed and agreed to by both parties?

Matt

 

[mmmCalvary]

Hi Matt,

programs in Microsoft Windows are organized in windows. That kind of windows i meant.
So OBS is running as a window application with its contents screened in a whole window.
Not to confuse with the preview and program view within that window.

View attachment 72532
With that in mind, please read my hints again. Sorry for being confusing you.
So i distinguished between obs (as a whole) in its window, and the program that delivers the slides (in another window).

Now i see that you just inserted the slides as slideshow within obs.
Most people use external programs like powerpoint, pdf readers, browser aso. for foreign contents and use a window-capture-source within obs to get its contents into a scene.

That was meant with my post. You hover the mouse over the (external) program, then it can be seen within the stream (if and when you let the mouse cursor be captured too. That was the hint by user "AccidentalsHappen")

With your mouse hovering in the obs window (wherever within that window, even over the program view) its not seen within the stream. Right? As far as i know there is no possibility to blend the cursor hovering above the view within obs into the stream.

So i gave the hint with an external monitor. Often people doing church streaming let obs in fullscreen mode on one monitor and place the external program (in your example, e.g. a powerpoint slide providing the map) on the second monitor. So by moving the mouse over to the second screen it gets visible over the captured map, if you want.)

I hope that fits better for you?

Thank you so much for the clarification. I'm tossed, I think, with two things I'm trying to do at the same time. I'm not convinced that the 2nd monitor will work for me. I think I understand what to do but the problem I have is how do I duplicate the 2nd monitor with Powerpoint (and the moving cursor) and dump it out to my HDMI switch (that routes to two projector screens inside the church)?

So the more I think about it, although it's good to understand all my possibilities, I will push forward to integrating the Feelworld LivePRo L1 "multi-format Video mixer" in with the two PCs (PowerPoint and OBS). My understanding is that I route HDMI inputs into the video mixer and the output of the mixer interfaces via what looks like a USB 3.x interface. So I can do all the mixing of two cameras and two other PCs that all can be routed to the video mixer. This gives me more flexibility because I want to have a bible website up on one of the PCs and when the speaker refers to a scripture quote, I just switch the video mixer to that video source. The same for the two camera sources and the powerpoint (with cursor!) video source. The issue is then that I need more people to help. I'm running all of this by myself! Help. Volunteers?? :-) Thanks for the help!

 

[konsolenritter]

Matt,

i opened a direct conversion, have you seen it? Unfortunately i didn't find back to it myself. Shit!
If you didn't got anything, i will shorten the content and post here what i wrote an hour ago or so.

 

[konsolenritter]

Matt,

https://obsproject.com/forum/conversations/