Impossible to use OBS for tutoring AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT (and similar).

[BimCadTutor]

OBS doesn't capture some AutoCAD screen menus, so it is impossible to use OBS for tutoring AutoCAD (and similar) in any OBS source mode.

OBS doesn't capture most menus when source is Window Capture - and that would not be a problem if OBS could capture them in Display Capture mode. But, although it captures most of menus in Display Capture mode, it doesn't capture ALL of them!

Attached are AutoCAD screen capture from original screen and video of corresponding OBS Preview window to show what OBS misses (both captured with another grabbers). (These panels are missing in OBS recording file also).

You can see triangular "drop-down buttons" (as under Circle), and triangular "panel expander icons" (as by Draw).
OBS is not capturing the last ones. You can see that in video.

Both ar called by mouse clicks. But OBS preview window doesn't "see" the expanded panel, though it is visible in original AutoCAD screen. In autoCAD the difference is - when corsor is moved off of drop down menu, it doesn't disapear, when cursor is moved off of expander panel, it disapears. Maybe OBS doesn't recalculate panel size? Pinning them down doesn't help either - expanded panels are not visible in OBS!

Autodesk pages about their menus:

About the Ribbon

About the Quick Access Toolbar

None of OBS Known Confilcts is on the machine. Windows Aero is off.

video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fJ37YP0YmqnZHp5v6ShYOHH93OzlS7zt/view?usp=sharing

screencapture:

 

[BobCc]

I'm still very much an OBS newbie, but my understanding is that "Window Capture" grabs only native Windows widgets, not things drawn by the application itself onto a graphic overlay (which many CAD programs love to do, especially Fusion 360). To also capture the overlay you must instead use "Display Capture", then crop it to show just your application's window area.

The simplest case is when your app can run full-screen on its own display, separate from OBS and other apps. Easy-peasy.

In my case, I have up to a dozen apps running on a single 4K monitor which I must bounce between during my 1080p OBS streaming, most of which have overlay effects, and all of which overlap each other to some extent. So when I switch cropped Display sources, I also capture the application window overlap until I manually raise the desired application window. And when I restart all the applications, they land in different places, meaning either the Display Capture crops must be manually updated, or I must manually move the app to the location it had when I set the display crop.

It works, but only if you have a really lousy definition of "works". It's so easy to mess things up during a live stream (I demo/teach engineering workflows on Zoom).

The "simple" solution is to buy more hardware: More monitors, maybe another display card, and perhaps a video mixer from Black Magic Design. But I'm a cheap bastard: I believe OBS already contains all the fundamental capabilities needed to make this happen. I was hoping Game Capture would do precisely this, but I haven't been able to get it to work with normal application windows.

I'm just starting to look at the idea of creating a new Window Capture source I'll call "Window Capture From Display". It will select the application window same as the Window Capture source, but use it only to get the application's display & window position attributes, after which it will raise that window and grab only its pixels from the associated display, making it act just like a Window Capture source. Only better.

My hope is someone smarter than me has already created such a thing, but I may still be too new to OBS to know the right search terms to use to find it.

 

[BimCadTutor]

@cyclemat
To be precise, the is no "Desktop Capture" in OBS 26.1.1. I suppose you mean "Display Capture", but then - I was writing about the problem after thoroughly tried both OBS "Window Capture" and OBS "Display Capture". And yes, "Window Capture" is completely unusable, as it capters only the main window, not any menus. At the beginning it seemed that "Display Capture" will do the job, but NO - " Desktop Capture" captures most of menu panels, but not all.

 

[BimCadTutor]

@BobCc
" The simplest case is when your app can run full-screen on its own display, separate from OBS and other apps. Easy-peasy."
- Yes, I am running it in separate monitor, which is one of my three monitors.

" The "simple" solution is to buy more hardware"
No, its not a solution for this OBS bug - I have three monitors, and quite fresh professional Nvidia Qudro display card, which can sustain three 4K monitors. More hardware does not help against OBS software bugs (or inadequicies).

By the way, Bandicam screen recorder captures ALL menu panels with ease on the same system - but - its a recorder, not LIVE broadcasting tool.

 

[BimCadTutor]

@BobCc
" To also capture the overlay you must instead use "Display Capture", then crop it to show just your application's window area."
Just read my post: " But, although it captures most of menus in Display Capture mode, it doesn't capture ALL of them!"
It means, I know about it and I have tried it. OBS captures most of "overlays" in Display Capture mode, it doesn't capture ALL of them!
Other screen recorders CAN capture them on the same system, I suppose OBS has not fully functional (or buggy) capture code.