Question / Help Is there any way for the Automatic Scene Switcher to detect URL changes?

Z

zev_engineer

New Member
As a software engineer, I'm currently in the process of creating tutorial videos to show users the various functions of our newly developed site. One of these videos relates to updating the user's account information. The account information page contains some sensitive information (passwords), so I created a scene which positions a blur effect (technically, a PNG image) over the relevant text. (This is necessary, given that these videos will be available to everyone who accesses the site.)

The problem is, part of this tutorial involves showing the user how to navigate from the home page (which does not display said passwords) to their account page. The intention is that when the Account page loads, OBS switches to the 'Password Blurred' scene. I initially triggered the scene switch manually (through hotkeys) at the time the Account page came into view, but there were still a few frames where the passwords were visible- and regardless, given that load times can vary based on network latency, that's not a reliable/repeatable method. I began looking into the automatic scene switcher, but it seems that can only be triggered through changing to a different window- which this site does not do. However, if the scene could switch when the URL changed, that would solve the issue.

I began looking into the Advanced Scene Switcher plugin as well (https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/advanced-scene-switcher.395/ ), but based on the documentation it may not support switching on URL changes. And given that there has been no activity there for months, it seemed this was a better place to post my question.

Is there any way for OBS to automatically switch scenes when the URL changes, without changing any windows?
 
I would suggest doing this in post, even the scene switcher won't be frame accurate since it still has to scan the windows every X milliseconds. A basic blur filter is easy to do with something like Avidemux2, you don't need complex / expensive video editing software.
 
Thank you for your response. It's good to know the capabilities and limitations of OBS- I am now using OBS for screen capture, and looking into other options for post processing.
 
You will find that the best approach is to use OBS just for raw capture and do everything else with some postprocessing software. Don't plan to create your tutorial scenes in one take by repeating them as often as it is necessary to get a flawless click-stream.
With proper postprocessing software you are able to just remove the bad parts of the recording, as well as blur everything you don't want to show. It also may be that you detect more things to blur long after the recording, add transitions, add stuff you didn't think of at the start of the project, etc.

I don't know how often you will create such tutorials, and how large these tutorials will be, but from own experience I found out that getting proper and somewhat sophisticated postprocessing software saves you way more time than fiddling with the most basic free software.

For example, a software that provides a built in option to blur any part of the video instead of manually creating a blur filter image as mask pays instantly out for the time you save by directly blur the video parts. Time for learning the new software is usually less than the time you save by being more efficient. The video quality will also improve. A well-prepared commentary spoken later and added to the video is often better than a mute tutorial with subtitles or someone narrating on the fly.

When I started postprocessing my let's play videos, I thought avidemux would suffice. Just cut a bit and that's all, I thought. After preparing 3 hours of video with avidemux, I dumped all and bought a video editor. It was Adobe Premiere Elements at that time, was only 100 Euro, but instead of tediously fiddling with frames and video snippets as with Avidemux, I was able to get into some real and effective editing workflow.
 
Hello! Please take a look at our plugin, Pixel Match Switcher. In a (hopefully) not too distant future we hope to do matching for a template anywhere on the screen and position a source accordingly. Right now it does image matching at a fixed part of the screen, but maybe you can find a way to make it useful.

Pixel Match Switcher

HoneyHazard submitted a new resource: Pixel Match Switcher - Switch scenes or toggle scene Items and filters based on pixel content Pixel Match Switcher Pixel Match Switcher allows switching scenes or changing scene item or filter visibility in response to pixels of video being matched...
obsproject.com
 
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