Keeping a scene active, while editing another scene

[korfuri]

Hi, I'm currently working on an art installation. In this installation I'm using multiple monitors, driven by an HDMI splitter: the splitter behaves as a single monitor for my PC, but splits the image in 6 and sends each fragment of the image to a different physical monitor.

I am trying to drive this using OBS via a fullscreen projector sent to the splitter. I have a scene, titled "Composition", that features 6 Scenes-as-sources, each scene titled "Monitor 1" to "Monitor 6". I start a fullscreen projector on my Composiiton scene, and then my intent is to swap sources in an out of each "Monitor" scene manually or through scripts.

The issue I'm facing is that as soon as I go to edit any other scene than Composition, some of the sources freeze. Specifically, only the sources in use in whatver scene I'm editing are kept playing, the other ones are stopped.

I have a workaround: in studio mode, I can keep my Composition active on the left pane, and never use a scene transition. But that's not great: it uses a lot of screen real-estate, and if I hit the wrong hotkey, I might start sending a single Monitor scene to the splitter.

Is there a way to pin my Composition scene so that it remains active? Or another way to achieve what I'm aiming for here? I realize OBS may not be the ideal solution, if so I'm also happy to take recommendations of Linux software that works in this kind of environment. Thanks!

 

[AaronD]

Close the projector, then right-click the scene, and start the projector from there.

 

[korfuri]

I may be holding it wrong, but here's how I'm creating the projector: In the Scenes dock, I right click the Composition scene and start the projector from that menu. This exhibits the issue I'm describing, where sources not active in the scene I'm currently editing do not remain active and thus stop rendering in the projector.

If instead I right click the preview, I can create a projector on the preview, but that is not what I want since I want to pin the Composition scene in that projector.

I'm running 30.2.3 if that makes any difference - 31.0 is not yet packaged in my distro (NixOS) but I'm not seeing anything relevant in the changelog.

 

[AaronD]

I may be holding it wrong, but here's how I'm creating the projector: In the Scenes dock, I right click the Composition scene and start the projector from that menu. This exhibits the issue I'm describing, where sources not active in the scene I'm currently editing do not remain active and thus stop rendering in the projector.

What does "active" mean here? Could be anything from transparent to black to hung on a single frame to several other things.
Maybe some screenshots or a video?

If instead I right click the preview, I can create a projector on the preview, but that is not what I want since I want to pin the Composition scene in that projector.

I keep thinking of projecting the Program window on purpose (in Studio Mode), even though you only ever want that one scene to be there. And in fact you *will* only ever have that one scene there. Just be careful to not transition by accident (remove all hotkeys that might do that), and use the Preview to edit as needed. Then put the "show scene" back in the Preview, and transition to show your changes to the world.

One potential problem with that is if your edits to the sub-scenes appear live in real time, even if the main scene doesn't do that. Is that what you're talking about?

I'm running 30.2.3 if that makes any difference - 31.0 is not yet packaged in my distro (NixOS) but I'm not seeing anything relevant in the changelog.

Shouldn't make a difference for this one.

 

[korfuri]

By active, I mean that sources that e.g. play from a video file stop playing when the scene is not what I'm editing. They freeze, and upon returning to my composition scene, they start over from the beginning. I would like these videos to continue playing in the projector while I'm editing my "Monitor" scenes.

Thanks for the tips. That's not really different or better than what I'm doing unfortunately.

 

[AaronD]

By active, I mean that sources that e.g. play from a video file stop playing when the scene is not what I'm editing. They freeze, and upon returning to my composition scene, they start over from the beginning. I would like these videos to continue playing in the projector while I'm editing my "Monitor" scenes.

That puts a whole 'nother layer of trickiness on it. I was thinking of mostly static things, like for the menu board of a fast-food restaurant. Where does this projector go, anyway?

Hi, I'm currently working on an art installation. In this installation I'm using multiple monitors, driven by an HDMI splitter: the splitter behaves as a single monitor for my PC, but splits the image in 6 and sends each fragment of the image to a different physical monitor.

I am trying to drive this using OBS via a fullscreen projector sent to the splitter. I have a scene, titled "Composition", that features 6 Scenes-as-sources, each scene titled "Monitor 1" to "Monitor 6".

So (logically, at least, and as far as the computer knows) it's a video wall of 6 screens. And you want to use them as 6 independent single displays?

Another idea might be to (somehow) get 7 independent video outputs from the computer directly - 1 for control, and the other 6 to drive the individual screens directly; no more splitter - and then have 6 separate projectors from the 6 individual scenes. Assuming you can do that in the first place, does it get you anywhere useful?

And there's also the possibility of using 6 simultaneous instances of OBS, with a single projector each, which again requires the 6 individual screens (plus control) to be known as such to the computer itself.