Question / Help Keyboard Input and Game Overlay - see what viewer sees

[Gidar]

Question:
Is there a way I can overlay the OBS viewer (or "clone" it) to my main monitor over top of the game, and ignore + redirect keyboard input (that are not OBS hotkeys) to the game?

If OBS does not support this, is there another program that does?

If OBS does some day support this (or already does), is it possible to post the answer here?

 

[dodgepong]

If I understand you correctly, you want to play the game through the preview window rather than play the game directly?

I don't really think that's possible...Maybe if the game was being captured by Game Capture, and OBS was always on top, and the preview was fullscreen...but even then, you would get what appears to be input lag, because there is a slight delay between what happens and when it is rendered in OBS preview. In general, I think this is a very bad idea.

 

[Gidar]

Yes, that's what I mean. I do think you are right, if you mean it isn't possible to do exactly what I said with OBS currently.

It's not necessarily a bad idea, in this case. I have a "helmet cam" I'm going to be testing out for my game broadcasts, which has a very low opacity, mirrored webcam so viewers can see which direction I'm looking (if it gets annoying or doesn't look right, I can disable the webcam and just leave the helmet graphic). This helmet graphic took a while to make and I think I'm the first one to (who is about to) attempt this on a live stream, especially on this level.

This is what it is supposed to look like:

The problem is, when I have it mirrored on my screen it is easy to make sure to keep my head "inside the helmet" (or inside sweet spot of webcam), but when it's on the other screen, it's very hard to see whether I'm lined up IRL. I currently don't have a head mount for the webcam so that's not an option.

I've noticed very low input lag when I stream (to the point of being able to play on my second monitor through OBS). I think a nearly unnoticeable performance hit may be worth the improved stream graphics, but my second monitor isn't 1920x1080 and 16:9 like my main monitor, it's at 4:3 ratio and lower max resolution and would look terrible on stream (if I were to swap monitors, which is the easiest solution I thought of, and would work if both monitors were the same size).

Does anyone have any other ideas to achieve the effect of my OP, or what I just mentioned here?

 

[dodgepong]

No idea if this will work:

* Play the game in windowed mode
* Capture with game capture
* Move OBS to your main monitor
* Set OBS to always on top
* Right click the preview and say fullscreen
* Alt tab to the game
* Hopefully OBS will stay fullscreen and on top, even though the game has focus

Like I said, I have no idea if it will work.

 

[Gidar]

SOLVED: Your answer helped me find a working solution. However, my setup requires 2 additional programs to implement.

------------- REQUIRED SOFTWARE (+1): -------------
"WindowedBorderlessGaming" by Hellstrong:
http://forums.steamgames.com/forums/sho ... ?t=2675769

^ for making PlanetSide 2 windowed mode stretch to fullscreen (allowing "Always On Top" windows to actually be seen on top, instead of going "Fullscreen Windowed" in PlanetSide 2 where it jacks the "Always On Top" from all other programs and always stays on top.)

------------- REQUIRED SOFTWARE (+2): -------------
"See Through Windows" by MOBZystems:
http://seethroughwindows.codeplex.com/r ... view/71149

^ for click-through and transparency.
These are the programs:

------------- HOW TO DO IT: -------------
Step 1: Start Game, use OBS to capture in "Game Capture" mode. (Add an image/graphic/webcam/etc. to overlay on stream.)

Step 2: Open "WindowedBorderlessGaming" application (Note: Only applies to PlanetSide 2 and other games with oddball "Borderless Windowed Mode" or that lack a windowed mode. For PS2, you may want to move the task bar to another monitor.)

Step 3: Set to Borderless Windowed Mode, or configure WindowedBorderlessGaming to show your game in a *real* Borderless Windowed Mode. (For PS2, set to "Windowed" mode, NOT to "Fullscreen Windowed". That way it won't always stay on top.)

Step 4: Open "See Through Windows" application, configure hotkey, set to Opaque (or desired opacity), check "make window click-through" and "keep on top of other windows".

Step 5: Put OBS to fullscreen mode. Start the preview (with overlaid graphics).

Step 6: Move OBS window to same monitor (dual monitor setup) as game. You can do this with [Shift + Windows Key + Arrow Key] or just click + drag.

Step 7: Making sure that the OBS window is selected, hit your hotkey for "See Through Windows".

Step 8: Enjoy your game! (Also, make sure you are on the right window when you use hotkey for "See Through Windows".)


ENDING NOTE: This should work with just about ANY game, allowing you to "play OBS" in preview mode. This increases usefulness of OBS as you can use it to overlay just about ANYTHING on top of a "windowed mode" game window. (e.g. music players, Picture-in-Picture videos, facebook status updates, & anything else you can put on your desktop). It may even work for fullscreen games if you can use one of these programs to force to windowed mode.

 

[dodgepong]

Glad to hear you got something working that you like. I'm curious to see this in action, because I still don't quite understand what you need to do this for, even after reading your explanation. Are you using some sort of head-tracking software?

 

[Gidar]

No, although I did think of adding IR head tracking when I can afford to. For now, I just want to be able to see what my viewers are seeing on the stream, which happens to include an overlay that shows my virtual helmet and my eyes (mostly-transparent) from "mirrored" webcam up close (I designed this whole thing to give a more "first person" experience - and a custom one at that - to myself and my viewers than the game provides out-of-the box).

If I can't see my helmet-visor "reflection" on the screen, it's hard to make sure I'm not moving around too much and going "outside my helmet" in relation to my webcam & the overlaid "reflection".

I can demonstrate it for you within the next day or two when I finally do a stream with this. Just check out my VODs on Twitch TV in a day or so, unless you happen to catch me live.

 

[Gidar]

I've posted a YouTube video, showing off my new virtual helmet (and the setup described above).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aghMwbpAvtI

First test during live broadcast is here BTW: http://www.twitch.tv/gidar/b/404821511

edit: Framerate started suffering more noticeably when I got into some larger fights tonight. Perhaps it's not as much a success as I hoped, but I'm still happy I can do it if I want to. This would probably work great for old games (that require few resources), or on a really good computer, though. I think I'll try again with lower graphics settings and see if it reduces the delay.

edit2: I'm thinking it's mostly because I had a Monitor Capture for the main monitor, which I forgot I had turned on, and was underneath the Game Capture (also on main monitor) in the scene.

edit3: Not sure if that was it, but after removing the Monitor Capture and reducing the game graphics to mostly very low quality settings, it seems to be smooth now.

edit4: Confirmed ability to play nearly 3 hour session with overlay on, just had to keep game graphics settings down. Second test during live broadcast: http://www.twitch.tv/gidar/b/404895511

 

[dodgepong]

Monitor capture is notoriously slow, especially if Aero is enabled.

 

[Krazy]

That's....actually kind of cool. But maybe up the opacity to see your eyes a bit more clearly?

 

[Gidar]

That's....actually kind of cool. But maybe up the opacity to see your eyes a bit more clearly?

It is just supposed to be a reflection and I don't want to overdo it. If I put opacity too high, it's just a gigantic face on the screen. As far as I know, OBS doesn't support layer "modes" (e.g. multiply, soft light, hard light, divide, addition, dodge, grain extract, etc.), which limits how real I can make the reflection look (it looks tends to look a bit flat). Maybe I can get a better effect with some different webcam software, though.

Since the webcam isn't actually mounted to my head it's not always spot-on (i.e. eyes go off to side at times), so I'm still not sure if I even want to keep using it. I did receive some good comments, however. Either way, I think I'll keep using the helmet overlay, with or without the close-up webcam.

Sorry that was a bit long-winded, maybe I should start another topic just about my helmet setup?

edit: BTW, it is more difficult to see the "reflection" in the static image, than on my videos. Probably obvious, but I thought it might be easy to overlook. And I did modify the opacity a few times already during my tests.

edit2: Newer YouTube video (gameplay highlight and example of custom helmet overlay without webcam): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGC2dAVMhg

edit2(b): Since I can play the game with my overlay on top, I can see the chat my viewers type without checking the other monitor (chat is one of the things I've brought into the overlay using OBS).