Question / Help OBS and iRacing Replays w/ Graphic Overlays

[Chris Mesa]

OBS and iRacing replays?...

So far in my searching, I'm having difficulty in finding clear info on using OBS to record iRacing replays that has graphic overlays such as sponsor logos, etc.

The replay within iRacing can be played, paused, frame by frame, etc, and cameras and their direction can be changed as well for different camera views. All of this can be recorded, then edited for posting online.

Scenes and Sources? It looks like this will allow for graphics, but it looks like only Scenes can be hotkeyed. If iRacing is playing and being recorded, if I click on something other than iRacing, then then iRacing goes into a serious stutter till I click back on it's window. No good for recording! To turn on or off any graphics must be done with a hotkey, or some other way that won't "deselect" the iRacing window when a replay is being recorded.

Of course the graphics can be done with a video editor when the various video clips are edited, but it looks like OBS might be an easier way to do it. Turn on when recording, then turn off, simple.

Many iRacing members use various ways to record and stream racing, but OBS keeps coming up as the program to use at least for streaming.

A good tutorial on this for iRacing members would be a massive help to a lot of people.

 

[FerretBomb]

Create multiple copied Scenes from a 'master' with various logos on the alternate versions. Use hotkeys to switch between the scenes. Sources cannot be individually hotkeyed. Yes, this gets a little tedious. It also means that each combination of overlay/logo/splash sets needs to be pre-made and configured for each permutation/combination you want.

Alternately, many will set up an image directory of sponsor logos (this is popular among the League of Legends community for example) with an OBS image slideshow Source which will load each image in turn and display it for a user-configured duration. It's wise to ensure that all of the images are of identical dimensions, and are on alpha-enabled PNGs to allow smooth compositing. This is useful if you are not concerned with displaying a specific sponsor's logo at a specific time, but want to provide rolling advertisement space.

If your game starts to stutter when it loses focus, that's either the OS deprioritizing it, or the game 'nicing' itself when it sees that it is a background process. Nothing OBS can do about that, as OBS isn't causing it.

Fairly standard streaming stuff, nothing iRacing specific about it, really.

 

[Chris Mesa]

Thanks for the info. Good stuff.

Yes, I like the slideshow, I have one set now as a "source" along with several single images, and it works great. Having to check the box makes it unusable for my purposes though due to it causing it lose focus.

So I did get a Scene set for both an individual image, as well as a slideshow. Both work, however, they are black and not transparent so you can't see iRacing behind it running. Their order in the list is on top of the iRacing source.

Could that be the png needs alpha enabled?

My only other issue is with the quality of the MP4 it produces. It's not very good at 720p. Not something I want to load to YouTube. Maybe settings need tweaking.

 

[FerretBomb]

Yep. Try having one 'master' scene with no logos/ads, one with a slideshow active, and one with just a single logo. Use hotkeys to switch between them. No need to check any box at that point, just in the other scenes leave the image/slideshow sources checked.

Yes, that's what an alpha layer does; it determines which parts of the image are transparent or semi-transparent. OBS handles alpha natively, if present in the image. You can also click the 'edit scene' button and resize/move them around, though for long-term assets you'll want to use an image editor to resize the image to the proper dimensions directly.

Yep. Getting the proper settings is almost an art form. If you're recording locally only, you can use a much higher bitrate and so have a much higher quality standard. If you're streaming, you're pretty much stuck working within the technical limitations that imposes. Some streamers will run two copies of OBS, controlling both via hotkeys, to stream one at a lower rate, and record the other locally at a much higher rate. There are methods to minimize the impact of this, but it's a bit advanced and can cause technical issues.

 

[Chris Mesa]

Thank you again FerretBomb. Got some tweaking to do. I record locally, as my rig isn't quite up to streaming speed. If I do stream in the future, I'll likely do it like some members who broadcast races, by using a second pc in the mix., but all that is a whole 'nother animal.