Streamers with jobs

I mean, it's happened for me for a ton of games for crazy issues.

The most recent was when I replayed the original FEAR last year, baffled by how badly it was performing, and ran hardcore video card and memory diagnostic tests before just googling it and finding out my Logitech camera was the likely problem.

I've been sponging up a lot of information so Youtube has transformed my daily recommended videos accordingly of late. I was watching an interview with Harris Heller and Ludwig during breakfast today and the topic of preparation came up.

Ludwig talked about preparing for three hours for a two-hour long stream. From my limited exposure to his channel I can see he's doing quite a bit of variety and it's highly interactive in nature, so he's not simply playing a video game while chatting. He didn't offer any specifics beyond that so I'm rather curious how much planning is actually needed for a typical gaming live stream and what is going into it.

I know for the handful of Twitch podcasts I've done, the prep work was beginning to rival total broadcast time because of the news sorting, reading and opinion formulating I would need to do, knowing that I would be solely responsible for filling in any dead air for two straight hours. And that was before I began integrating a simple slide deck as a way to provide more visual interest besides scrolling through website articles.

Interested to hear how everyone approaches preparation for their own streams!

Much of my prep is choosing what to play on which day (I've got a few weeks ahead planned out) and setting up the stream names/games/text on the various services, all of which doesn't take HOURS but it takes a ton of time. I'm not as involved as these full-timers though.

I'm not a full-timer either, so not a lot of prep on my end. I've considered writing stuff down on notepads that occurs to me throughout the day as potential air-filler, especially as the later at night it gets the less talkative I tend to be. However, aside from updating my schedule on my overlay, updating the schedule on Twitch, or making sure stuff is updated, I don't do much in the way of prep.

At the same time, I don't see Twitch being something I could do full-time since I don't see myself as being any sort of draw, so I only put enough effort in to be satisfied with rather than an over-the-top amount to make sure it looks full-time without being full-time.

It very much depends on what your goals are. Harris Heller's videos are trying to help you get to the point where you can make streaming your day job. If you are looking to take it that far, 3 hours of prep for a 2 hours stream seems appropriate. Myself, I only stream because I am playing games anyway and figured why not. I don't care to make it my full time job and don't plan on ever monetizing my stream. Because of that, preparation is usually only done if I find it fun to do the preparation.

@Kazar

Guess I'm your 50th follower !

Manach wrote:

@Kazar

Guess I'm your 50th follower !

Time to start monetizing lol

Yeah, most of my prep is just remembering to update my stream title, go-live notification, and twitch category. I haven't yet gone live with the wrong game set as my category, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

I've been thinking I'd like to do a little gaming news segment at the start of my streams. That will obviously take a bit of work to both collect the news, and hopefully form some thoughts ahead of time. I'll need to figure out how to fit that prep work in ahead of time.

Yup, fully recognize that Harris Heller & his contemporaries are speaking to aspiring career streamers or streamers who want to take things to the next level. I'm just very curious about the amount and type of preparation that separates the established personalities from your run of the mill streamer. Podcasts, talk shows, interviews & debates... I can understand to a degree the kind of preparation you'd be doing for those type of broadcasts. But for gaming and "just chatting" streams, I wonder if they are orchestrating things to come across as unscripted when it is all pre-planned.

@beanman: an opening news segment would be pretty cool. Hope you give it a shot!

n/m, wrong thread

A green screen the only way to "blend" my webcam background in with the game capture? Example:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/xKjZmKV.png)

Generally, yes. I've started seeing software green screen such as Nvidia Broadcast or EpocCam that can fake it to varying degrees of success.

Maclintok wrote:

A green screen the only way to "blend" my webcam background in with the game capture? Example:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/xKjZmKV.png)

Here my 2 cents :

Most program will ask you which color should it blend with your background. Green is the go-to color. You don't wear, or use green stuff most of the time. Some use Black as well.

Some program will always try to remove your background base on depth, it's ok at first. Try it out, and if you have fun with it, look up other options after.

Heck, don't use any. Some big-time streamer doesn't even your a blur or a background at all !

Thanks. Yeah I personally like the look it gives to people's streams. I may look into doing a software-only solution to achieve a similar effect but it's not terribly urgent atm. The field of view for my webcam has progressively gotten tighter so lately there's barely any view of my room behind me.

From what I've seen software solutions aren't anywhere near as good as actual green screens. I have a collapsible one that I just love so much.

But you have to do a green screen right for it to really be better. Proper lighting and being able to put the screen far enough away to not have bleeding is key. There are situations where software will yield better results.

I use proper lighting and the nvidia broadcast software (proper lighting is always required), and it does the job credibly.
Not to mention that I just don’t have the space for a green screen, collapsible or otherwise.

I think I've identified the source of my audio drops. I've been piping in a singular source audio channel into OBS Studio from the Wave Link software mixer. This source had included my mic, Spotify, a browser and game audio which gets put into one of the Mic/Aux OBS source channels. This way I've been able to tweak monitoring and source audio levels directly in Wave Link without fiddling with OBS.

But I guess this set up comes with some quirks. I don't know if it's a bug with OBS or with Wave Link. It's like all of the individual audio sources end up competing with each other but typically it's the game audio that takes the biggest hit. My solution so far has been simply to re-separate all of my audio sources within OBS, which makes running the Wave Link app almost symbolic (I don't think my Wave:1 mic will work without it running).

@beanman101283: you use an Elgato Wave:3, correct? Has Wave Link given you similar hassles in the past?

I use an Elgato Wave 3, and what I do is pump that into VoiceMeeter via Link Stream, then pump VoiceMeeter into OBS. Works great.

I also have a Wave 3, but do not use either Wave Link or VoiceMeeter. I manage audio sources within Streamlabs itself. I dunno when it started or why, but the gain dial for my Wave 3 is always higher whenever I turn on my computer, and with apps like Zoom, it seems to adjust automatically. Fortunately, once I set it back to where I want when streaming, it seems to stay consistent. I just need to make sure to turn that Gain dial down each time before streaming or it'll be too loud.

That's my experience, at least.

I use Link to set my gain for the mic my own self, way more precise than the knob.

Thanks Veloxi, I'll give VoiceMeeter a try.

Let me know if you need help, it can be finicky to set up but I absolutely love its flexibility. I use the Banana edition.

I haven't been using the Wave Link software, though I've been thinking I'd like to dig into it just so I can avoid things like browser notifications and the like coming through on my stream audio.

I have the Wave:3. The way I have it setup is I have OBS take my mic input directly. I have filters added to the mic so I can do things like noise cancelling and add a compressor and gate. I installed a mod which lets me add a monitor source to any input in OBS so I can feed the mic into a VBAudio Cable. This lets me pipe the mic back to discord. The rest of the audio goes through the Wave Link software. I have a channel for Discord, Browser, Game, My Piano and SFX. Note that the game channel requires you to tell the game to use it, and not all games behave well, so you might need a system channel as a catch all. Other then the occasional Wave Link crash, it has worked well.

It's funny, we seem to have mostly "I don't use the Link software at all." or "I USE IT FOR EVERYTHING."

When elgato adds VST support, I will probably fully use it.

Yeah for me it's mostly I was busy spending time learning OBS and filters and all the stuff that goes into making mic input sound good. I didn't have the mental bandwidth to also try learn the Wave Link software at the same time. Now that some other stuff is calming down for me on the streaming side of things, I'd like to figure out how/if I can use it effectively since I've heard good things about it.

I use the Link software specifically to tweak the gain on the mic and nothing else. It's WAY better than the knob.

I've noticed playing difficult games on stream has helped to loosen me up a lot more & embrace the in-the-moment aspect of the medium. I feel like opening up that salt mine has made my 'true self' come out a bit more, hopefully to the benefit of my content's entertainment value!