An overlay makes your brand visible even before someone presses play. Combined with custom designs and colors, it really helps you make your stream your own.įor businesses that regularly broadcast, adding the ability to brand your stream is important for when a viewer embeds and shares your content on social media. This is a great way to add more personality to your stream.

The most common example would be using a branded webcam overlay in your video stream so viewers can see you and your live reactions.

But there can be many more, depending on what you are looking to achieve. We already covered some of the reasons to use live stream overlays. Image via Twitch’s official channel Why Use A Stream Overlay? Below is an example of how Twitch’s own channel harnesses the power of interactive elements and custom OBS overlays to produce a very unique looking stream. You can keep adding more layers until you have something that looks completely different from your competitors, which really helps you stand out. There is a good amount of Twitch overlay templates to help you add an extra layer of interactivity to your stream. On websites such as Twitch, overlays can be used to display viewer donations as well as recent followers or subscribers. Overlays are typically things like images, text, webcams, custom QR codes or interactive elements that are used to add more information and styling to your broadcast. A stream overlay is typically a graphic or piece of information that is visible to the viewer on top of the raw live video feed. Much like OBS plugins, overlays are an extension of the default OBS functionality. You can easily add an overlay in OBS(Open Broadcaster Software) as we will show you in the below post. Stream overlays also enhance the broadcast by displaying notifications and donation messages which are all integrated into the video stream.

One of the ways to achieve this is with a stream overlay because it makes it easier for viewers to identify your brand and stream at a glance. Whether you want to start a streaming service or live stream an event, customization and branding will help you get noticed. But, to reach more viewers, it is important to be able to stand out from the crowd. Today, all you need to build a global streaming business is a live streaming platform. How To Add An Overlay To OBS - Level Up Your Streams

Obs studio overlay tutorial