StreamElements has been growing massively over the past year and is starting to become a big competitor with apps like Streamlabs. While they have an amazing app, how you apply overlays is slightly different than what you are previously used to. In this article we are going to cover how you can set up an overlay with Streamelements.
Let’s jump in and learn how to use Streamelements overlays for your stream.
Choosing An Overlay On Streamelements
The first thing we need to do is choose an overlay to get started with. Streamelements has tons of free overlays to choose from in their app. Personally I would recommend starting with one of these if you are a brand new streamer. There is no need to spend loads of money on a theme when you can get quality ones for free to start out.
In Streamelements navigate to Streaming tools –> Overlays Gallery on the left hand side.
Here you can see all the overlay options available inside Streamelements. I would recommend having a look through the themes, to see which one fits your brand best.
Most of these themes come with different scenes for Gameplay, Just chatting, Be Right Back and starting soon screens. Some also include animated features to bring your stream alive.
If you click on the create button you can see a preview of each of the scenes.
Now that you have chosen an overlay let’s show you how to use streamelements overlays on your stream.
How To Use Streamelements Overlays – Create New Overlay
Once you have chosen an overlay you can click on the Create My Overlay Button. In this example I am going to be using the Blue Flare Super Theme from Streamelements.
Step 1 – Adding Scenes To Your Streaming Software
Now that we have chosen our overlay we need to add each scene to our streaming software. Whether you are using OBS, Streamlabs or OBS.live this process will be very similar. We essentially will be adding each scene as a browser source into our software. In the example below I am going to use OBS.
When you click on “Create My Overlay” you will be presented with a link for each of the scenes in your overlay. We need to create a scene in OBS for each of these links.
As you can see above in the Blue flare overlay there is 5 links, so I am going to create 5 scenes inside OBS.
How To Create A New Scene In OBS & Add A Browser Source
To add a new scene in OBS go to scenes –> “+” –> Name your scene (I recommend naming them the same as the names in your overlay) –> OK.
You now have a new scene.
We now need to add a source to that scene. To add our overlay we need to add a browser source.
Navigate to Sources –> “+” –> Browser –> Create New (Give it a name) –> OK.
In this browser source section you want to paste the URL from Streamelements in the URL box like below. You should then change the Width and Height to the size of your canvas. This will usually be 1920×1080.
Click on OK.
As you can see the overlay has now been added to OBS. It may take a couple of seconds to load in.
You now need to do this for each scene you want on your stream. You can see how it looks once finished in the below image.
Now that we have all of our scenes imported we can edit them in Streamelements.
Step 2 – How To Edit A Streamelements Overlay
As you have probably noticed by now this does not act like a normal overlay. You can’t actually edit this overlay directly inside OBS Studio. To edit the overlay we need to go to our Streamelements dashboard.
To access the editor open Streamelements and navigate to Streaming Tools –> My Overlays. Here you will see all of the scenes from your Overlay.
To edit a specific scene, click on the “Edit” button. This will take you to the overlay editor. Here you can make all of the changes to your scene such as moving elements around, adding elements or removing elements.
On the left hand side you can see each “Layer” in your overlay. This includes text boxes, webcam border, alerts etc.
The first thing you will want to do is edit any text that needs to be changed. Change all of the social media handles over to your own.
You can do this by clicking on the layer on the left hand side and editing the text.
You can also adjust any element on the screen by click and dragging. For example if you want to change your webcam border to a different location you can click on it and drag it somewhere else. You can also drag the corners to increase or decrease the size of an element.
How To Completely Remove An Element
You can also delete or hide elements if you don’t want them appearing in your scene. To hide an element click the little eye icon on the layer on the left hand side.
If you want to delete a layer highlight the layer and click on the delete icon at the top of the layers section.
How To Emulate Alerts
One of the cool features about Streamelements is emulating alerts. You can emulate any new alerts you add to see how they will look.
To do this click on the Emulate button located at the bottom of the screen. You can then select the event you want to emulate.
Your alert will appear and you can see what it looks like when you get one of those events on stream.
How To Add New Elements To Streamelements Overlay
Here you can add all of the features Streamelements has to offer. This includes stuff like Stream Alerts, Countdown timers, Stream Labels etc. You can look through these to see which features you want to add to your scene.
Once you add anything to your scene, make sure to click the save button. Once you click save this scene will then automatically update in your streaming software. You DO NOT need to add a new link.
Step 3 – Adding Other Features To Your Streaming Software
Now that you have customised your overlays to your liking in Streamelements you need to add the rest of your sources in your streaming software.
I’m not going to go into detail in this article about how to add webcams, microphones etc. However you will likely need to add at least your webcam, microphone and game capture source to your stream in OBS or streaming software of your choice.
Wrapping Up
You have now set up your overlay using Streamelements. Stream elements is a great tool to add free overlays to your stream. You can check out some of our other Streamelements guides down below.
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