Create Free Overlays for Your Game Streams With This Site
As much as I want to try streaming games, I always try to jump into Twitch waters for two reasons: I don’t have a solid background behind my gaming desktop chair, making it difficult to turn everything off except my face, and I don’t have beautiful animations that kept all 10 viewers on my stream.
If you’ve ever spent time streaming on Twitch, Mixer, YouTube, Facebook, or anywhere else, you’ve probably noticed all the fun ways streamers are announcing new subscribers (and tips). Usually there is some kind of announcing animation and some kind of stupid sound – a musical riff, a quote from some sci-fi movie, and so on.
Overlays and animations can be a lot of fun, but they’re not what you’ll find in most streaming software (like OBS, XSplit, GeForce Experience, etc.). You either have to create them yourself using a tool like PhotoShop or After Effects, or you have to download them from somewhere else and integrate them into your stream.
For those new to streaming and want their streams to look a little better than the simple head-in-a-corner setup you usually see, I recommend checking out Player.me .
While there are many places where you can find free overlays, I love the fact that the Player.me setup is cloud based. You get a generous dose of standard overlays to choose from (for “get started”, “rest” and play moments), and you can customize these ready-made overlays to add new information (or widgets) with a simple-to-use online editor.
Getting started with Player.me overlays
As soon as I created a free account on Player.me, I immediately went to its overlay browser and started scrolling through the service selection. They won’t blow your mind – not if you’re looking for some wild and original animation to use whenever someone subscribes to your feed – but basic suggestions are a big step ahead of nothing, so here it is.
I found an overlay that had a triplet (a separate view for starting your stream, your in-game activity, and any interruptions you take) and selected it. This added it to the “My Overlays” section of Player.me, which you can use to keep track of your favorites.
You can hover your mouse over any of the overlays to get a default hyperlink (which you’ll move to your favorite streaming app to include in your broadcast). Otherwise, you can send the default overlay directly to the Player.me cloud editor.
I love this editor primarily because it puts a screenshot from the game right into the editing window, which is great for helping you visualize what your viewers will see when you customize your look and feel.
You can customize various on-screen widgets, such as choosing a different fade in or out animation when prompted, or adjust the length of the animation. You can also resize different widgets, choose what text you want to display (basically your social media balloons), and add just about anything you want: more text, images, progress bars, alerts, counters, your followers or goals. tips, and even a horizontal scrolling line. The only important element you can’t add – which shouldn’t come as a surprise – is one of those handy little timer settings that will help you graph your progress on accelerated runs.
If you want to have fun, Player.me editor also has a special “Advanced Mode”. Turn this on and ignore the dire warning:
While you might not notice at first glance what has changed, you now have finer control over the size and position of on-screen elements, as well as their content. You can write your own text for widgets, such as tooltip alerts, and customize the size, color, and case of the font. You can even change the background color and opacity of the widget.
Once you’ve set up the overlay as per your requirements, don’t forget to configure important settings such as tip (by linking your PayPal account); integrating your various streaming services (Twitch, Mixer, YouTube and StreamLabs); and any other third-party applications that you want to work with your overlay (for example, XSplit Broadcaster, for better positioning of your webcam window, or Razer Chroma if you want supported peripherals to flash along with warnings that appear in broadcast time).
I love that Player.me also allows you to test your overlay at any stage of the setup process. You can send mocked actions like hints and subscriptions to see what your widgets look like, and the service will even run any audio files you’ve previously downloaded and linked to the actions.
When you’re ready to integrate the overlay into your streaming software, Player.me will provide detailed instructions for OBS and XSplit, as well as a standard overlay link that you can copy and paste into any other streaming software you can use. … If you’re particularly proud of your creation, you can even share it with the Player.me community for others to use (and customize).