OBS Studio is free and open-source software made for live streaming and video recording. It’s available on Windows, Mac and Linux. As OBS Studio is open source, almost anyone can develop plugins for the software. This is especially important for streamers who use this software every day as plugins can improve the functionality of OBS Studio. This open-source application is equipped with powerful APIs and plugins that let you customize your stream further with custom scripts which opens the door for endless opportunities.
Primarily, OBS is used for streaming and recording purposes where one can record or stream with multiple sources, be it cameras or multiple displays, adding text to your scene and animating it using HTML or CSS, adding live annotations to your stream, you can do it all.
Almost every streamer you follow out there uses OBS, and the surprising part is that it’s free. With a proper logo, attractive scene transitions, and a good computer, you can also become a pro if you have the talent of keeping your audience entertained.
For a beginner, setting up discord might be hard as it has tons of features and lots of buttons. But don’t worry, we have a covered an article that will be enough for a beginner to understand the basics of OBS –
OBS for Dummies : How to record your screen using OBS
Now that we know what’s OBS Studio and why we need plugins, let’s get to the list of our five best OBS plugins (you might find some bonus stuff too????).
Here’s a small overview of the OBS plugins that we are going to check out in this article :
StreamFX StreamFX is a plugin developed by Xaymar , you can find it here (StreamFX )
This plugin adds some really important functionality like Blur and 3D Transform. Now you can blur out sources you think maybe questionable to your stream, add 3D effects to your stream. Possibilities are endless.
Let us talk about some of its highlighted features
Blur : This filter comes with various types of blur (Box, Gaussian, Dual Filtering) and even goes an extra mile by allowing you to choose how you want the blur to be applied (Area, Directional, Rotating/Rolling, Zoom) and also lets you mask out the area you want to be blurred based on various types of masks.
Displacement Mapping : Displace the pixels of the Source, in any way you want – create a whirl, zoom in and more.
Source Mirror : Source Mirror duplicates the video and optionally also the audio of any source, allowing you to apply filters to either without affecting the original source. It also can rescale the video to fit your target region using any of the obs supported scaling modes. There is no limit on the number of Source Mirrors you create for one source, so go wild!
3D Transform : a filter for you to use, move, rotate, scale and shear your Source in 3D space at will! Create reflections of your video camera on a floor, table, or place your video camera in a room – the possibilities are endless and you can choose what you want to do!
OBS.Live OBS.Live is created by folks over at StreamElements, you can find it here (Download OBS.Live )
This plugin adds integrated StreamElements Activity Feed, Chat and integrates OBS Studio with StreamElements seamlessly.
OBS.Live lets you see how many viewers you have, Manage Alerts, refresh overlays, have Media Requests and much more.
It works with YouTube, Twitch, Mixer, and Facebook.
OBS WebSocket (+ Deckboard, Touch Portal) OBS WebSocket is developed by Palakis , you can find it here (OBS WebSocket Plugin )
This plugin allows other programs to connect to OBS to offer more functionality
Where do we find apps that’ll get the best of this plugin? We’ve got you covered
We have 2 App suggestions that’ll mimic Elgato’s Stream Deck
Deckboard : Created by Riva Farabi, this app requires an Android Phone and a Windows Computer and is one of the best designed apps I’ve seen over the years. This app has Twitch, Spotify support (it even supports StreamLabs OBS). You can find it here (Deckboard Website )
Touch Portal : Touch portal is another app like deckboard but it’s far more accessible and in some ways superior, this app works with Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. This app works with SLOBS, XSplit, Adobe apps like Photoshop and Premiere Pro, Aseprite and more. You can find it here (Touch Portal Website )
BONUS : You can improve the way Deckboard/TouchPortal looks by using Aurora – Stream Deck Key Icons made by folks over at Nerd or Die ( Get it here )
Closed Captioning OBS Plugin This plugin is created by GitHub user Ratwithacompiler , you can find it here (GitHub )
This plugin provides Closed Captioning via Google Cloud Speech Recognition API as a standalone OBS Plugin, no other tools required. It integrated with Twitch’s inbuilt CC Support so viewers can click on CC button to enable it the same way it works on Twitch’s self-hosted event streams like TwitchCon and more. You can find instructions to use this plugin from here
This plugin works live and in VODs, no twitch extension required. It’s completely optional to the viewer and Supports multiple Languages. I think this plugin would be one of the best ways to make your streams more accessible.
VST Plugins (ReaPlugs) Audio is really important when you are streaming or video recording, sometimes people won’t stay if your audio is terrible. It’s one of the most important aspects of Streaming. OBS Studio includes a ton of audio filters already and can give you really great results, but what if I told you we can take it one step further?
OBS Studio supports VST Plugins, one of the most popular Free VST Plugins source is Reaper, also known as ReaPlugs VST FX Suite, You can find ReaPlugs here (Get it here )
Let’s talk about some of my favourite ReaPlugs
ReaComp : An Ultra-configurable Compressor with sidechain filters and much more.
ReaEQ : An Unlimited band IIR based equalizer.
ReaGate : An Ultra-configurable gate that’s far superior than the one found on OBS Studio.
ReaControlMIDI : Flexible MIDI controls in VST Format.
We hope these plugins will help you get the best of OBS Studio. Happy Streaming!
Be on the lookout for more Streaming related articles from MeshPie.
Yaseen is an Indian Content Creator. He writes about Gaming and Streaming.
Twitch : https://twitch.tv/Yaseen
