streaming with mini and OBS

if you’re streaming with OBS and you’re trying to use your veadotube mini avatar with it, this guide is for you!

if you’re using Streamlabs, this guide may also apply, since Streamlabs is based on OBS.

there are lots of ways to get your screen to work with OBS:

Windows: we recommend a Spout2 Capture for transparency! if you don’t feel like installing plugins, you can try Game Capture first and Window Capture if that doesn’t work.
macOS: use a Syphon Client for transparency, and if that doesn’t work then either macOS Screen Capture or Window Capture.
Linux: use the Game Capture plugin for transparency, and if that doesn’t work then Window Capture (XComposite) if you’re using X11.

after that, check out some other OBS tips for cropping, color-keying, and whatnot.

table of contents

capture methods
miscellaneous

capture methods

Spout2 on Windows

if you’re on Windows 64-bit, you can use the Spout interface to stream your veadotube mini window to OBS! capturing through it completely hides the UI at all times and it’s perfectly transparent without any weird borders.

to use it, make sure the spout stream option inside the program settings menu is enabled.

download the Spout2 plugin for OBS; look for the first link that looks something like OBS_Spout2_Plugin_Install.exe, download it and install it! make sure OBS is closed during all that.

back in OBS, in the Sources panel, press +, select Spout2 Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that’ll bring up a window where you can select which Spout source to capture! some things to be aware of:

change SpoutSenders to be the veadotube instance you want.
Composite Mode works best with Default – if you’re using mini 1.4, use Premultiplied Alpha.
mini 1.4 instances sometimes fail to show up on Spout2. that’s a bug! consider upgrading to 2.0 instead.
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!

shout out to VSeeFace, another app with Spout2 support, and the one that introduced us to it!

Game Capture on Windows

in the Sources panel, press +, select Game Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

Mode has to be set to Capture specific window, which will prompt you to select which window – select your veadotube mini window.
some laptops require you to check SLI/Crossfire Capture Mode (Slow) for the capture to work!
if you have your background on mini set to transparent in the display settings , you can check Allow Transparency and it should make the capture transparent, ready to use :]
Capture Cursor is better left off!
if you don’t wanna accidentally show the veadotube UI, make sure to select hide UI… in the app!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!

Window Capture on Windows

in the Sources panel, press +, select Window Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

Capture Method usually works best with the option Windows 10 (1903 and up), but you can test what works best.
Capture Cursor is better left off!
if you’re using Capture BitBlt (Windows 7 and up), some laptops require you to check Multi-adapter Compatibility for the capture to work!
if you’re using Windows 10 (1903 and up), Client Area should be checked!
if you don’t wanna accidentally show the veadotube UI, make sure to select hide UI… in the app!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!
the transparent mode in mini doesn’t work here, so no automatic transparency.

Syphon Capture on macOS

Syphon is probably the only way to capture veadotube on macOS with transparency and good performance, and support for it is built-in on OBS.

to use Syphon, make sure the spout stream option inside the program settings menu is enabled.

in the Sources panel, press +, select Syphon Client, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

make sure Allow Transparency is checked.
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!

macOS Screen Capture

in the Sources panel, press +, select macOS Screen Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

Method has to be set to Window Capture, which will prompt you to select which window – select your veadotube mini window.
Show cursor is better left off!
make sure to select hide UI… in the app to hide any window borders!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!
the transparent mode in mini doesn’t work here, so no automatic transparency.

Deprecated Window Capture on macOS

if you’re using an older version of either macOS or OBS, you might have to use the old Window Capture option.

in the Sources panel, press +, select Deprecated and then Window Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

you might want Show window shadow turned off!
make sure to select hide UI… in the app to hide any window borders!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!
the transparent mode in mini doesn’t work here, so no automatic transparency.

Game Capture on Linux

OBS on Linux doesn’t support Game Capture built-in, but you can install a plugin that does just that!

to install the plugin, refer to its repository! in order to get veadotube to work with it, you have to run it with the obs-gamecapture prefix in Terminal, for example: obs-gamecapture ./veadotube_mini.

back in OBS, in the Sources panel, press +, select Game Capture, optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

Capture Cursor is better left off!
if you have your background on mini set to transparent in the display settings , you can check Allow Transparency and it should make the capture transparent, ready to use :]
if you don’t wanna accidentally show the veadotube UI, make sure to select hide UI… in the app!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!

Window Capture (XComposite) on Linux

this option should show up if you’re running veadotube under X11; in the Sources panel, press +, select Window Capture (XComposite), optionally give it a name, and press OK.

that will bring up a window where you can select which window to capture! some things to be aware of:

Capture Cursor is better left off!
if you don’t wanna accidentally show the veadotube UI, make sure to select hide UI… in the app!
if the image resolution seems too low, resize the veadotube window to a larger size!
the transparent mode in mini doesn’t work here, so no automatic transparency.

miscellaneous

getting rid of the macOS window border

capturing on macOS without Syphon often leaves the window border in the capture alongside with the content. you might wanna crop that out! to do that, right-click the capture on OBS and select Filters. in the Effect Filters panel, press + and select Crop/Pad.

mess with the values a bit until things look right!

making it transparent

if your capture isn’t transparent by default, you might wanna remove the background color by using filters! to do so, right-click the capture on OBS and select Filters. in the Effect Filters panel, press + and select Colour Key.

select the background color you’re using in mini, and mess with the values a bit until things look right!

if you can’t seem to get a good result because the background color is too similar to the colors of your avatar, try changing the background color in mini through the display settings button.

getting rid of borders

you might see a weird border around your transparent avatar! in order to get rid of it, you might wanna configure the capture by right-clicking on it and selecting the Scale Filtering to be Bilinear.

if you have a pixel avatar, Point might also be a good scale filter!

streaming two or more veadotube mini windows

you can open mini twice (or thrice and so on), and they’ll run independently; this might mess with the app’s settings a bit, since one instance can try and overwrite the other one, so make sure you’re manually saving your avatars before doing this approach.

each window can have a different title – you can edit that under program settings ! this way it’s easier to select which window to capture.

multiple veadotube mini instances can mess with your app settings! if you want separate save files for each instance, try configuring it to use different save folders.

using your avatar as a webcam

you can make OBS output to a virtual webcam! which means that after you’ve added mini to OBS, you can use your mini avatar as your camera on Discord, Google Meet, whatnot.

to do that, in the Controls panel in OBS, select Start Virtual Camera; this should let you select the OBS-Camera webcam during video calls :]