My New...new...overlay.

So, I am almost done with another overlay, I was getting bored with my other one and thought it was time to do something a bit more custom!

This time, I decided to pay homage to one of the best games ever made.....

WIND WAKER!!!!!!!!!!

Now before I succumb to my giddy Zelda fan-boy tendencies to go on and on....and on about Zelda, lets move on to telling you about my new overlay.

This is it:

This one took quite a bit longer to do(around 4-6 hours, and there are still some things I need to fix). Creating something you like can take a bit of time, not just to create, but to think up and design!

I probably went through about 4 different designs before they all culminated into this one.

I tried to think of the things that were memorable about Wind Waker, like the picto box I used for my webcam frame. and the scroll drawings from the prologue.

Ill give you some close ups of some of the little features I included:

Life Bar
I was pretty excited about implementing the life hearts from zelda with the health bar in Dota, and while I might still fiddle with the coloring a bit, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. As you get hurt you will lose your hearts and they will turn into a faded heart just like in the game. This is done with a transparent layer over the health bar. I also choose to use options to signify health and mana.

Attack and Stats

 I thought it would be sort of cool to represent the 3 stats of Dota with the people who represent the different parts of the triforce:
Strength is Power represented by Ganon
Agility is Courage represented by Link
Intelligence is Wisdom represented by Zelda




What symbol to use for armor was obvious, but I was a bit up in the air with attack and movement speed. In the end I altered the sword that the dota hud already has to look like the Master Sword and used the King of Red Lions' sail to represent movement speed.






Items/Inventory

I modeled the items section of the overlay after the inventory menu system found in the game. This was one of the first things I did on this project, it was one of those things that you know is right, even from the beginning. I love it!








Music Ticker

This was actually something I thought of when I was trying to figure out what to do with the abrupt 'ending' of the picture I had in the background. I couldn't seem to find or draw a border for this area of my overlay that I liked, it wasn't until I looked back on some of my other overlays that I remembered that I could use a music ticker! And it just so happened that Makar(our little leafy friend) was perfect for the job.

Logo/Kanoobee Plays...

Pretty simple, just found a good looking pic of the King of Red Lions, found the fonts involved in the original Logo and put them all together. Add a little darkening behind the letters for contrast, and boom, looks great.














Mini Map

This was actually the first piece of scroll work that I did on this overylay and was what prompted me to stylize the top in the same way. In Gimp(the program I used on this project) if you use the Canvas Artistic filter and the Clothify Artistic filter it gives it a nice papery look. Just be sure to turn the settings down pretty low on those filters.





End
I had a blast making this overlay and hope you all enjoy it too!

As mentioned in some of my other posts, if you have any questions about overlays, or anything really, just shoot me a message via comment or FB and I will try to get back to to ASAP.

If you want an overlay but don't want to take the time to make one yourself, let me know, we can talk about what you want, how long it will take me to make it for you and how much it will cost(which is based on how long it will take)

Thanks!
Kanoobee

How to I get more viewers on Twitch?

This is a great question and one that I don't think has been answered very well online.

Typically when you search this question, you will find a lot of videos that will say: 'be nice', 'interact with your viewers', 'stream a lot'. And all of these things are good, but they really lack what people are looking for, the truth! 

I am not a huge streamer, I have been streaming for just over a month now, but I have researched this question, talked to successful streamers, and have combined all of this with my internet marketing knowledge to come up with this list:

1-Be Consistent!

Being consistent is rightly number one on my list as it is the most important. Set a schedule, and STICK TO IT! Act like it is your job and it is very important for you to show up. Consistancy will do more for your streaming than almost anything you can do. Don't let excused get in the way, just remember this quote when you are justifying not streaming:

"Justification is the lubrication on the bobsled to Hell!"

 -Tyson Godfrey

2-Be Everywhere!

Be on youtube(post videos all the time), be on blogger, be on wordpress, be on game forums(ALL OF THEM), be on twitter, be on facebook, be on raptr, be on How-To websites, be on every freakin website from here to Tallahassee!!(Just a small disclaimer: every *applicable* website) Having a large web presence will do 3 things for you: 1-it will provide direct referals(meaning people from the websites you have posted on) 2-It will increase your rankings on google searches, 3-It will bring you outside of just the twitch community, which will bring you more word-of-mouth referrals.

3-Be what you want to be!

Because people like generalizations, I will use one! There are two types of successful streamers, the streamer who plays what is new and popular and the streamer that pretty much plays only one game or genre. Both are good choices and both have their own challenges. Lets talk about them both!

New/Popular Game Streamers

This path is a lot easier to get viewers with than the singular game path, the nice thing is that the game producers have already done the advertising for you! There are people who are just waiting to see what the new games are like, watching a streamer is a good way to sort of 'try before you buy'. Many will just come to watch you even if they have no plans on buying that game. Typically when you choose this path, you dont actually have to be very good at the games, just be funny, people will like that and follow you.

Pros

-Easier to get viewers in a short amount of time

-You don't have to be very good at the games

Cons

-Always playing the new games means buying the new games

Same Game/Genre Streamers

This path can be a bit slower AND you will have to either be REALLY funny, or at least pretty good. The mean reason people watch these types of streamers is because they are pretty good and you can learn a lot from them. Very few get by just being funny(unless it is a horror game). It is a really good idea to seek out sponsors when you are trying to do this type of streaming, they can bring in some needed viewer numbers.

The other thing to consider when doing this type is that this will take a longer amount of time to build a viewer base. It is important to pay very close attention to events within your chosen game, if there is a pro tournament going on, you are not likely to get a lot of viewers if you stream normally, try streaming the tournament and casting it! Maybe partner with other streamers for such events.

Pros

-Typically a more dedicated viewer base and less turnover

-More likely to gain sponsor support

Cons

-Slower growth within viewer base

BONUS!! - Be....a Girl!(or just shave/trim and shower)

Let me first say that it is not my intention to offend anyone. People like to see something different, and let's be honest, the majority of twitch streamers are gnarly, unshaven, un-showered, man-gouls!

Let me know what you think!

What program should I use for streaming?

I get asked what program I am using for streaming quite often, and to be honest, I might be the wrong person to ask! I love freeware, and believe that if there is a viable, functioning freeware option available, you should at least try to use it!

BUT...for this article, I will attempt to approach this from a non-bias point of view.

What are your options?

I am going to assume that most of you are using Twitch.tv/Justin.tv for your streams, let's refer to the Twitch page to see what options they suggest:

Now there are a few interesting things to note here:

1-Twitch is a business, they are trying to make money, there is nothing wrong with that! But it is important to realize this when you are starting your stream. Twitch makes the most amount on XSplit, it is more affordable than Wirecast and far easier to use than Flash Media encoder(and Wirecast actually). Note that they actually put the price tag on Wirecast, it's like...they...want you....to use XSplit! Anything with a nearly $500 price tag will certainly discourage people from going in that direction, obviously Twitch has a deal set up with Xplit and Wirecast.

2-Wirecast is certainly a professional option, but it is lacking many of the features that cheaper competitors offer. Another interesting note is that this program is about 38mb to install, and then is quite taxing on your processor. I feel like asking almost $500 for this program is a bit much, it is understandable that twitch steers people in the direction of XSplit!

3-THESE ARE NOT YOUR ONLY OPTIONS!
There are actually a few more options available, and some are pretty good. I am not going to list them all, instead I will suggest one, Open Broadcaster Software.

Ok, seriously, what are your options?

Despite having lots of options available to you, in all honesty and in my opinion, there are actually really only two options(currently) that I would even touch:

XSplit and Open Broadcaster Software

I say that these are the only options because they meet the following criteria:

-They are free or have a free option.
Anyone who is looking to get into streaming isn't going to spend a ton of money on it!

-They are easy to use

-They were both designed for gaming streams

-Both offer support and updates.
You don't want a dead program.

How do they stack up to each other?

(NOTE: I am not going to be including ALL of my findings, this article will summarize my findings, if you want to know my information sources, just shoot me a message and I can send you all the info)

Ease of Use
Both OBS and XSplit are very easy to use, XSplit is a bit easier to get into, but once to know where all the buttons and menus are on OBS, OBS is just as easy. But since XSplit is a little easier at first, this point goes to XSplit. (+1 XSplit)

Options
As things currently stand(Sept. 2013) XSplit has more options available to the streamer, these options mainly have to do with the asthetics of your stream, or in other words, how it looks. But I would not be suprised if that changed soon(see my Updates and Extra Points section on why). (+1 XSplit)

Support
Both have support available and a community that tries to answer questions, but the general consensus is that the XSplit support team are often short, impatient, and rude to users. This is disappointing since they have such a great program! I have been involved in both communities and have always been impressed with the support that the OBS community and developers provide. (+1 OBS)

Updates
Hands down, without a question, this one goes to OBS! The frequency and substance of the updates pushed out by the OBS team is phenomenal. Hardly a week or two will pass that I have not been asked to update my OBS, some might consider this bothersome, but the updates don't take long and, in most cases, make an obvious difference/change. (+1 OBS)

CPU Usage
For the streamer with a beast mode computer, this is not going to be a big issue. The reality of this though, is that most streamers have computers that just barely run their games in the first place! After testing this myself and seeing results from other streamers, it becomes apparent that OBS uses far less resources than XSplit. (+1 OBS)

Extra Points
-Prettiness-XSplit is just a prettier program, it looks nicer. OBS, looks a bit like something from Windows 98. (+1 XSplit)
-Freeness- Despite having a free option, XSplit does make you go Pro if you want access to ALL of the features, because of this I think it would almost be fair to take the "Options" section away from them. (+1 OBS)
-Community Development- OBS did something right when it provided the option for viewers to create plugins. And there have been some amazing plugins created, providing options that XSplit will probably never have. (+1 OBS)

Bottom Line and Final Score

Final Score:

XSplit- 3 Points

OBS- 5 Points

Bottom Line
Both are great programs that will certainly offer all of the 'nessessities' to streamers, but the bottom line is that despite actually being paid for the program(for the pro part at least), despite having(slightly) more options, and despite having support from Twitch,  XSplit just doesn't stack up against OBS. Superior CPU and RAM management, community/dev support, the lack of a price tag, and community made plugins clearly puts OBS on top.

Worth Mentioning

There is another program that is not ready to be brought into the ring against these two, but is worth mentioning since it could really put these two out of business if they get it working.

Raptr
www.raptr.com
This company has put out a little program that is supposed to be your 'everything'! It, much like steam, offers an in game overlay activated by hitting Ctl+Tab, It will automatically post on your Facebook, Twitter, and the Raptr community pages whenever you start streaming. It will automatically update what game you are playing on your stream, you can even update the name of your stream from the in game overlay. Did I mention that when you open the in game overlay, it shows your twitch chat? Yup, it does that. It is the perfect solution for the many streamers that only have one monitor. As of right now many people are having issues with getting it to actually stream your game, but in the mean time, it does still does all of the other things I mentioned. I use it for those other features and I love it. I would like to see the actual streaming part work, I would also like to see more customization options for streaming(webcam support, image overlays, etc...) I think it would be amazing if OBS got together with Raptr! Anyway, I DO NOT recommend this for streaming, but for in game twitch chat, updating your stream name, and other features, USE IT!

What do you think?

What do you guys think about this? Did I miss something? Do you disagree? Why? I want to hear what you have to say about this topic, post a comment or reply!

My new overlay!!

Hey all!

So perhaps I should have started this blog a long time ago, but I just thought about doing it today, and the main thing that I have done recently was created a pretty rockin overlay for my stream!!

When I set out to stream I was looking around at what others were doing and was suprised by the fact that nobody really had a "good" looking overlay! Even popular people had some rather tacky overlays. Granted, people are not there to see an overlay so it doesnt matter that much, but I come from a career field where it is all about presentation! So if I was going to have an overlay, I was going to do it right! In this post give some tips on making an overlay, I will use my Dota 2 overlay as an example, but the principles will apply for all games.

I wanted to make my overlay meet these requirements that hopefully can guide you if you decide to make one of your own:

• It had to be Discrete! Like I said earlier, people are there for the streamer, not to be distracted by the overlay!
• It must match either your style or the games style! If you are a quirky bubbly person, perhaps your overlay should match this. If you don't want to present a certain "style", then just match the game's style(that is what I did)
• It cannot be too 'busy'! Just because you have a lot of content doesn't mean that it has to look soo busy or messy. Remember it is all about presentation, if you have a lot to put on your screen, find a way to make it presentable or people will be distracted and not enjoy their stay.

Complete Cover vs. Blend Cover

You will need to decide on either doing a Complete Cover or a Blend Cover. Both can be good, blends are certainly more challenging, here are some examples:

    Blend Cover

Complete Cover

Both blended and complete covers can look great, it is really just a personal preference.

Getting Started

 I took a screenshot and worked from here. If you make one, I don't recommend using my screenshot as it could be a different aspect ratio from mine, ultimately making yours not fit later on. 

(Click to enlarge)

Now if you are making an overlay that will completely cover the in game one, then I reccomend using Ancient Apparition or Morphling when you take the screenshot since they have bright backgrounds in there profile picture. This is important if you want to know exactly where the edges are that you will need to cover up.  

What to Include?

What do you want to include? I realized that I was getting people asking about the music I was playing, what my game name was, what my social page addresses were, and a few others. So I decided to include all of that in my stream so that I would not have to answer the same questions every stream, I also included a spot for my to put anything I want in(events, announcements, etc...)

What I did:

Blending

I made the decision to blend it with the default Dota 2 HUD, I just like it better that way personally. I played with doing a complete cover, but thought that there was already so much unused space on the current HUD. For me, that decision is really is on a game by game basis. Anywho, If you decide to blend it, take into consideration that most of the time, blending will take more work than a complete cover. When blending you want to maintain the art style already established in the HUD. For example, I wanted to make it look like the GamersCove logo was meant to be there, so take a look at what I did. 

Notice the addition of cracks, surfaces, shading and such. Certainly not perfect, but keep in mind that it doesn't really need to be perfectly perfect, people will be viewing it from a zoomed out view and through a stream. You can get away with not being absolutely perfect. But do keep in mind that although these details are small, they still are what will sell the look. The goal here is to NOT have what you have done noticeable, if they don't notice, then you have done a good job of blending.

By the way, GamersCove is a cool place to go to find other gamers, they host Minecraft servers and really focus on providing a positive community for you! GamersCove.net

Sticking with the Theme

When blending, remember that font is part of the art style, so unless you are trying to match your own theme, try to stick with common fonts. Here is what I did. 

I noticed the font used by the game:               And after some Googling, was able to find it and use it. 

 

In making my music ticker, I wanted to let the users know that the sliding text was the name and artist of the song I was listening to. I thought just saying "Now Playing:" was a bit tacky, so I wanted a picture of a note, but I wanted it to match the style. Eventually, I decided to take the Dota 2 Logo and turn it into a music note, in the end, it turned out quite nice:

Webcam Placement

First, know that you will never make everyone happy, there will always be those that will complain about....well, anything. I chose to put my webcam above my mini map, some people will say it covers up the screen, others will be fine with it. I like it the way it is, very few things will happen off to the bottom right/left side of your screen... Bottom line? Either way is fine.

Have Some Faith!

Finally, just make one! Regardless of what you end up deciding to do, it will be fine! This is hardly a comprehensive guide, this is just supposed to help get you started in the creative process. Help is free, feel free to ask me about this and I will help you.

Tools and Tips You WILL Need!
-Photoshop, Gimp, or something similar.(I have both photoshop and Gimp, I used Gimp since I believe in supporting freeware whenever possible. If you don't have Gimp, get it, it is wonderful. Visit the Gimp Homepage.)
-USE LAYERS!!!(After all my work for my overlay, I probably had like 60 something layers, but I am sort of layer happy! You can never have enough layers)
-Have patience, making a good looking overlay can take time!
-Get some feedback from a trusted source, one that can be honest and isn't just a 'yes man'. AND LISTEN!

Hire Me!

If you are not wanting to spend the time on this, let me know, I work as a web designer full time from home, so my time is valuable, meaning that I cannot do an overlay for free(have to make a living). So let's just say $20 an hour. Doesn't have to be Dota, I can do any game.

I can do a blend overlay in around 1-2 hours. Something more custom will take around 4-6+ hours depending on what you want me to do. 

If you have any questions, leave a comment or say something on my Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks!

Kanoobee