Controller overlay twitch archive#
Controller overlay twitch software#

Controller overlay twitch software#

they need a set-and-forget solution that can be easily plugged into any streaming software.

I recently read a thread by Kavaeric about the inner workings of UI/UX design, and I realised I already have a mental model of what my target users are going to be like while coming up with the standalone version of TMViz: Since the web-based Gamepad API is supported by all major browsers - including the OBS browser source - and supports any controller that you could plug into your computer, I immediately saw the need for a standalone version. The streamer in question uses a Stadia controller, which was not supported in padviz. Turns out, since padviz was a desktop app written in Python, support for lesser-known controllers was quite flaky. He asked whether or not it might work for another streamer's controller, since padviz won't work for this one streamer. At some point during my stream, someone in the chat noticed my tool and that it's different compared to padviz. I used the first iteration of this tool on my own stream for a couple weeks. Screencap of my Twitch stream with the first iteration of TMViz on the right panel.

It was initially created as a module within my web-based stream overlays set, and remained that way for the first few weeks/months. The initial iteration of the overlay was implemented within a week. By providing an overlay that can be included in OBS as a browser source, it's a truly set-and-forget solution. In padviz, you need to run a separate app in the background to provide the overlay, and you will have to do that every time you start your stream. I'm a fan of tools that you can set up quickly and then forget about it. Remember this API - it will become important later.

In JavaScript, we can use the Gamepad API to receive inputs from game controllers and react to it. To make the first iteration of my overlay, I used a technology which 1) I'm familiar with and 2) has been tried and tested by many different apps for ages: the web. I was getting frustrated that I couldn't find it. And I was the kind of guy who was very shy in chat, because I'm fairly new to the Trackmania community on Twitch. But sadly, back then I could never find out what it's called. I've played Trackmania casually ever since the Trackmania Nations Forever (TMNF) days in 2009, and with the new release of Trackmania, I want to take it a little more seriously.Īs I started watching some popular Trackmania streamers on Twitch for inspiration, I've noticed that some streamers have a custom overlay which shows the current inputs on their controller/keyboard, one of them being padviz. I've been playing a lot of racing games on stream, and as of late I've also been streaming Trackmania almost consistently. I've been livestreaming consistently for about 1.5 years under my own Twitch channel. But with it, I do hope to tell a story about how I developed and still actively maintain a side project which has a decently-sized userbase. This post will contain a lot of technical details. This is the story of how I accidentally built TMViz, a tool that became popular among Trackmania streamers. But sometimes, the perfect formula for a side project can arrive out of the most mundane situations. And once we find the time to work on a side project, we get sidetracked by any other side project idea we came up with during our morning coffee. There seems to be all sorts of ideas floating around the head of a developer, but figuring out which idea to put the work in is a lot harder. When creating an 'Input Overlay' source in obs you can then point it to either one of those preset files or the ones you made yourself.For developers, side projects often feel like a nuisance.

Controller overlay twitch archive#

These are located in the 'presets' zip archive on the github release page. This means that you can configure which buttons are shown on screen, how they are arranged and how they look.īy default the plugin comes with presets for the mouse, keyboard and gamepad. The plugin uses a texture and a config file to create the overlay. It adds a new source for visualizing inputs. Input Overlay is a plugin for obs studio that shows keyboard, mouse and gamepad inputs on stream.