OBS scenes

How to set up OBS scenes for beginners.

Three scenes cover 90% of a new streamer’s first month: Starting Soon (waiting for viewers), Gameplay (the main scene), and BRB (short break). Each scene is a stack of sources; OBS switches between them when you tap a hotkey or click a button. Set these up once, save the layout, and the rest of streaming gets easier.

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What an OBS scene actually is

A scene in OBS is a saved arrangement of sources layered on top of each other. Each source is one thing on screen: a game capture, your webcam, a browser panel, a text overlay. OBS renders the scene from the bottom source up; sources higher in the list sit on top.

Switching scenes is how you change everything on stream at once. Hotkeys or the scene list at the bottom of OBS let you jump from “Starting Soon” to “Gameplay” to “BRB” without rebuilding the layout each time.

What you need before building scenes

  • OBS Studio installed and connected to your streaming platform.
  • A webcam (USB, built-in, or Continuity Camera on a Mac).
  • A microphone visible as an OBS audio source.
  • A decision on your stream layout: facecam corner, full-screen facecam, or no facecam at all.
  • A starting-soon and BRB graphic (one PNG each, or skip both for the first stream).

Three scenes, two graphics, and a webcam. That is enough for a polished first stream.

Scene 1: Starting Soon

This scene plays while viewers are filtering in. The goal is to look active and tell people you are about to go live. Source list:

  1. Image (optional): a static starting-soon graphic — your handle, the platform logo, “Stream starting soon.” Most new streamers skip this for the first stream.
  2. Video Capture Device: your webcam, sized to a corner (bottom-right is conventional).
  3. Text (GDI+): the stream title and category, updated each stream.
  4. Audio Input Capture: your mic, in case you want to test audio levels.

Keep the scene visually quiet. Animated overlays on the starting scene are a common newbie mistake; viewers arriving should see a clean frame and your face, not a fireworks display.

Scene 2: Gameplay

The main scene. Source list, from bottom to top:

  1. Game Capture (Windows) or Display Capture (cross-platform): the game window or your full screen.
  2. Video Capture Device: your webcam, sized and positioned in the bottom-right or bottom-left corner. Add a small border or shadow filter to separate it from the game.
  3. Audio Input Capture: your mic.
  4. Audio Output Capture: desktop audio (game sounds, Discord, music).
  5. Text (GDI+) or browser source (optional): recent follower / subscriber / donation alerts. Skip this on day one.

Two rules that keep the gameplay scene stable:

  • Lock the webcam after you size it. Right-click the source → Transform → Edit Transform, set the position and scale, then right-click → Transform → Lock. Random nudges during a stream are frustrating.
  • Pin the scene sources with right-click → Lock so the layout never moves by accident.

Scene 3: BRB (Be Right Back)

Short break scene. The simplest possible layout:

  1. Image: a full-screen BRB graphic with your handle and a 5-minute timer.
  2. Audio Input Capture: your mic, in case you talk to chat from the desk.

The BRB scene should be visually different from the gameplay scene — viewers see it and immediately know you stepped away. The timer tells them how long to expect.

Adding more scenes later

Once the three core scenes work, common additions include:

  • Just Chatting: no game capture, full webcam, chat box overlay.
  • Ending: a “thanks for watching” graphic with a follow button.
  • Intermission: a longer BRB scene for breaks between segments.
  • Vertical / 9:16: a TikTok-style scene for TikTok Live or YouTube Shorts-style highlights.

Do not build more scenes than you will actually use. Each extra scene is one more thing to test, fix, and remember to switch during a stream.

Hotkeys: switch scenes without clicking

Open Settings → Hotkeys and assign a key to each scene. Most streamers use:

  • F1 for Starting Soon
  • F2 for Gameplay
  • F3 for BRB

Pick keys that do not collide with your game. F1 is famously overloaded in some games; many streamers use number-row keys instead.

Scene transitions

OBS’s default cut transition is fine for the first stream. When you want smoother scene changes, Move Transition (a small, maintained plugin) adds animated moves, zooms, and rotates between scenes.

Day-one scene checklist

  • Three scenes created, named clearly.
  • Webcam visible in two of them, sized to a corner.
  • Mic routed to all scenes.
  • Hotkeys assigned.
  • One 30-second test recording to confirm everything lines up.

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