Tag Archives: StreamControl

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Quick Twitter Example file

tweetexample

Download here

This is a quick example file for people who’ve been asking me for a Twitter example. Please be aware that I’m currently working on a Version 2 of the example files which when released, you will probably want to base your own files off of as opposed to this. The new example files will be a good bit different. The code is not commented, and I’m not going to be providing support for this.

To use, you need to have the OpenSSL libs for windows installed on your system.

Then just add a tweet widget to your layout xml file. If you’re using a tabbed layout, you could just add the following to it:

<tab name ="Tweet">
 <tweet id="twitter" x="10" y="10" width="380" height="60" picPath="twitter" />
</tab>

Then, you need to click “Fetch Tweet” and wait for StreamControl to retrieve an Auth Token. In future versions of the program this will be done automatically. Then paste a tweet link into the text box and click “Fetch Tweet” again. Once it says “Ok” you now need to hit save. The tweet should then appear in the SWF file.

Edit: If you experience crashes adding the file to XSplit, rename or remove the tweet.xml file.

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StreamControl 0.3

This is a pretty big update. This is the introduction of data sets. Which in layman’s terms means the introduction of auto-completion. It also introduces a number of other useful layout objects such as checkboxes, scrollable tabs for large sets of data and the new tweet widget. Which allows you to retrieve a tweet by it’s URL and use it in your overlays.

StreamControl now has the ability to populate any number of fields based on the input of a “master” field. And all the data can be loaded from a CSV file. For example, one can have a CSV containing Player Name, Twitter and Country. When the player field is auto-completed with something from the database the twitter and country fields can be automatically filled with the relevant data from the database. Very useful and time saving feature especially for fighting game events where there can be hundreds of participants and the matches are short.

I’ve made a rough overview of some of the stuff you can accomplish using StreamControl 0.3 with the SEA Major 2013 overlays in this video.

I’ve also made some changes to the flag loading scoreboard to better suit the new version as well as made some HTML5 versions that work with the OBS Browser Source Plugin. So yes, StreamControl is now compatible with OBS! (Apparently it has been for some time. But it’s only been brought to my attention recently.) Unfortunately in my tests, rendering a browser window at 720p causes random crashes. And I’m not sure if that’s just me. So do let me know if you manage to get my overlays working at 720p. Source code included and feel free to base your own stuff off it. A proper tutorial for running my overlays in OBS will be coming soon.

Remember that if you plan to use the tweet widget you need to download and install the OpenSSL libs. The light version will do.

Also, I have a bunch more features planned. So stay tuned for more updates.

Download here

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StreamControl 0.2

The first part of the big changes I mentioned in the previous post are here.

When I first made StreamControl, all I was after was an easy way to get an XML file into flash files in XSplit. To that end the interface was extremely basic and was only the was it was because it was functional enough and did what it needed to do. I put in enough fields that I thought I would need for a Fighting Game event and that was basically the end of it.

As time goes on however I’m finding that shoehorning what are essentially random fields into use in my flash files is starting to get really annoying. Not to mention confusing to anyone who isn’t me who happens to be running a stream with my overlays.

In addition, the old layout limits it’s use outside of what amounts to my narrow scope of streaming events. Different people stream in different ways and display different information on their stream. Not to mention the old layout is woefully unsuited to streaming the myriad of non-fighting games.

To that end I’ve taken that factor out of the equation by making layouts dynamically loaded from an XML file. You’re now able to use any number of fields for any purpose in your flash files. I’ve also introduced tabs to the layout to allow you to better organise your fields.

The new default layout is a streamlined version of the old layout to serve as a relatively sane default and not break compatibility with my old overlays. I’ve also included the XML files for both the new layout and the old layout so you can have a reference for making new ones.

streamcontrol

This is just the first step for what I have planned. It just eliminates what I feel was one of the biggest limitations with StreamControl as it was before.

A word of warning. There is no error checking in this version. It’s entirely possible a malformed layout file will cause crashes and other weirdness. This is something I intend to add but for now it should work fine for the most part.

Download here

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Some new StreamControl scoreboards.

So I’ve teased the flag loading overlays for a while but took quite a while getting round to it. Well in any case they’ve been uploaded and are ready. I’ve also uploaded a generic Naruto themed scoreboard for Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. (It’d probably work for other Naruto games but I dunno.) It’s pretty nice if I do say so myself. Some videos of them in action below and you can download them (along with source code) at the StreamControl page.

In other news I have some pretty big plans for some StreamControl changes. The current version is extremely basic and I’m pretty excited to start work on them.

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StreamControl is now released!

Now a lot of people in the Singapore FGC know I’ve been using this software for nearly a year at this point to do Fighting Game streams. And it has been fully my intention to release it for free from the start. However I put it off for a long time because I wanted it to be “ready for release.”

Some time in the middle of last year I decided I really needed to get going on that. I put in some time and indeed the Software has more or less been ready to be released for something like 4 months. My reasoning for putting it off this time was because when I put it out I wanted to have some tutorials ready when I released it. And I’ve successfully managed to put it off until now since one of my New Year’s resolutions was to get this out the door ASAP. Well mission accomplished I guess.

In any case I started work on it pretty early on when I found out that XSplit allowed you to put SWF objects on the stage. Being a Flash developer I quickly realised the number of possibilities with Flash. I then went to work seeing how I could get external data loaded into an SWF in XSplit. I didn’t want to develop a pure XSplit plugin. Because I found the interface for managing data with XSplit (and indeed most of the interface of XSplit) kinda clunky.

I made a rough prototype in Qt which happened to work. And since it worked I didn’t really need to work on it much more particularly since most of the heavy lifting was done in Flash. Hence me putting off releasing it until I felt it was ready.

Now that it’s out, hopefully I’ll be better about updating it. As it stands it’s actually not that much more functional than the initial prototype. And there are a bunch of things I’d like to do with it.

Also oddly enough I started developing this system before Jaxel released his XSplit Panel Writer program on 8WayRun. I even have proof. This is from an event where I believe I first used my software to stream an event. Oddly enough on the same date that I believe the XSplit Panel Writer software was released. I do remember being mildly bemused that we’d essentially done the same thing except went about it in different ways when he did release it.

That said, I don’t think we’re necessarily in competition. Flash does take more CPU power to render and it does to a certain extent reduce the amount of sheer CPU power you can pump into your making your video quality better. That said, if you happen to be already using any of the built in XSplit SWF plugins it won’t take much more CPU if at all. Images are quicker to render and that is what Jaxel’s software does. However, I am slightly lazy and I do like the fact I don’t have to switch scenes to update my scoreboards. Creating SWF files is also considerably more effort.

Furthermore, Jaxel is welcome to implement support for my SWF overlays in his software as well. It wouldn’t be too hard I would think.

Now in case you’re not here to hear me ramble about how my software came into being, here is where you can download it!

StreamControl