Build an OBS scene from a broadcast template

Only the categories that broadcast software genuinely consumes carry a scene collection — a fee schedule or a shelf label does not belong in one. That means four categories: /visual-templates/stream-overlays-live for nameplates, corner frames, chat panels, and status plates; /visual-templates/stream-alerts-and-motion for alert cards, goal bars, countdowns, and now-playing frames; /visual-templates/stream-scene-backgrounds for starting-soon, be-right-back, and ending-soon plates; and /visual-templates/avatar-state-sets for idle, talking, thinking, muted, and away rings.

Each category holds twelve templates. On a template page you will see the usual PNG and WebP downloads plus one more entry labelled as an OBS-compatible scene collection, with a short note under it explaining the relink step.

This is the step that determines whether the relink is one click or twelve. Download the template's primary image and its scene collection into the same folder — your downloads folder is fine, as long as both land in it.

The image now saves under a name derived from the template and its dimensions rather than a generic one, and the scene collection references exactly that name. That pairing is the whole trick: OBS re-links missing files by filename, so matching names let it fix an entire collection at once. If you rename the image before importing, you break the match and will have to point OBS at the file by hand.

If you want to edit the overlay first — change the channel name, adjust the colours — open it in the Studio at /studio, export your version, and keep the exported filename as it is given to you.

In OBS, go to Scene Collection → Import, point it at the downloaded JSON, and confirm. The collection appears in your Scene Collection list as a separate collection rather than merging into your existing one, so nothing you have already built is touched.

Switch to it and you will find a scene containing two things: a capture placeholder at the bottom, and the overlay image above it, positioned at the top-left of the canvas and bounded to the template's own dimensions so it scales sensibly if your base canvas is a different size.

The image will show as missing at this point. That is expected, and step four fixes it.

OBS raises its Missing Files dialog on import, listing the image it could not find. Choose "Search Directory…", point it at the folder you downloaded into, and OBS relinks every source whose filename matches a file in that folder. For a single overlay that is one match; for a set of twelve avatar states downloaded together, it is twelve matches from one click.

Why this is necessary is worth knowing, because it is the kind of thing that reads as a broken file. OBS stores an image source's path as an absolute local path — the full location on your machine. A file downloaded through a browser has no way to know where it landed, so no path that could have been written into the JSON would be correct on your computer. Rather than guess a path that is wrong everywhere and fails confusingly, the collection ships an obviously-fake folder name so that OBS's own recovery flow takes over immediately and the fix is the intended one.

The capture source in the imported scene is a placeholder, not a working capture — it cannot be anything else, because a JSON file has no way to know which webcam, window, or display you intend to use, and guessing would produce a scene that silently captures the wrong thing.

Replace it with the capture you actually want: a Video Capture Device for a webcam, a Window or Display Capture for gameplay, a Game Capture where that applies. The overlay above it stays where it is, so once the capture is in place the scene is finished.

From there, treat it as an ordinary OBS scene. Resize the overlay if your canvas differs, duplicate the scene for variants, or copy the image source into scenes you already had.

The avatar state sets are where this pays off most. Twelve states — idle, talking, thinking, muted, away, focus mode, and the co-host variants — are twelve overlays that a streamer would otherwise place by hand, one at a time, matching sizes as they go.

Download the whole category into one folder, import each collection, and relink from that same folder. Because every image has a distinct filename and every collection references its own, Search Directory resolves them all without collisions. What you end up with is a set of scenes you can switch between, or a set of image sources you can copy into a single scene and toggle.

A scene collection is a plain JSON file in a format OBS documents and reads. It ships no software, requires no plugin, and contains nothing but source definitions and coordinates — you can open it in a text editor and read the whole thing. Novus Stream Solutions is not affiliated with or endorsed by the OBS Project, which is why these are described as OBS-compatible rather than as OBS files.

They also carry the same content guarantees as the rest of the template library: all names, figures, and dates in the artwork are fictional sample content, and the templates are free for any use with no attribution required. If your broadcast software is not OBS, the artwork downloads are still ordinary transparent PNGs and work anywhere.