Latest streaming advice for Character Animator?

[alank99101739]

I was just browsing around Character Animator support for streaming, but had not seen any updates recently. Just wondering if there was any newer advice I had not seen (or just forgot! 😉

For example, if I have no external monitor, nothing comes up in CH as a streaming destination (after I enable mercury transport). When I turn on an external monitor, the two screens appear. Selecting a monitor sends the video to that monitor (cool!). But when I start up OBS Studio, it does not appear as an output source in CH. Should it?

Reading the docs at Adobe Character Animator Help | Stream a scene live  it feels like a step is missing in the instructions. I have OBS Studio, but when I start it up it does not appear as an output source. There is mention of the NDI Plugin, but no mention if that is extra software I need to install or something built into various applications. E.g. do I need to install an NDI plugin to OBS Studio? Or is it a CH plugin?

Also, is there better software than OBS Studio to use these days? What is the best recommended approach to stream a live character

1. by itself - it is the whole video
2. superimposed over some other video stream (which I assume OBS Studio or similar would do) - oksamurai​ mentioned in the April 2017 I think an application called "wiretricks?". Is that still good software to use?

Any advice appreciated!  Thanks!

[oksamurai · Accepted solution]

To my understanding, Syphon works on MAC and NDI works on Mac & PC. I don't recall if OBS supports NDI yet. Other popular apps people have used with CH are Vmix and Wirecast. Yes, NDI is a plugin you need to get from Newtek's site to allow you to get a signal from CH into other applications.

As for livestream techniques, I've seen it done both ways - both work, it just depends on what you're trying to do.

[alank99101739]

Ah, I found it - NewTek NDI for Adobe Creative Cloud. OBS has a NDI plugin acording to Google searches as well. Thanks for the quick response! I will give it a try tonight.

[alank99101739]

Works like a charm! Nice! 

Now if I could just use my HTC Vive hand and headset positional controllers to control drag points and head of the character. Looks like the Adobe Captivate team are doing VR stuff - maybe they have some code you can steal? ;-). (The HTC Vive / Oculus / whatever controllers would make it easy to move both hands and head at the same time - maybe have direction you are looking with headset to control eye position... The controllers have a number of buttons as well. I think you would really need a full app with monitor window inside however as with the headset on you could not see the screen any more! 😉