How to add lower thirds & broadcast graphics to OBS
Updated August 21, 2026 · 12 min read · Works with OBS, Streamlabs, Meld & evmux
A lower third is the fastest way to make a stream look produced — a name plate sliding in under your guest, a segment title, a stat card at the break. The StreamSlayers Graphics app is where you build all of them. It ships 91 broadcast designs in six groups: lower thirds, text & titles, full-frame graphics (live stat cards, standings, schedules, lineups, social posts), calls to action, motion elements and play-once stingers.
One browser source covers every graphic you will ever make. You design each one on a 1920 × 1080 canvas, save it to your library, and put it on air with a single click — or a Stream Deck key, or a Command Center button — without ever touching OBS again. Changes you make while a graphic is live reach the overlay instantly over a WebSocket, so there is no browser-source refresh in the loop.
The video above walks the whole app on camera. It was recorded before the current settings layout, so a few panels have moved and a lot of designs have been added since — the steps below are the current build.
What you'll need
- OBS Studio, Streamlabs, Meld, evmux or XSplit — anything with a browser source
- A StreamSlayers account (free mode included) — view plans
- Optional: the Stream Deck plugin (v1.18.0) for physical show / hide / swap keys
Launch Graphics from your dashboard
Sign in and click LAUNCH on the Graphics tile. The page header reads GRAPHICS & LOWER THIRDS — that is the one config page for every design in this guide.
Copy your overlay URL and add one browser source
Copy the OBS Browser Source URL at the top of the page, then in OBS: Sources → + → Browser, paste it, set 1920 × 1080, OK. Do not resize or reposition the source afterwards — every graphic carries its own anchor, offset and scale inside that 1920 × 1080 frame, so moving the source moves everything at once.
Beside the URL is a Solo mode switch. Off, several graphics can sit on air together (a name plate plus a sponsor bug, say). On, showing one automatically hides the others — the safer setting for a fast-moving show.
Create your first graphic from the picker
Click + New graphic and Choose a Template opens. The six group buttons across the top jump straight to a section and collapse the rest; each heading shows how many designs are in it. Every tile is a live preview, not a screenshot — the design is actually running, which is why collapsed groups are unmounted rather than hidden.
Each tile shows the design name, its category chip, and a one-line blurb telling you what it is for. A handful carry an amber ⚡ Heavy graphic note: their motion runs continuously, so they cost noticeably more CPU in a browser source. Fine on a decent machine — worth avoiding if you encode on the same PC and it is already tight.
Pick one and the editor opens below your library. Type into Content (text), adjust Colors, place it in Placement (Anchor, Offset, Scale), and set entrance and exit in Motion. If you picked the wrong design, the ⇄ Template button at the top of the editor swaps it and carries your text and images across.
A tour of the design library
Ninety-one designs is too many to scroll blindly, so here is what each group is actually for. Nothing is a skin over the same box — each design is built on its own, which is why the editor shows a different set of knobs depending on what you picked.
Lower Thirds — 29 designs
The classic name-plate band: a kicker, a name, a role line, optionally a logo or a cut-out headshot. These are the ones you leave on screen for ten or fifteen seconds while somebody talks. Eleven of them are genuinely three-dimensional — extruded side faces and a slow parallax drift you can push to 200% or kill outright with the 3D motion slider and Disable 3D motion (render flat / 2D) tickbox in the editor's Motion section.
Representative picks: Broadcast, Softline, Nitrogen, Dispatch, Flagship 3D and Stadium LED 3D.
Text & Titles — 15 designs
Type as the graphic. Segment openers, quote cards, versus stings — no bar to sit in, the letters themselves do the work. The 3D Title design is its own little scene: pick from 21 display fonts, choose a per-letter Transition (Pop, Tumble, Typewriter and ten more), stack any of eleven continuous Animation motions on top, and set extrude depth, letter spacing and a metallic finish.
Representative picks: 3D Title, Cold Open, Rundown, Word Pop, Flip Board and Clash — the last being a two-sided matchup card with real club badges and up to four cut-out faces per side.
Graphics — 9 designs
The data half of the app, and the reason most people buy it. Every design in this group fills itself from live data instead of from what you typed: Broadcast Stats LT, Prime Stats LT, Stat Takeover, Player Spotlight and Trading Card draw a player; Standings Board, Schedule Board and Starting Lineup draw a whole table, month or batting order; and Social Post puts a real post on screen. Each gets its own step below.
Calls to Action — 24 designs
Follow, subscribe, join the Discord, sponsor reads, merch drops, tip jars. These are short, loud and built to be triggered on a timer between segments rather than held. Most are self-animated: they play their own entrance and exit, so the transition dropdowns stay out of the way.
Representative picks: Chrome Slab, Split-Flap Board, Neon Sign, Sub Goal Meter, Sponsor Billboard and Socials Cube — the cube taking a different username per platform rather than repeating one handle.
Motion & Counters — 8 designs
Small persistent elements and pure motion pieces: an on-air lamp that actually glows, an audio-style equalizer that says LIVE, kinetic type walls and 3D ambience for a starting-soon screen. These are meant to sit on screen for minutes at a time, and none of them currently carries the heavy-graphic note — but the note is per design, so read the tile before you leave any graphic up all show.
Representative picks: ON AIR Lamp, LIVE Equalizer, Kinetic Type Wall, Glass Shatter, Neon Tunnel 3D and Silk Ribbon 3D.
Stingers — 6 designs
Play-once segment transitions that wipe the screen, land a word, and clear themselves. They seed with Auto-hide already set to a timer, because a stinger that stays up is just a broken graphic. The six are Breaking Stinger, Blinds, Type Wall, Film Leader, Neon Drive and Cut & Paste.
Put live stat cards on air
Five designs — Broadcast Stats LT, Prime Stats LT, Stat Takeover, Player Spotlight and Trading Card — share one player panel and fetch their own numbers. Pick a league (MLB, MiLB, NBA, NFL or NHL), then either Search a player by name or Or browse a roster to click through a club. Baseball search reaches every player in league history; MiLB adds a level selector down to Rookie ball.
Under Card, a baseball card gets a Stat rail chooser — Batting, Pitching, Auto (read from the position) or Both, which rotates the two rails every 30 seconds for a two-way player. The other leagues have no chooser because the position settles it outright. Leave Season blank for the current year, or type any year to pull that one.
The Numbers block is where a baseball card stops being a template and starts being broadcast. Range picks Auto (career for a retired player, this season for anyone still playing), Season or Career. Stat set re-speaks the same seven columns as Standard (AVG · HR · RBI · R · SB · OBP · OPS), Advanced (PA · TB · XBH · ISO · BABIP · BB/K · P/PA) or Sabermetric (WAR, wRC+, wOBA — season totals, no splits). Situation splits the line by handedness, home and away, day and night, grass and turf, runners in scoring position, count, inning, month and more.
The other leagues get less, honestly labelled. An NHL card carries Range on its own — with a fourth Playoffs option, because one payload brings the postseason with it — and no stat-set or situation dials, which have no hockey equivalent. NBA and NFL cards read straight off the position and take neither.
Photo switches between a cut-out headshot, a game-action pose, a wide hero crop, or Choose… — which opens an image picker already seeded with a search for that player. Photo framing resizes and slides the picture inside its box without moving anything else on the card.
Live, a Stream Deck key can swap the player on whatever stat cards are on air, or re-dial the view (range, stat set, situation, photo) without touching your saved design — the new card cross-fades over the old one, rail and all. The panel shows a cyan ON AIR strip naming whoever the swap put up, with a Clear button to hand control back to your saved player.
Dress a stat card in the club's colours with a team plate
Every stat design carries a Team plate dropdown: a motion loop that plays behind the player, tinted live in that club's colours. One neutral clip serves every team, so the plate is correct the moment you swap players — nothing is pre-rendered per club. The menu holds 41 options, from purpose-built plates (Vortex, Liquid Chrome, Lightning, LED Tunnel, Lit Smoke, Molten) through every background loop in the library.
Three of them are not video at all — they are rendered live from the club's own crest, which is why they stay razor sharp at any size and cover every team in the registry: Club Crest Tiles drifts the mark as broadcast wallpaper, while Crest Tunnel 3D and Crest Field 3D build a real three-dimensional scene out of it.
Fill the screen with standings, schedules and lineups
Standings Board draws a full-frame table from live league data — division, conference, the wild-card picture or every club — with clinch letters and labelled cutoff rules. Leave the group blank and it pages through all of them on a Seconds per page timer. Ten leagues are covered: MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and MLS.
Schedule Board does the same for one club: an upcoming run as a list (with opponent crests, home and away, start times, results and an optional TV column) or a whole month as a calendar. Both boards share a Board style dropdown with three completely different visual worlds — Timetable, Colour Slab and Newsprint.
Starting Lineup builds a real pre-game card: baseball batting orders with cut-out faces and season lines, NHL forward and defence lines with the starting goalie severed into his own band, soccer XIs with the formation, NBA fives. It follows broadcast convention — one team per board, and uncertainty printed as an honest qualifier ("PROJECTED LINEUP") rather than a different layout. Five styles are on the Board style dropdown: Broadcast Split, Pitch Panel, Elegant Board, Showcase and On the Field, the last putting the XI on a pitch. All three boards can sit on a full-frame background, including the stadium atmospheres described in step 8.
Put a live social post on stream — with the video playing
Choose Social Post, paste a link under Post link, and the platform is detected automatically (X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are supported; you can force one). X posts resolve server-side into a native card — author, avatar, text, photos and video — which matters because a resolved video autoplays on the overlay. A live embed widget never does, and an OBS browser source has no cursor to press play, so the alternative is a frozen first frame. Turn on sound per post if you want the audio, and keep Control audio via OBS enabled on the browser source so it reaches your mix.
One Social Post graphic can hold up to 10 posts. Add them, reorder with ◀ Move / Move ▶, then put the graphic on air and press Next post — on the slot row, in the Command Center, or from a Stream Deck key — to cycle. The background and any looping audio bed stay put; only the post swaps, using your transition. Each post can carry its own width, scale, anchor, offset, corner radius, outline, glow and light-or-dark card theme, so a portrait screenshot and a wide quote tweet can both sit correctly in the same graphic.
If a live embed refuses to load (Instagram and Facebook sometimes demand a login), switch the source to Embed code and paste the post's own ••• → Embed snippet, or to Upload image and use a screenshot.
Backgrounds, team colours and imaging
Most full-frame designs can sit on a Background of their own: a solid colour, an uploaded image, a video, a frosted panel, or a tiled mark. The built-in library covers 18 stills and 38 motion loops, grouped as Sports, Studio, Ambient and Motion — stadium atmospheres like Ballpark Dusk, Ice Sheet, Hardwood, Floodlights and Gridiron Fog, plus loops like Stadium Tunnel, Locker Room and Theater Lights. A full-screen background has Keep edges clear sliders so you can leave the bottom of the frame uncovered and not bury your ticker.
The Logo tile background turns any mark into moving broadcast wallpaper. Pick a league logo from the shortcut row or a club crest from the league-filtered grid, set Mark colour to re-ink it (a dark logo is never legible on a dark ground in its own art), and choose a Motion — Drift, Parallax, Sheen, Breathe, or Static to hold it still. Keep Mark strength around 10–20% and it reads as texture instead of clutter.
Under Colors, Apply team colors sets a design's accent and background from any club in the registry, and 🎲 Mix team colors reshuffles which of that club's colours is the panel, the accent and the type. Every arrangement is contrast-checked, so the text stays readable whichever one you land on.
Each graphic takes up to 4 image layers. Image 1 fills the design's built-in logo or photo spot; extras are free cut-outs you place yourself. Each layer has its own crop, size, rotation, opacity, outline, shadow and motion. The picker offers URL, Upload (JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC up to 4 MB) and Search, which finds player photos by name. Any image can then be cut out with ✂ Remove background — one click, with an ↺ Undo beside it if you prefer the original. Tick Float beside lower third to lift a photo out of its box so it can rise above the bar.
Run the show: layers, per-graphic links and Stream Deck
Your library holds up to 25 graphics, and the counter beside Your Graphics tells you where you stand. Each row has ▶ Show / ■ Hide, Edit, a duplicate button (⧉) for starting the next graphic from this one, a link button, and delete. Drag rows to reorder them — the top of the list renders on top when more than one is on air. HIDE ALL in the header clears everything at once, and ↶ Undo walks back an edit.
The link button copies that graphic's own overlay URL — your normal URL with ?graphic=<id> appended — which renders only that one. It is how you put a stat card in one OBS scene and a sponsor bug in another. Pair it with the Own link only tickbox in the editor's Overlay link section and the main URL skips the graphic entirely, so it can never appear twice. Show, Hide and Stream Deck keys keep controlling it exactly as before; Solo mode leaves it alone.
Beyond the page itself: attach a graphic to a Topic Bar or Topics Panel topic and it airs automatically while that topic is live; drive every app from one board at Command Center; or map physical keys with the Stream Deck plugin (v1.18.0) for show, hide, hide-all, next-post, player swap and stat-view changes. If you also run a scoreboard, a stat card can even follow whoever is at the plate in the game your ScoreBug is on.
Troubleshooting
Nothing appears when I click Show. Re-copy the overlay URL from the settings page and paste it fresh into the browser source — a URL saved from an earlier session is the usual cause. Check the source is 1920 × 1080, and that the graphic is not set to Own link only, which deliberately keeps it off the main URL.
The graphic shows in the wrong spot. Position is part of the design. Open Edit → Placement and adjust Anchor, Offset and Scale there. Never move or resize the OBS source itself — that shifts every graphic at once.
The same graphic renders twice. You have both the main overlay URL and that graphic's own ?graphic= link in the same scene. Use one or the other, or tick Own link only.
My stat card is showing dashes. That player has no line for the split you picked — a hitter with no turf appearances genuinely has no turf split, and the card shows dashes rather than quietly substituting his overall numbers. Set Situation back to "Everything — no split". Note that Sabermetric is season totals only and has no splits at all.
A tweet shows no video. Use the post's direct URL rather than a retweet or share link, so it resolves to the native card. If the card renders but stays silent, sound is off for that post by default — turn it on per post, and make sure the browser source is not muted in OBS.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How many designs are included?
91, in six groups: 29 lower thirds, 15 text & title cards, 9 full-frame graphics (live stat cards, standings, schedule, starting lineup and social posts), 24 calls to action, 8 motion & counter elements and 6 play-once stingers. Every tile in the picker is a live render of the real design, not a screenshot.
Can the graphics fill themselves with live sports data?
Yes. Five stat-card designs pull a real player's line for MLB, MiLB, NBA, NFL or NHL — with Standard, Advanced or Sabermetric stat sets, season or career range, and situational splits. The Standings Board and Schedule Board cover MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, the Premier League, LaLiga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and MLS, and the Starting Lineup board builds batting orders, NHL lines, soccer XIs and NBA fives.
How many graphics can I save?
Up to 25 in your library, each with up to 4 image layers. A single Social Post graphic can hold up to 10 posts and cycle through them on air. Duplicate any graphic with the ⧉ button to start the next one from it.
Can I show a tweet on stream with its video playing?
Yes. Paste the post's direct URL into the Social Post design and it resolves into a native card — author, text, photos and video. The video autoplays on the overlay, which a live embed widget will not do because an OBS browser source has no cursor to press play.
How do I show a graphic while I'm live?
Every row in your library has a ▶ Show button that animates the graphic in, and HIDE ALL clears everything at once. You can also trigger graphics from the Command Center, from a Stream Deck key with the v1.18.0 plugin (show, hide, hide-all, next post, player swap, stat-view change), or automatically by attaching one to a Topic Bar or Topics Panel topic. Settings changes reach the overlay instantly over a WebSocket, so no browser-source refresh is needed.
READY TO PUT GRAPHICS ON YOUR STREAM?
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