Build your first scene collection: scenes, sources and layering

The three building blocks

• Source — one thing being captured: a game, a monitor, a window, a camera, an image, a browser page, an audio device.
• Scene — an ordered stack of sources. The item at the top of the list is drawn on top in the canvas.
• Scene collection — the whole set of scenes, saved as one file. Use a separate collection per project rather than rebuilding scenes.

Build a starting layout

1. Starting soon — an image or colour background, a text source, and optionally a Media Source for music.
2. Gameplay — Game Capture (Windows) or a display/window capture, with your camera on top.
3. Just chatting — camera at a larger size, plus any overlay you use for talking segments.
4. Be right back — a static background with no game capture, so nothing sensitive is shown during a break.

Reuse a source instead of duplicating it

When you add a source, OBS offers to add an existing one. Choosing the existing source means both scenes share the same capture and the same filters, so a camera correction only has to be made once. Duplicating creates a second independent capture, which costs extra CPU or GPU work and can prevent some devices from opening twice.

Transform and crop

Drag the red handles to resize. Hold Alt (Option on macOS) while dragging an edge to crop instead of scale. Right-click a source and choose Transform → Fit to screen to snap it back to the canvas, or Edit Transform for exact pixel values. Keep a camera at its native aspect ratio; stretching it is the most common giveaway of a rushed layout.

Groups and locking

Select several sources, right-click and choose Group Selected Items to move an overlay as one unit. Once a layout is right, click the padlock next to each source so a stray click during a stream cannot drag your camera across the canvas.

Back it up

Use Scene Collection → Export after you finish a layout and keep the JSON file somewhere outside the OBS profile folder. It is the fastest recovery path if a profile is corrupted or you move to a new machine.