How to Add a Widget for Extra Life in OBS
Last Updated on September 21, 2019 by Michael Brockbank
Many of those who stream on services like Twitch also support Extra Life. It’s a charity organization which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network. But how do you combine Extra Life in OBS when it comes to streaming your games live?
At this moment, I haven’t been able to find a viable Extra Life OBS plugin like the one available in XSplit Broadcaster. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t add an alert to your stream any time someone donates to your Extra Life profile.
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use Streamlabs to deliver those messages during your stream in OBS. The only downside is it doesn’t have a running tally of your Extra Life goal.
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If you come across a plugin to add Extra Life in OBS that includes the goal, leave a comment or send a message in Twitter. I’d love to hear about it.
Using Streamlabs Extra Life in OBS
I’m going to assume you already have OBS set up and ready to stream. This is a tutorial about adding the Extra Life alert overlay.
First, you need to set up a Streamlabs account. You can do this by going to the Streamlabs website and setting up your details.
You’re also going to need your Extra Life participant number. You can find this by looking after the “ID=” section when access your donation page. It will be in the address bar of your browser, usually at the end of the URL.
Setting Up Streamlabs for Extra Life
From Streamlabs, click the “Integrations” link on the left.
Click the “Link” button on the right of Extra Life.
Input your Participant ID number in the box and click, “Save Settings.” You need only the number from your Extra Life profile page as I showed in the image above.
Now you need the alert URL to add to OBS. Click the “Alert Box” in the left panel under Widgets.
Click the “Click to Show Widget URL” and copy the link. This is your personal alert box for things like donations, followers, subscribers and what not.
If you already have this feature set up on OBS, then you don’t need to worry with the rest of this tutorial. The Extra Life overlay will activate when you receive a direct donation just like it does when you get a new follower.
Setting Up Donations for Extra Life in OBS
Load up your OBS Studio software.
Click the “+” button to add a new source.
Click the option for “Browser” from the list.
Create a new name for this browser window. Since Streamlabs will also send followers, subscriptions and other information to this overlay, I’m going to simply name it “Alerts.”
Click the “OK” button on the bottom.
A new window will open displaying the default URL for OBS. Replace the URL with the Streamlabs alert URL you copied earlier.
I suggest making modifications to the width and height of the box. You may need to test this a few times to get the right size for the appearance of the alert box. However, it’s not required. It just looks much better.
Also, you can make edits to the CSS of the alert box if you know your way around coding. Just something to think about for making your alert stand out more during your live stream.
Click the “OK” button on the bottom to save.
Now your live stream will show anytime you receive a donation to your Extra Life profile. This only works when someone donates when they visit the Extra Life page of the account.
Making Edits to the Alert Box
If you need to make changes to the alert box, select it from the “Sources” list and click the gear icon.
This will bring up the screen from before where you can make changes to the width, height or URL if you want to show a different webpage during your stream.
Customizing the Extra Life Donations Alert
Streamlabs will have a few things already set by default. But what if you want to customize the Extra Life donations alert to fit your stream? In fact, Streamlabs gives you quite a bit when it comes to customizing the donation tracker for OBS.
Let’s go back to Streamlabs. In the Alert Box section, click the “Extra Life Donations” tab under the Alert Box information.
In this section, you have access to the layout and a multitude of other settings. You can add animations, change the display text, add your own images and upload your own sounds.
For example, I uploaded animated gifs and short song clips for my alert box.
I suggest going through each of these settings one-by-one and experimenting with how they look in OBS.
Once you’re done making changes for your Extra Life feed, click the “Save Settings” button on the bottom.
Your alerts will then appear different in OBS. If you want to test how alerts will look during your live stream, click the “Test Extra Life Donation” button.
Sample data will then be sent to OBS to show you what it will look like if someone donates.
You can easily spend a great deal of time making adjustments in things like text sizes, volume and more to make the Extra Life in OBS alert appear how you want it. I strongly urge you to do so as it helps set your channel apart from the millions that are online.
One thing you might want to consider is adjusting the alerts for different sizes of donations. You can set the alert to play certain sounds and graphics if donations are higher than a specific number.
To make these adjustments, click the “Add A Variation” button in Streamlabs under the Extra Life settings.
Once you’re in the screen, select the condition you want from the drop down list.
Accentuate Your Stream
This method works well to include Extra Life donation tracker in OBS for those watching your broadcast. I like using Streamlabs for followers anyway, so adding Extra Life in OBS is just a simple way to expand visibility.
If you know of any other methods, please feel free to share them.
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