Livestreaming and Recording in H3VR

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H3VR has a small but dedicated community of content creators making videos and livestreams based on H3VR related content. If you are interested in making such content yourself, below are some tips to help you get started.

## In-Game Performance

Using recording software adds an extra performance burden to your PC; livestreaming even more so. Before continuing, consider what level of graphical performance your PC can handle while recording/livestreaming based on your current PC specs.

If you are experiencing performance issues, visit the Options Panel and look under the following tabs:

### Graphic Options

**Quality Level** has several preset levels of graphical fidelity for you to choose from. If you set it to custom, you can finetune each individual setting to your liking.

### Firearm & Object Options

**Draw Bullet Trails** - enabling this option will let you see bullet trails, but is more performance expensive than if it is turned off.

### Simulation Options

**Spent Casing Despawn Time** - if you're shooting a very fast-firing gun and your performance is dropping, it may be because the despawn time is too high.

### Other factors affecting performance

The number of objects in a scene can impact performance. This includes enemies, weapons, casings, etc. A quick and easy way to reduce the number of objects in the current scene is to use your Wrist Menu, and select "**Clean Empty Mags**," "**Clean All Mags**," or "**Clean Guns & Melee**," which will despawn the relevant objects in the scene if they are not in your hands or in your Quickbelt.

Aside from this, the player should simply avoid spawning and using an excessive number of objects in the scene (e.g. setting off a room full of grenades).

## Out-of-game Performance Tips

VR can be tricky when it comes to streaming, since it already requires a lot of your machine. When streaming H3VR, there are a few things you can do to make the game run better, which will make your streaming and you viewer's watching experiences much more pleasant.

* **Make sure that H3VR is the focused window** - This can solve all kinds of performance issues! Just click on the window before you put your headset on or via the desktop in VR to make sure it is focused.
* **Remove other windows from behind H3VR** - This was also recommended by Anton along with focusing the window to help performance.

## Using OBS

OBS is a free video-capture program used by most livestreamers, and has many configurations and settings that can be used for different kinds of activities; for example, you can set up and save one configuration optimized for livestreaming, and one for recording video. You can select multiple sources for audio and video input, too, and mix them to your preference.

### OpenVR

OBS is primarily used to capture video from your display or from the Game Window. However, the latter option doesn't work with VR Games; instead you need to use a plugin such as OpenVR. You can specify OpenVR to record from the left or right eye, as well as capture a specific portion of each lens.

Be sure to test your settings ahead of time before you record, as having your capture positioned incorrectly may mean that the viewer won't be able to see what you see; for example, if you have the lens improperly cropped, the viewer may not be able to see what's in your upper/lower field of vision.

## Spectator Camera

An in-game alternative to OpenVR is the Spectator Camera. H3VR will always open a game window that displays from the left eye. If you enable the Spectator Camera, you can change these settings, including which eye to film from, or select other perspectives such as over-the-shoulder 3rd Person mode, or with a camera tool. You can also control other graphical settings that are exclusive to the Spectator Camera, such as FOV. If you are using OBS to record, you should record using the Display view instead of OpenVR when using the Spectator Camera, as OpenVR will only show what's being rendered in-game.

Spectator Camera works best on PC's that have the spare processing power for a separate render.

The Spectator Camera allows you to use a Sosig-based avatar that is only visible in the Spectator Camera window display.

## LIV

H3VR is compatible with LIV, a third-party program that allows you to insert custom avatars into footage of VR Gameplay. LIV comes with its own tools and is primarily for filming from a fixed third-person perspective.

## Streaming Via Discord

Discord is useful if you want to stream the game to a handful of people. However, a common issue is that the game doesn't stream properly if you don't boot SteamVR before booting the game. You need to boot SteamVR first so that Discord can path into the environment, and then into H3VR.

## Helpful Mods

The following mods may interest players who are looking for more tools and options for content creation:

* **FTW Arms** **Photobooth** - this sandbox scene includes greenscreen backgrounds and generic backgrounds.
* **H3VR Animation Studio** - this scripting tool allows the player to set animation paths for objects, sosigs, and the camera.
* **LSIIC** - this compilation mod contains an alternate version of the spectator camera.