How to Set Up Your Stream Overlay in OBS in Under 5 Minutes
A no-fluff walkthrough for adding animated stream overlays to OBS Studio — browser sources, sizing, transparency, and the one toggle most streamers miss.
You just grabbed a cozy new animated overlay and you want it live before your next stream. Good news: getting animated overlays into OBS Studio is genuinely a five-minute job once you know the steps. This guide walks you through it from download to going live — no design skills required.
Every CozyOverlays pack is built to drop straight into OBS, so you can follow along with whichever pack you own (or grab one from the shop first).
What you'll need before you start
Two things: a copy of OBS Studio (it's free), and your overlay files. Each pack ships as a single download containing animated .WEBM files with transparency baked in, plus matching .PNG versions for tools that prefer static images. If you don't have a pack yet, the Cat Forest pack is a great, gentle starting point.
1. Unzip everything first
Extract your download to a folder you'll remember — a dedicated 'Stream' folder in Documents works great. Keeping all your scenes, alerts, and panels in one place saves you a lot of clicking later.
2. Add an animated screen as a Media Source
In OBS, click the + under Sources and choose Media Source. Point it at the .WEBM screen you want — your Starting Soon, BRB, or main overlay. Tick Loop so it plays continuously, and you're done. The transparency is built in, so it layers cleanly over your camera and game capture.
Prefer browser sources for alert tools? Those work too, but for local .WEBM files a Media Source is the simplest, lowest-overhead option.
3. Size it to the canvas
Drag the corner handles to fill your canvas (hold Alt to crop instead of stretch). Every pack is exported at full HD, so it snaps to a 1920×1080 scene without going soft.
4. The toggle most people miss
If your animation looks like it's stuttering, open the Media Source properties and enable hardware decoding. It smooths playback dramatically on most machines and costs almost nothing in performance.
That's the whole trick: loop on, sized to canvas, hardware decode on. Go live.
Build a matching scene in 10 more minutes
Once one screen looks right, repeat for your BRB and Ending scenes, then add themed alerts and panels from the same pack. Because everything shares one art style, your channel instantly reads as a brand instead of a default layout. Browse the full set of animated overlay packs to find a world that fits your vibe.
Ready to give your stream a cozy glow-up?
Browse 125+ animated overlay packs — cats, dragons, lofi rooms, witchy and seasonal themes. Buy securely on Etsy and download instantly.
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