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Configuring StreamUP Chat ​

by Andi ​
Version: 0.0.1

Native chat source for OBS. Drop it into a scene, point it at your channel, and it renders chat directly inside OBS. No browser source, no custom CSS, no external overlay service. Just a source.

Currently Twitch only (anonymous connection, no login needed). YouTube, Kick and TikTok support is built into the plugin and coming in a future version.

No telemetry, no analytics, no StreamUP servers. The plugin only talks to the chat platforms, emote CDNs and font hosts for the features you turn on.

Quick Start ​

  1. Add a new source in OBS and pick StreamUP Chat
  2. Type your channel name in the source properties
  3. Click Open Chat Designer to style it
  4. Done

Messages appear as soon as someone chats. Emotes, badges, name colours, the lot.

The Chat Designer ​

One window for everything visual, with a live preview that runs sample messages so you can see changes instantly. Nothing touches your actual source until you hit Apply.

Seven pages down the side:

  • Style — presets, layout and bubble shape
  • Text — font, size, outline, text shadow
  • Colours — message text, usernames, per-role colours
  • Layout — source size, message spacing, padding
  • Display — badges, platform icons, avatars, channel names
  • Emotes — which emote providers to use and how big
  • Moderation — auto-remove, deleted messages, ignored users

The controls are context-aware. If a setting does nothing for your current layout, it isn't shown. Less scrolling, less guessing.

Presets ​

On the Style page, hit Browse Presets. Four built-in designs:

PresetWhat you get
Classic ChatThe traditional stacked chat layout
iOS MessageAlternating grey/blue bubbles with speech tails and avatars
Speech BubblesRounded bubbles with the username above each message
Stream CardsFull-width bordered cards with a soft drop shadow

Applying one overwrites your style settings (it asks first). Everything stays tweakable afterwards, so use them as starting points.

Your own presets ​

Style something you like, then Save Current Style in the presets browser. That writes a .chattheme file to your themes folder.

  • Share one by sending the file
  • Install one with the Import button, or drop it in the folder (Open Folder takes you there)
  • Presets are plain JSON. Hand-edit them if you like, the full schema is documented in the plugin repo

Bubbles ​

The Bubbles layout wraps every message in a shape that sizes to fit. One word gets a small bubble, a long message wraps at your max width.

Worth knowing:

  • Alignment can be left, right, or alternate (flips sides per message for a group-chat look)
  • Right-side fill gives right-hand bubbles their own colour, the iMessage grey/blue split
  • Speech tail puts the little curl on the bubble's bottom corner, and avatar at tail parks the chatter's profile picture next to it
  • Drop shadow has proper controls: distance, angle, softness, colour
  • Cards is the same idea but full width, like dashboard panels

Custom bubble images ​

This is the fun one. Set a Custom image on the Style page and the plugin stretches your PNG around every message using 9-slice scaling. Corners stay crisp, the middle stretches. Clouds, comic speech bubbles, ornate frames, anything you can draw.

  • Edge insets tell it how much of your image is the non-stretching frame
  • Image scale lets you ship high-res art and draw it at 50%
  • A different right-side image works with alternating bubbles

The image gets copied into your themes folder, so saved presets stay shareable. Send both files.

Emotes ​

Twitch native, 7TV, BetterTTV and FrankerFaceZ, each with its own toggle. The plugin loads the emote registry for your specific channel, so it only matches emotes that are actually enabled there.

Animated emotes animate, capped at 30fps so a wall of GIFs doesn't eat your CPU. Emote size is independent of text size if you want them bigger.

Everything downloads once and gets cached on disk. The cache is shared with StreamUP ProText, so the two plugins never download the same thing twice.

Fonts ​

Any font installed on your system, plus the full Google Fonts catalogue, around 1900 families, searchable from the font picker. Pick one and it downloads and caches automatically. No manual font installs for your overlay.

Moderation ​

Chat moderation carries through to the overlay:

  • Deleted messages show struck-through, or hide them entirely, your choice
  • Banning a user clears all their messages
  • Subs, raids and gift notifications render as styled banners
  • First-time chatters and channel-points highlights get accent colours
  • Auto-remove clears messages after a set time, with an optional fade
  • Ignored users filters out bots (common ones are pre-filled), and you can skip !commands too

Good to Know ​

  • Width set to Auto sizes the source to the longest message. Set a fixed width if you want bubbles to wrap consistently.
  • The live preview in the designer uses scripted demo messages, your real chat keeps flowing to the source behind it.
  • Themes folder on Windows: %APPDATA%\obs-studio\plugin_config\streamup-chat\themes\
  • If a custom theme doesn't show in the presets browser, the JSON probably has a syntax error. Run it through a linter and reopen the browser to rescan.