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Configuring StreamUP Chat ​

by Andi ​
Version: 0.0.3

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. The visual Designer opens straight away, so style it right there
  4. Done

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

Opening a Chat source's properties brings the Designer up on its own. No extra clicks, no hunting for a button. You land on the visual editor every time.

The Chat Designer ​

One window for everything visual, and OBS itself is your live preview. Your changes apply straight to the source as you tweak, so what you see in OBS is exactly what you get. If no channel is connected yet the source fills with sample chat, so there is always something to look at. Close with Keep to keep your edits, or Discard to roll back to how it was when you opened the Designer.

Everything is grouped into clear tabs down the side:

  • Layout: layout mode, anchors, source size, message spacing and padding
  • Text: everything about the text you receive, so fonts, alignment, outline, text shadow, and all the text and username colours
  • Bubble: the message background, so fill, corner radius, the squircle curve, border, speech tail and nine-slice skins
  • Message: the overall message, so avatars, badges, platform icons, channel names, timestamps, accents and the source background
  • Emotes: which emote providers to use and how big
  • Animation: how each message animates in, and how it animates out when it auto-removes
  • Moderation: filtering deleted messages and commands, plus the ignored users list

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 Bubble 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:

  • Corner radius rounds the corners, and the new Corner curve pushes them towards a fuller iOS-style squircle. Big radiuses no longer clip your text or icons into the corner
  • 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

Nine-slice bubble skins ​

This is the fun one. Instead of a plain shape, draw the bubble from an image. The plugin cuts it nine ways: the four corners stay a fixed size while the edges and middle stretch to fit the message, so your art never distorts. Clouds, comic speech bubbles, ornate frames, anything you can draw.

On the Bubble page:

  • Skin preset has nine ready-made skins built in, from a soft panel to a glassy frame to a proper ornate gold frame. Open example skins folder shows you the art plus a README explaining the format, so you can use it as a template
  • Custom image points the bubble at your own PNG
  • 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

Custom images get 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, gifts and raids render as a friendly, readable message, not the raw Twitch line. A gifted sub reads like "Andi gifted 5 subs" instead of a wall of tags, and it shows in styled banners
  • First-time chatters and channel-points highlights get accent colours (set on the Message page)
  • Auto-remove clears messages after a set time, and on the Animation page you can give them an exit animation so they fade or slide out instead of just popping
  • Ignored users filters out bots (common ones are pre-filled), and you can skip !commands too

Feedback ​

Every window in the plugin runs on the shared StreamUP UI, so it all looks and behaves the same. Each one has a Feedback button built in. Hit something odd, or think of a feature you want? Send the bug or idea straight from the plugin. No forum trip, no email.

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.
  • OBS is the preview, so tweaks apply to the source live. When no channel is connected the source shows sample chat; connect one and your real chat takes over.
  • 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.