Practical Live Stream Production: OBS Scenes, Overlays, and Smooth Broadcasts

A polished live stream is the result of dozens of small production decisions that the audience never sees. Scene design, overlay placement, audio mixing, and pre-stream checklists all add up to a calm, reliable broadcast. This course walks through the practical work of building that kind of show. You will work through written design exercises and structured walkthroughs that mirror how a thoughtful streamer would set up scenes, overlays, and audio routing in OBS Studio. The emphasis is on reliable, repeatable production that lets your content shine. What you'll learn: - Design OBS scenes for starting soon, main broadcast, breaks, and ending screens - Build overlays that support content without distracting from it, including chat displays and alerts - Route and mix audio cleanly across game, voice, music, and notification sources - Plan pre-stream and post-stream checklists that catch problems before they reach the audience - Configure encoding, bitrate, and platform settings for reliable performance on your network - Manage in-stream interactions including hosts, raids, and on-screen guest segments The course progresses from scene design through overlays, audio, checklists, encoding, and in-stream interactions. A capstone written exercise asks you to draft a complete production plan for your own live stream, including a scene list, overlay design, and pre-stream checklist. This course is designed for beginners with some streaming experience or strong motivation to start, including hobbyist streamers, educators going live, and creators expanding their formats. No prior broadcasting experience is required. The course treats live production as a craft you can develop through structured practice.