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Hey guys!
I know that there are a handful of threads about what people use for casting overlays here on TeamLiquid and I was actually using IrfanViewer and image superimposing during editing to achieve these effects like everyone else. In addition I've always wanted an overlay similar to the GSL and other tournament overlays with player information (color, race, gamertag) so I've built my own application to handle all of these features for me.
Although I've created this application strictly for my own needs I figured the SC2 community at large might find this useful as well and thought I would offer it up for anyone else to use it that wants. I'm also open to expanding features and functionality on this going forward so let me know if there's a feature you would like to see that's not currently in there.
Here's a quick list of the features that are currently included:
-Tournament style display including player names, colors, races and current set score
-Toggle switch to display player color in player name text or with a colored box next to player names
-Settings panel to allow you to update player information on the fly
-Toggle to hide player details overlay
-Toggle to force player details overlay always on top
-Toggle to lock player details overlay so it no longer moves when clicked on
-Ability to dynamically add as many image overlays as you want and manage them on the fly
-Each image overlay has the ability to be resized, lock, hidden and set to be always on top
(I specifically want to note that if you uncheck the resize option for an image overlay it removes the sizable border which gets rid of the annoying border that you have when using the IrfanViewer application)
The settings panel is pretty intuitive I think but if anyone has questions about how to use it please let me know.
NOTE: This application is built on Microsoft.NET 4 Framework so if you don't have Windows 7 you will most likely need to install the free framework redistributable from Microsoft.
Downloads:
.NET 4 framework
Application Download
Tutorial Video
UPDATE (old)
+ Show Spoiler +
I added a couple more features to the application and am uploading a video to my YouTube channel on how to use this application. I know that there are no responses on this thread but it's been viewed a bit and the application has been downloaded a handful of times so I wanted to announce the changes and such in case anyone is using it.
New Features:
-Added the ability to change the SC2 logo and place your own logo in it's place
-Added resize buttons to allow you to make the overlay larger or smaller if needed
-Made the settings panel show up in the task bar so you can select either window specifically
Thanks to everyone who's checked out the application and I hope you guys get some use out of it. I'm very open to adding more functionality still so if you guys have any ideas please let me know. Of course any feedback is welcome (even critical) so feel free to post with any feedback even if you're not asking for functionality.
UPDATE (old)
+ Show Spoiler +
The tutorial video actually finished much quicker than expected. I have posted a link above to the video. It's still processing on YouTube so it's not currently accessible but usually it finishes processing pretty quickly so you should be able to view it soon.
UPDATE 1/9/2011 (v1.1)
+ Show Spoiler +
I've posted a new version of the application and updated the download link. There are a handful of items that have been fixed/added. Most of it is pretty straight forward so I'm not planning to make another tutorial to outline the changes but if a handful of people request it I can throw one together. Below is a list of changes.
Fixed:
-Transparency key has been removed from the application so the "Capture Layered Windows" option is not required for streaming or video capture.
New Features:
-If you double click on a player name you will get a text box to modify that name on the overlay. Hit "Enter" when finished to apply the change or "Esc" to cancel the change.
-If you double click on a player score you will get a text box to modify that player's score on the overlay. Hit "Enter" when finished to apply the change or "Esc" to cancel the change.
-If you double click on a player's race icon it will cycle through the race icons (Protoss, Random, Terran, Zerg).
-New race icon artwork (this was done because I had multiple complaints that the icons were sometimes difficult to make out).
- When the overlay application is running you will now have an icon for it in your system tray. If you right click on the icon you have options to show/hide the settings panel and the overlay itself.
-The application now also has a config file that automatically maintains the overlay's last screen position so when you open it you don't have to move it again (I am going to be expanding on this functionality but that's all that's currently supported in the auto save).
-Player score can now go up to 99 instead of just 9.
Whew! Lots of new features out there so I hope you guys are happy with the changes because most of them are based on your feedback. Thanks again to everyone who's offered their perspective and ideas for this application. It really has helped me to develop this into a much more robust and useful app across the board. As always, if you have any more comments (good, bad or otherwise) leave them in the thread here or shoot me a PM.
UPDATE 1/31/2011 (v1.2)
+ Show Spoiler +Once again I've posted a new version of the Alpha Caster application! There's a lot of new features including hotkeys! Thanks to everyone who's used the application so far and given feedback. I'm continuing to work on it but please feel free to continue to provide feedback on new features you want. I'll be posting a new tutorial video on how to use some of the new stuff on YouTube soon too. I'll update the post with a link to the new video once that's done. New Tutorial VideoHotkeys: -Hide Overlay: Ctrl + O -Hide Settings: Ctrl + P -Hide Score: Ctrl + I -Reset Overlay: Ctrl + U -Change Player 1 Race (Zerg): Ctrl + A -Change Player 1 Race (Terran): Ctrl + S -Change Player 1 Race (Protoss): Ctrl + D -Change Player 1 Race (Random): Ctrl + F -Change Player 2 Race (Zerg): Ctrl + L -Change Player 2 Race (Terran): Ctrl + K -Change Player 2 Race (Protoss): Ctrl + J -Change Player 2 Race (Random): Ctrl + H -Increase Player 1 Score: Ctrl + Q -Decrease Player 1 Score: Ctrl + W -Increase Player 2 Score: Ctrl + E -Decrease Player 2 Score: Ctrl + R -Intro Player 1: Ctrl + 1 -Intro Player 2: Ctrl + 2 New Features: -Added hotkey functionality for a variety of interface controls (see hotkey list above) -Added intro functionality to animate player introductions -Added new low res version of the interface to make lower quality capture and streaming easier to read the overlay -New layout for settings interface to make it easier to use
UPDATE 2/21/2011 (v1.3) - Hello again! I have posted a new version of the Alpha Caster application. The biggest feature in this version is the customizable hotkey setup. It should be pretty straight forward so I haven't posted a video on how to use it yet. If you guys have a hard time figuring it out though let me know and I can put one together if needed. I also have a fix and a couple more small features in this version so check the list below for all the details.
New Features:
-Added customizable hotkeys
-Added a context menu to the race icons (you can now right click on the player race icon in the actual overlay to get a menu to select a race)'
-Added a "None" option for the race which will just hide the race icon
-Added a "Custom" option for the race which will allow you to select any image that you want for the race icon
Fixes:
-Fixed the button to set your own custom overlay logo to replace the SC2 icon in the high res version
Well that's going to wrap it up for this version guys, I hope you all enjoy it! I'm glad to see that so many people have been using the application for your tournaments and such. If you do use it please make sure to point others to this thread so anyone in need of such an app can find it easily. Thanks again everyone and feel free to continue posting feedback and feature requests here!
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Bump. I added some new functionality and am uploading a tutorial video to my YouTube channel. Download link for the application has been updated and I'll update the OP with a link to the tutorial tomorrow when the upload is finished.
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I was just looking for an overlay app and just finished watching the Youtube vid. Will check out the app soon!
Looks awesome so far!
PS:
Some ideas: How about going without the settings dialog (or mostly without it).
--> moved to feature requests
All of the other settings could stay in the settings dialog.
 Anywho... good stuff! Will test as soon as I install and give more feedback.
I will edit this post for bugs / feature ideas
--------------------------
Bugs:
-
Feature Requests:
- make userinterface not need the settings tab for seamless experience [VERY HIGH]
--- Player Name is directly editable in overlay
--- click on race icon cycles through races (left/right mousebutton forward/backward)
--- colors cyle through the same way (left/right mousebutton forward/backward)
--- score change by mouseclick (left/right mousebutton up/down)
- score over 9 cannot be displayed atm (although unlikely it will be used often, I actually would have use for it) [LOW]
- currently does not save settings (especially overlay size & positioning!) [LOW]
- Hotkey to hide active/show all overlay [LOW]
--------------------------
Starcraft42
(p.s. Check out my noob silver league HQ channel, I stream almost daily  )
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On January 04 2011 04:36 Starcraft42 wrote:I was just looking for an overlay app and just finished watching the Youtube vid. Will check out the app soon! Looks awesome so far! PS: Some ideas: How about going without the settings dialog (or mostly without it). - click on race icon cycles through races (left/right mousebutton forward/backward) - colors cyle through the same way (left/right mousebutton forward/backward) - Player Name is directly editable in overlay - score is directly editable in overlay All of the other settings could stay in the settings dialog. Anywho... good stuff! Will test as soon as I install and give more feedback. I will edit this post for bugs / feature ideas -------------------------- Bugs: - Feature Requests: - score over 9 cannot be displayed atm (although unlikely it will be used often, I actually would have use for it) [LOW] - currently does not save settings (especially overlay size & positioning!) [LOW] - additional Overlays should be border-free, border looks really bad [HIGH] - Hotkey to hide active/show all overlay -------------------------- Starcraft42 (p.s. Check out my noob silver league HQ channel, I stream almost daily )
Thanks for the feedback mate! In regards to a couple of your feature requests,
1) I deliberately didn't support more than 9 because I couldn't think of any reason someone would need more than that for a set score but I can look into adding it if think it will be useful.
2) Saving the settings is something that I have considered but wasn't really sure how much of it would be used other than maybe size and position of the overlay and the additional overlay images? If I were to add this what all would you want saved as default settings to be applied the next time you opened it?
3) The additional overlays you are referring to here are the images you can add? If so you can remove the border by unchecking the resize check box in the image overlay settings panel (if you are having trouble finding it watch the tutorial again), but if you're referring to something else could you provide a bit more detail for me?
4) I do like this idea, I've considered adding some hotkeys to this project and a general hide/show all hotkey makes a lot of sense.
I hope you and many others can get a lot of use out of this app and I appreciate you taking the time to give me some feedback! Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to make some of these changes pretty quickly.
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Very cool utility. I'll be sure to download it and give it a whirl.
BTW, achaia, do you play zerg? I am pretty sure we played a ZvZ the other day on NA! ^_^
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On January 04 2011 08:22 d_wAy wrote:
Very cool utility. I'll be sure to download it and give it a whirl.
BTW, achaia, do you play zerg? I am pretty sure we played a ZvZ the other day on NA! ^_^
Thanks for checking it out! Yeah I'm a Zerg player on the NA server, although I don't know if I would remember playing you because it feels like 90% of my 1v1 games recently are ZvZ these days lol. What's your tag?
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Looks way cool. Thanks for making this!
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Hey man this is really cool. If I'm not mistaken you are using fraps to do the SC? If so, is it possible to capture SC2 games with your overlay program while using fraps? Thanks a ton for this program btw.
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Hey, thanks for the fast response.
I made a little mistake with my formatting, as the ideas above the bug/feature request area are actually the most imporant ones. Being able to enter information / cycle through fields (race icons, score, color) would be the biggest improvement for the overlay IMO.
I will move these into the feature request section of my original post.
Will use the overlay tonight when I cast my games!
--> 3) FIXED thank you!
Stay hoopy!
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On January 04 2011 11:05 twigs wrote:
Hey man this is really cool. If I'm not mistaken you are using fraps to do the SC? If so, is it possible to capture SC2 games with your overlay program while using fraps? Thanks a ton for this program btw.
I don't believe there is a way to capture layered windows using Fraps. I actually had to switch to using VH Capture because I was previously using Fraps but ran into this exact problem.
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Holy damn bro, that looks effing amazing :D
Great work :D
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Hey guys! Some people had complained that you required the "capture layered windows" option on in order to capture the overlay on a stream or screen capture. Having to turn this option on is a much larger tax on system resources and affects performance on the stream and capture quality. The issue is being caused by the form transparency key which is there to allow the overlay to appear "cutout" and not just a straight rectangle.
I'm going to be looking into a code work around for this or possibly even reworking the artwork to make it so the overlay image fits into a rectangle but still looks good so the transparency key isn't necessary. I'm hoping to have this change and a few other features added in and posted this weekend. Thanks to everyone who's given feedback so far and I hope a lot of people can get some use out of this!
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Wonderful application. I can definitely use this. Thanks.
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Hey man, just wanted to say great job on the overlay tech. I've already began to use it on GLHF.tv and can't wait for the next version xD
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Hello again everyone! Just wanted to bump this thread and let you all know that version 1.1 of Alpha Caster has been posted. The new features and fixes have been added to the OP. As always feel free to hit me up with any more functionality suggestions and thanks to everyone who has already given feedback! Every feature that went into this update was a suggestion from users on TL.net.
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Only 99? What if they go over 9000?!?
More seriously, thanks for doing this! One of my stream watchers pointed me to this page the other day and I'll definitely use this in future casts!
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The only thing that I can't stand about this overlay is when a player decides to go blue. Currently the blue on blue is very hard to read.
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On January 11 2011 22:04 Ipp wrote:
The only thing that I can't stand about this overlay is when a player decides to go blue. Currently the blue on blue is very hard to read.
I realize this, which is part of the reason I added the "Color Player Names" check box. If you uncheck that option it will make the player name text white and put a colored box next to the player's name. Hopefully this helps! I've been meaning to play with the overlay graphics colors but haven't been able to get around to it with all the other features I've been trying to add in.
EDIT: Also, I just wanted to note that I'll be adding hotkey shortcuts into the application this week, and hopefully have it ready by the weekend along with a few other tweaks. Please feel free to post your feedback here on a list of what hotkeys you want and what you would like them to do. I'll do my best to combine as many of them into the app as possible.
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Thank you so much for your hard work Achaia, we all appreciate it! Definitely going to be using your overlay for casting the ASCWeekly Glad I could help with some of the testing!
Three cheers for Achaia!
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This looks great man. I'd love to have a reason to try it. XD
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EPT
