Form over Function - Twitch Streams

General Feedback & Requests
1

Every single twitch video I have watched where you are doing tutorials, this happens:

  • “I can’t really see the text”
  • “It’s quite far away, am I clicking the right thing”
  • “Oh that’s small”
  • “Where is that, it’s difficult to see”

For the love of sanity, please adjust your setup so that the presenters have proper access to a screen.

  • There are a million ways to do this,
  • Smaller angled screens in a table in front of them,
  • larger wall screen,
  • Closer screen
  • Large projector
  • Even monitors in front of them…
  • Laptops…
  • even tablets with output cast to them

Please make it easier for the presenters / epic staff, to see the screen, and worry less about the studio setup,aesthetics

Oh and thanks for those support streams, they really are useful, esp, who has a knack of explaining how things work so normal people can understand them.

2

More than likely it’s simply because the highest common rez for video is 1920 x 1080 but many people are used to working on setups at a greater resolution than this.

4

Haha yeah… also the mouse… don’t forget that (apparently horrible) wireless mouse :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll work with the team to see what we can do :slight_smile:

Some of the comments here are correct - Our monitor is at 1080p, so we might have to move things a bit to get better visibility to the screen. We don’t have a lower screen / podium due to the stage being used for all of Epic’s streams (UT, Fortnite, and of course, UE :wink: ) Zooming might get weird with the work Shelley does on the output, but worth the discussion!

Mouse has been replaced! So we’re good there :cool:

Thanks again

6

Still needs improvement , when you have people with glasses, not being able to see, it makes it really cringe worthy watching.

I’m surprised that the staff there don’t just say “hang on this is just silly” can’t we have a screen at a proper distance.

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7

Thanks again, Transmitthis, we’ll see what we can do to improve the experience of our Twitch audience.

8

Really guys? Your developing a bleeding edge gaming engine, and you can’t even set up a studio for your staff, so that they can use it in a professional manner, without looking like idiots
(you don’t look like idiots, but you see my point)

It just boggles my mind how idiotic this is - still the same over 4 months later. here we are with your staff unable to use your own studio.

If I was there, I’d stand up live on the stream, and say “hang on, this is silly”, and move my chair closer or the monitor closer, or I’d bring in my own TD equipment and produce the stream myself.
It’s pretty cheap for a rolling monitor stand you know.

Come on make some changes

9

Thanks for checking in. We’ve moved our rolling monitors a good bit closer, but making the text any larger for the screen would mean upscaling when we broadcast out, causing a loss in fidelity unfortunately.

I’ll talk again with the team and see what else we can do to improve the experience for both our presenters and yourself.

Thanks again.

10

I spent some time looking into this:

Ever since Windows 8.1 we have per-display DPI settings - So you could have two monitors, and change the display scaling on the larger one that the presenters use, they could even have an entire wall with a projected image and custom DPI (projectors are cheap)

A second option would be, Per application DPI Scaling, so running two instances of the program, one for the stream output, and another for the presenters.

A third option, External computer magnification stands, used for the visual impaired, could be re-purposed to make the screen twice as big for the presenters.

Just thought it may be helpful to see some options, if you need funds for equipment just ask the community you have built, you are also welcome to use all my epic balance in such a venture as I believe tutorial videos (by Epic staff) are fundamental to Epics growth and the endorsement of UE4 as the leading engine.

11

“I can barely read that from here”…!

Obviously anything you did, didn’t alleviate this issue .

This really is incredibly stupid and so easy to sort

Stop worrying about how the set up looks, and make it functional.

12

what a persistent guy, i like ita4db33157a15abc9de0fd0e64e28f43b5fdd7e4f.png.

13

Hey there, thanks for the suggestions!

We do have two monitors already, but we’re still on windows 7 (mostly because we don’t want to upgrade until we absolutely have to, since we’re worried it may mess with the content). I went ahead with your suggestion in spirit and tried using some of the built in magnification and it seems to have helped a bit during the Henry VR stream we just did. We did also find out that when you put the DPI scaling to 125% in Windows 10, you see in a lot of dialogs and windows the font gets very blurry. Blurry font means that we’re back to square one.

This is too heavy unfortunately. Also, again DPI scaling is ok, but not perfect. It’s pretty difficult already to keep up 1080p and 60fps where we can. Maybe in the future this will be more viable.

That would mean putting a big magnifying glass in the camera’s shot. The monitors are about an inch out of shot as-is, so anything in front of them would be in the shot.

We’ll probably just use the new zoom that worked out on today’s stream, but there will always be some stuff that’s hard to see. Also we’ll probably just have to tether Sam to the wall, he just leans a lot naturally.

14

Or you could build the “boomerang” table with monitors build horisontally in some sort of a “valley” and make it more like a stage, it would kill the the attempt to build cosiness which we can see now, for sure, but i personally dont care, i even preffer more buisness/information delivery aprouch instead of current one.
Its not a request or suggestion its just a speculation, we all know no any big changes, especially one which require production cost increase would happen with this show, in it current state.

15

Yep - this is your problem right here. No one cares! :stuck_out_tongue:

By that I mean no one cares about the SHOT, your not making a film, this is not art, this is training, it needs to be useful.

Issues:

1) **Stop worrying **about the Shot and make it functional (Stick a big monitor right up in there if needed - ask community if they care)

2) Upgrade the OS, I mean seriously guys? Use a VM to test compliance, even on my 5 year old rig I can run several VM’s for testing, and all you need here is the engine and streaming software.

3) **Upgrade the System **two instances of UE4 is too “heavy”? really, what are you doing there… Build another RIG, build two - if funds are an issue ask the Community - we’ll run a competition to build a rig and have it used for the Epic streams - hell even manufactures like Nvidia or Corsair would do the same… There is Zero reason not to have the equipment needed here.

5) I can’t count, can’t count the number of times I’ve cringed at how awkward and annoying you are making it for Your Own staff to use the setup you have.
These are people who take the time to do the training, and work hard in the background getting it all ready. I bet there are staff that avoid the training streams specifically because its difficult to see and use and work in that setup - It’s just not a comfortable place to be.

(TD = Technical Director) Hope you have a tricaster if not http://www.newtek.com/

There are so many better options, here is one.

How about prerecording the segments, which the TD can incorporated into the stream as needed, this would then be fullscreen, with original audio, or you could talk over / add commentary live.

(These could be then recorded by the staff - in there own time at their own desks with simple audio and screen capture software)
This would mean the “live” section of the live stream, would be a relaxed affair with people sitting back chilling and chatting about the training, and answering questions - incorporating any little “shorts” as needed.

Imagine a world where StaffA is working away and knowing a training stream is coming up next week on AI, fires up screenrecorder, and just does a 2min short showing how to do xyz.
Imagine in this world Every staff member can upload these shorts to your server all indexed and ready to be used as and when needed.

Your TD will be sat there with the videos, and a ever growing “shorts” list, which could be used as and when they come up, or as filler.
All they would have to do is switch between the guys chatting, and relevant content. TD - “oh hang on guys, I have something here that StaffA did that explains that part” - rolls vid

Another -
Build another studio for training, if you have to - have desks with 4k monitors, with a couple of cameras for each. You could even get a 3D Camera for $300 THETA Users could then rotate around themselves, to see the screen or the person talking, and the staff will be sat at a desk in the best environment conducive to training.

I really hope you sort this out, your engine is fantastic, you are doing almost everything right, more people are coming to the fold to learn about it, here you seem to be specifically making it difficult for your own people to teach others just because of inappropriate equipment, six year old operating system and some ill advised artistic studio look you think is expected.

16

Too much? :o

I just can’t explain how incredibly gobsmacked I find this, no good at **similes **but it’s like, going door to door selling encyclopedias for a living, you only put one in the boot of the car, then keep going back home to get another every time.

Below may help with the issues with engine versions changes affecting training.

How about, once you have set up this “shorts” video uploading and have a nice little library of explanations on how to do things, (from exactly what each node does, to how to set up materials, to in depth AI interaction and complex maths equations)

How about you let the Community update it for you? a simple forum thread, and or vote, and when things change from 4.xx to 4.x1 a forum member who is familiar with the changes could upload the same “short” with updated info/practices/changes for the newest engine.

Simple kickback to the member, star, karma, mention, hat, badge, whatever forum members like these days, and you’ll soon have an entire section of people scouring the updates and leaping on the beta releases to be the first to upload a “short” explanation on how to do that thing, that’s now changed.

You’ll then have a massive indexed list of nested videos complete with forum links with discussion on each aspect of your engine and the best practices to use it, as well as many many different ways to do the same thing, with when and why each is best used.

You’re welcome.

17

I’ve done a few livestreams regarding various things for various people where I was ‘demo guy’, where I ran the output machine from the stage set so people can see an engineer is doing things while business people talk.

I must say Epic’s display for the stage has been the most comfortable to read while ‘on set’ that I’ve ever seen, when I was there recently for the game jam results. Somewhere on the internet exists me trying to demo a game on a 1080p 22" inch screen 25 feet away <_<. That being said, it definitely could be better, maybe they just need to put a 90" in there.

18

This is something that has bugged me for a long time as well. There’s always people trying to figure out what’s on the screen, stream after stream. It simply doesn’t make any sense to me as it indeed feels like it’s more about having nice looking studio than making sure you have proper tools at hand / good setup. Issue with remote screen is that it needs to be really big if you have people who can’t see far away that well. The further the screen, the worse the issue gets. It would be better to have just a small mirrored screen on the desk where people use it, or just get powerful laptop for it and mirror it’s image. It doesn’t really make sense that the studio itself is top notch but people struggle using it. :confused:

From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem like issues come from having too low resolution, it’s quite the contrary. If resolution were higher, these kinds of issues would get only worse as font sizes shrink as resolution goes up, meaning people who barely saw the font on 1080p will see nothing at all on 4K. I know that I personally can’t even use 4K displays under 30" at all because everything gets too small and I can only imagine how that would work if those 4K displays were moved even further away then…

19

, the reply to my quote there is taking it out of context, I was talking about a different set up, for different reasons. - but it’s fine I know what you mean. (larger screen and increased ppi for better clarity in the fonts)

I can just imagine the stream opening up on a set with only one presenter, then off in the distance we hear a scraping and panting.
A guy comes into view dragging a desk with monitor set up, leaves it right in front of the sofa to stares of disbelief.
Goes back for a swivel chair, and then plonks himself down on it, rolls his selves up and says,

[FONT=Times New Roman]“blood and bloody ashes, I’m not sitting over there on the sofa like some goose-brained lummox”
Only the wool headed sit where its difficult to see what their doing, now let’s get on with the training"

20

Sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out of context. My reply was based on my personal experience as I don’t see text that well on those small 4k monitors either, unless they are really close to me. I just felt that if they took that route, the same issue may return (people still can’t see the text clearly).

21

Not an issue , I put forward several different solutions, that particular one was about having an entire different set up with proper desks and cameras, I probably didn’t explain it with any clarity.

You are right in what you say, and 4k screens are not really that large yet anyway, although they do scale well.

As long as Epic keeps improving upon this issue, iteratively like their engine, we should be good.

Hrm, maybe give the trainers VR goggles… :slight_smile: