gdqx18-layouts

The on-stream graphics used during Summer Games Done Quick 2018.

This is a NodeCG v1 bundle. You will need to have NodeCG v1 installed to run it.

Table of Contents

• Video Breakdown
• Automated Builds
• Requirements
• Installation
• Configuration
  • Setting up OBS
  • Tweets and Fan art
  • Tracker Credentials
• Usage
  • Running a mock donation server
  • Lightning Round
• Interviews
• License
• Credits

Video Breakdown

We unfortunately do not have time to make a video breakdown for this event's bundle. However, we did make one for AGDQ 2017's graphics package, which still has a few similarities with this one.

Automated Builds

If you are using an automated build (which includes everything in one zip file with a single exe), skip to configuration.

Automated builds are made on AppVeyor CI. You can view the list of builds here. To download a build, click the "Artifacts" link in the top right, above that build's log output. Then, download the sdgq18-layouts-${HASH}.zip for that build.

If you just want a direct link to a build that works and don't mind it maybe being slightly out-of-date, here you go.

Requirements

• Node.js 8 or greater (8 recommended, newer versions not tested)
• NodeCG v1.x

Installation

💡 Skip this section if you are using an automated build

1. Clone (or download & extract) to nodecg/bundles/gdqx18-layouts.
2. Install bower if you have not already (npm install -g bower)
3. cd nodecg/bundles/gdqx18-layouts and run npm install --production, then bower install
4. Create the configuration file (see the configuration section below for more details)
   • This is optional, but a lot of functionality requires it. Many systems will be unavailable unless you configure them.
5. Run the nodecg server: node index.js (or nodecg start if you have nodecg-cli installed) from the nodecg root directory.

Please note that by default, not all graphics will work. This is because gdqx18-layouts makes use of several non-free plugins for GSAP, which we cannot redistribute. If you wish to use all graphics in their current implementations, you will need to pay for access to Club GreenSock and save the following plugins to the following directories:

• SplitText: shared/lib/vendor/SplitText.min.js
• CustomEase: shared/lib/vendor/CustomEase.min.js
• DrawSVGPlugin: shared/lib/vendor/DrawSVGPlugin.min.js

Configuration

To configure this bundle, create and edit nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json.
Refer to configschema.json for the structure of this file.

If you have nodecg-cli installed, you can run nodecg defaultconfig from the nodecg/bundles/gdqx18-layouts/ folder to generate a nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json file with default values derived from the schema.

Setting up OBS

gdqx18-layouts has a deep, complex integration with OBS Studio. As such, it expects your OBS to be fairly precisely configured.

1. Download and extract this custom build of OBS, which includes all the plugins we use.
   • Once extracted, OBS can be launched via bin/64bit/obs64.exe.
   • The source code for this build can be viewed here.
2. Go to "Profile > Import", and import the obs-assets/obs-profile directory from this repository. Then, ensure that the "GDQx2018" profile is selected in OBS.
3. Go to "Scene Collection > Import", and import the obs-assets/obs-scenes.json file from this repository. Then, ensure that the "GDQx2018 - Localhost" scene collection is selected in OBS.
4. Locate the "Scene Transitions" dropdown menu in the main interface of OBS (it will be near the bottom right by default). Select "Blank Stinger". Click the gear icon below the dropdown, and select "Properties". Update the "Video File" path to point to your gdqx18-layouts/obs-assets/BlankTransition.mov path.
5. Ensure OBS is in Studio Mode.
6. Click the gear icon to the right of the center "Transition" button.
7. Ensure that "Duplicate Scene" is unchecked.

You may notice that we use a custom plugin called GDQ Crop. This plugin's source can be viewed here.

Tweets and Fan art

❗ This does not cover the system for interview question tweets, which is a separate system called Lightning Round. This only covers the system for showing Tweets and Fan art on the break and gameplay scenes.

To show Tweets and Fan art on the break and gameplay scenes, you will need to define the twitter object in your nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json config file.

This system has changed. Previously, you'd enter your Twitter API credentials directly into your config, and gdqx18-layouts would handle making all the API requests for you. This is no longer possible, due to Twitter's new API structure.

To resolve this issue, we had to create a small microservice running on Heroku which acts as a middleman between Twitter and the local deployment of gdqx18-layouts. This microservice is called twitter-socket.io-adapter, and its documentation can be viewed here.

Once you have a deployment of twitter-socket.io-adapter up and running on Heroku, you can configure your twitter object in nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json like this example:

{
	"twitter": {
		"enabled": true,
		"websocketUrl": "https://YOUR_HEROKU_APP_NAME.herokuapp.com/",
		"preSharedKey": "YOUR_SECRET_KEY_FROM_YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_ON_HEROKU",
		"debug": false
	}
}

Tracker Credentials

Some of the data that gdqx18-layouts fetches from the tracker is private, privileged data. An authorized account is required to access this data. Private data includes:

• Ad schedule
• Interview schedule
• Per-run tech notes

If you wish to access private data on your deployment of the tracker, you'll need to configure your tracker object in nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json like this example:

{
	"tracker": {
		"username": "YOUR_USERNAME",
		"password": "YOUR_PASSWORD",
		"eventId": 23
	}
}

Usage

This bundle is not intended to be used verbatim. Some of the assets have been replaced with placeholders, and most of the data sources are hardcoded. We are open-sourcing this bundle in hopes that people will use it as a learning tool and base to build from, rather than just taking and using it wholesale in their own productions.

To reiterate, please don't just download and use this bundle as-is. Build something new from it.

1. Start NodeCG

   # From the `nodecg` dir:
   node index.js

   • If you're using an automated build, just run nodecg.exe.
2. Open http://localhost:9090
3. Click on the "Setup" tab of the dashboard, and connect to OBS using the "OBS" panel.
   • By default, obs-websocket uses port 4444 and has no password.
   • The compositingOBS tab is for the "compositor" OBS, where the graphics are running.
   • The recordingOBS tab is for the "recording" OBS, where the primary recordings are running.
     • You do not need to have recordingOBS connected, it is optional.
   • The encodingOBS tab is for the "encoding" OBS, where the secondary recordings are running.
     • You do not need to have encodingOBS connected, it is optional.

Running a mock donation server

gdqx18-layouts listens for donations in realtime, rather than polling the donation tracker for a new donation total. To facilitate testing, we provide a small script that sends mock donations:

1. Add "donationSocketUrl": "http://localhost:22341" to your nodecg/cfg/gdqx18-layouts.json
2. From the nodecg/bundles/gdqx18-layouts folder, run npm run mock-donations
3. Run NodeCG (nodecg start or node index.js from the nodecg folder)

In production, you'd use TipoftheHats/donation-socket-repeater along with the "Postback URL" feature of GamesDoneQuick/donation-tracker.

Lightning Round

Lightning Round is GDQ's system for gathering interview questions from Twitter. It exists in two parts: one part running "in the cloud" as a Firebase app, and one part running locally as part of this NodeCG bundle.

Lightning Round is pretty weird and kind of difficult to set up. You can watch these videos for more information but please bear in mind that they are outdated, as they were made for AGDQ 2017, not GDQx 2018:

• Lightning Round Overview
• Lightning Round Setup Guide

Interviews

Interviews at GDQ events are pre-composited on a Blackmagic ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K. The final program out from this ATEM is then sent into OBS as a single SDI capture input. Interviews are run by a separate team from the rest of the stream, so that setup can continue uninterrupted while the interview is ongoing.

Our ATEM operators sometimes use atem-compositor to help them more rapidly create compositions of multiple sources on an ATEM, which is notoriously difficult to do quickly and accurately without the use of programs such as atem-compositor.

License

gdqx18-layouts is provided under the Apache v2 license, which is available to read in the LICENSE file.

Credits

Designed & developed by Support Class:

• Alex "Lange" Van Camp
• Chris Hanel

Additional help from:

• Keiichiro "Hoishin" Amemiya