Widgets, overlays and themes
What the marketplace sells, how to add things to your library and put them in OBS with one button, how their settings and pictures work, and what each plan unlocks.
The marketplace has three kinds of thing, and they work the same way: you add them to your library on the website or in the app, then press Use in the ForgeCast app and they appear in OBS by themselves.
| Kind | What it is | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Widget | One small live piece you put on top of a scene. It fills in with your real channel numbers | A sub goal, a viewer counter, a "newest member" label, a stats panel |
| Overlay | A design that dresses a scene | Pointer arrows, a webcam border, a starting or break screen, falling petals |
| Theme | A matching pack of overlays and widgets in one style, used together | Sakura: pink starting, break and ending screens, a gameplay frame, a sub goal and a chat box |
Browse them on the marketplace or in the Marketplace page of the app.
Add to your library
Press Add to library on any item you can use. Free items are open to every account; Pro and Ultimate items need that plan (their card says so). Adding a theme gives you all of its parts.
Your library is what you can use. Removing something from your library takes it out of OBS and forgets what you set for it.
Use it from the app
Open the Marketplace page in the ForgeCast app and find it under In your library.
Press Use and ForgeCast adds it to OBS for you. An overlay's Performance can stay on Auto (see Performance if OBS lags).
To change it, press the gear next to it: a goal, a title, a colour, a picture. Changes show in OBS at once. Press Remove and it is taken out of OBS again.
Where it goes in OBS:
- A widget or an overlay is added to the scene that is selected in OBS when you press Use (the scene you are editing, if Studio Mode is on). Use it again later and it goes into whichever scene is selected then.
- A theme gets new scenes named after it: one for each moment its parts are for, such as
Sakura · Starting,Sakura · BRB,Sakura · EndingandSakura · Gameplay, each with the right parts in it. A theme whose parts are all for every scene gets one scene with the theme's name. Your own scenes are not touched and ForgeCast never switches the scene OBS is showing. Remove takes the theme's parts out and deletes the scenes it made, unless you have added something of your own to one (then that scene stays) or it is the scene OBS is showing right now.
ForgeCast adds a browser source to OBS for each piece, named ForgeCast: …. If OBS isn't connected yet, the item is still in use, and it is added to OBS (to the scene selected then) as soon as you connect it on the OBS page (OBS setup). Widgets start in the middle of the scene unless you choose one of nine places and a size in their settings; drag them anywhere in OBS afterwards and ForgeCast leaves them where you put them.
Performance
An overlay's Use this overlay dialog has a Performance setting. Auto picks one to suit your PC. If OBS lags, pick Saver.
| Setting | What changes |
|---|---|
| Auto | Chooses for you, from what your PC can do |
| Quality | The full design, as made |
| Balanced | 30 fps, lighter effects, fewer particles, and it sleeps while hidden in OBS |
| Saver | 20 fps, designs rest still, no heavy effects, about 30% of the particles. Alerts and chat still update |
Looking at it in a browser
The settings window has an Address with a Preview button: it opens the overlay in your browser on a checkerboard, fitted to the window, so you can see it. The page only shows something while the item is in use (the app is the one that sends it). If it isn't, the page says so and keeps looking, and shows the overlay as soon as you press Use. In OBS the same page is transparent and never shows a message.
Only its own sources
ForgeCast only ever changes or removes browser sources it made itself (their names start with ForgeCast: ), and it only deletes a scene if it made that scene for a theme and nothing else is in it. Your own sources and scenes are never touched.
Settings
A widget or overlay can offer settings: a goal number, a title, a colour, a picture. They are what makes one design fit your channel. Each setting is chosen on this PC, remembered here, and shows in OBS immediately. The number next to a goal bar, for example, follows your real subscribers; only the target is yours to choose.
Pictures and GIFs stay on your PC
A picture setting lets you choose an image or GIF from your computer (PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, up to 20 MB). It is copied into ForgeCast's own folder on this PC and never uploaded anywhere; the overlay in OBS reads it from the app on this computer. It can be a logo, a mascot, or the picture that falling petals or sparkles are made of.
You can also use a picture on its own: the Widgets page has Picture or GIF, for any file from your PC, with a size, how it fits its box and rounded corners.
Built-in widgets and their styles
The app's Widgets page has ForgeCast's own widgets, free on every plan: a goal bar, a counter, live chat, recent events, a latest-member label, a timer and an alert box. Each comes in a few styles (a glass card, a neon pill, big numbers...). Pick one and the widget changes, in OBS too if it is in use; what you set (your goal, your title, your colour, your sounds) stays when you switch. With Use in overlays too on (it is, to start with), the chat box, alert box, goal bar, recent events, latest label and timer inside your overlays and themes take the same style and settings, so one change shows everywhere. The style fills the whole box the overlay gave that widget.
Their settings are made for streaming: the timer's length is minutes and seconds with a Restart button, the goal bar has a Counts choice (subscribers, members or likes), the chat has an avatars switch and sixteen styles (among them Sakura, Midnight, Pills, Bold outline, Pixel and Gradient) built from twelve looks (glass, bubbles, cards, framed, clean, name tags, stacked, neon, cozy pastel, terminal, pills and bold outline) with YouTube's owner, moderator, verified and member icons and a quick slide-in for each new message, and most have an optional sound (a goal reached, a countdown ended, an alert) chosen from your Sound Library. Sounds play through the browser source in OBS, so they are part of your stream.
With Pro or Ultimate, Customize in the editor makes your own copy of a style to change in the Editor.
The widgets inside an overlay
Whoever makes an overlay can give each widget in it a default style (in the Editor, the widget's Default style). In the app, the gear on an overlay or theme in use has Widgets in it, where you choose each one's style for that overlay. Which style is used, in order:
- What you chose in Widgets in it: a style, your Widgets page style, or the overlay's own design.
- The overlay's default style.
- Your Widgets page style, while Use in overlays too is on.
- Otherwise the overlay's own design.
Whatever the style, the widget uses your settings from the Widgets page. A style without a panel of its own (Cozy, for example) shows what is behind it, so on a bright frame pick one with a panel (Sakura, Midnight) or the overlay's own design.
The alert box
The first styles (Spotlight, Side by side, Poster) show a big picture with bold words: "PixelPanda sent ₹200!", with the name and amount in your colour.
- With the words: your own picture or GIF (from your PC), an emoji, the alert's icon, or nothing. Until you pick a picture, an emoji shows (one per kind of alert, or your own).
- How it comes on: pop, rise, slide, drop, zoom or fade. It always fades off before its time is up.
- Name and amount: wave, glow or still.
An alert box you animate yourself in the editor keeps your animation instead. Press Send test on the app's Widgets → Alert box page (once it is in OBS) to see it there.
What stays on your PC, and what does not
| Where it lives | |
|---|---|
| The design (what the website sends when you press Use) | In memory only, while it is in use. Never written to disk. Closing the app or pressing Remove ends it |
| Your choices (settings, scenes, which picture, where it sits) | On this PC, in the app's own storage |
| Your pictures and GIFs | On this PC, in the app's own folder |
| The address OBS loads | A page served by the app on this computer only (127.0.0.1). It can't be reached from the network, and every overlay has its own secret in its address |
Plans
| Free | Pro | Ultimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free items (widgets, overlays, themes) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pro items | Locked | Yes | Yes |
| Ultimate items | Locked | Locked | Yes |
| A theme's plan | At least the plan of its most demanding part |
The website decides, every time. When you press Use, ForgeCast asks the website for it, and the website only sends it when your current plan covers it. While it is in use, the app asks again every few minutes: if your plan ends (or you are downgraded) what needs it is taken out of use, and you can use it again when your plan covers it. If you are offline, what is in use stays in use until the connection is back.
What this protects, and what it can't
Plans decide who may get and use the marketplace's items through ForgeCast. Anything that is drawn on a screen can be looked at by the person watching it, so this is a licence, not copy protection.
Make your own
With Pro or Ultimate you can design your own overlays and widgets in the Editor: pick the canvas size, add settings, use variables such as {{subscribers}} and {{goal}}, and add particle emitters. Your own designs show up in your library and are used exactly like the marketplace ones.
Publishing to the marketplace itself (and choosing Free, Pro or Ultimate for an item, and building themes) is for ForgeCast staff.
AI features and credits
Turn on AI in the app, see what each AI feature does and where it is, how credits work by plan, and what is sent to the AI.
The Editor
A tour of the Editor — shapes, text, images, particles, widgets with settings, variables, effects, animation, the timeline, and saving your work.