Streamer and Recorder Agreement and Guidelines

The Oceanink Stream Team consists of Streamers, Recorders and Commentators working together to create recordings and streams for the Oceanink Series and other affiliated events. As a streamer or recorder, you will be working alongside other Stream Team members to capture and present OCE Splatoon matches to the community. 

At minimum, being a recorder or a streamer requires owning a capture card, being able to operate recording and/or streaming software, and the ability to reliably stream/upload this content to Twitch/YouTube without any obvious drops in-game/video quality. Oceanink Series will require you to operate overlays software. Recorders are encouraged to use video editing software to trim/highlight recordings.

This page outlines what is involved in streaming and/or recording for the Oceanink Stream Team. If you are interested in a position as a recorder/streamer, please read this page carefully then follow the instructions on the Stream Team page.

Streamer & Recorder Agreement

Being accepted into the Stream Team – and being allowed to spectate Series matches – means that the Series Admins and Stream Team Leads trust you to take the role and its responsibilities seriously, and to represent Oceanink well. It should go without saying, but do not use your position within the Stream Team to enable any players or teams to cheat, break the rules, or engage in any other unsportsmanlike behaviour. If you have notes or feedback for a team you are spectating, do not say anything to the team until the match ends.

Technical Requirements

  • A capture card (for passing Switch video and audio to your PC)
  • A PC that can handle recording/streaming at 720p 30fps minimum without rendering issues negatively affecting the stream/recording (e.g. sufficient CPU/GPU for rendering video)
  • When streaming, Internet that can handle doing the following concurrently:
    • Playing Splatoon without disconnections
    • Being in a Discord VC with 1-2 other people without audio stuttering/dropping out/becoming robotic (for recording commentators)
    • Streaming to your chosen streaming site at 720p 30fps minimum without frame drops or lag negatively affecting the stream

Please also consider how well your internet handles uploading recordings to a video site e.g. Youtube.

If you are planning to commentate as well, please see the Commentary Guidelines for microphone requirements.

Knowledge and Skills Requirements

Wondering what you need to know to become a Recorder or Streamer? Here are some basics:

  • Basics of how to set up and operate streaming/recording software (e.g. OBS).
  • How to upload (Recorders) or export (Streamers) your recording to Youtube.
  • Streamers: how to stream to your chosen streaming platform (e.g. Twitch).
  • Audio Balancing, for game audio, commentators and background music for between rounds.
  • It is recommended that you get used to the Splatoon 3 spectator camera, including when and how to use different views (e.g. overhead vs. objective vs. player view), but auto spectate is fine, especially when you are also commentating.
  • For series, you will need to know how to run the overlays. This includes making sure the correct teams and maps are displayed, keeping the colours and the score correct on the scoreboard, displaying useful information for the audience before/after a match ect.

Some other things that can be handy to know are:

  • More advanced spectator camera techniques (examples: smooth player view transitions, slow panning, slow rotation, maintaining spawn orientation).
  • The ability to share a projected screen to commentators.
  • Advanced setup and operation of streaming/recording software.
  • For streaming, running a replay system to highlight clutch moments of a match.
  • Basic video editing (for fixing any issues with recordings or improving recordings by cutting out downtime, adding overlay screens, etc.).

Streaming/Recording Guidelines

The following recommendations have been collated from experience and knowledge of the Stream Team and the Oceanink audience. You are not required to follow every recommendation listed below, but please consider them carefully.

General

  • Show the map at the beginning of matches. This lets viewers, commentators and analysts get a clear view of weapon compositions and rollout strategies.
  • Try to transition to gameplay during the loading screen between the lobby and the gameplay, and then transition back after the winning team has posed. You wouldn’t want to miss a fist bump!
  • During gameplay, when viewing from a player’s perspective, hold the ZL button. This allows spectators to see the names of players, as well as the positions of players that might be out of sight. As an added bonus, it also shows you which button you need if you want to cut to a different player.
  • Use audio monitoring to check the levels during a stream, and be sure to listen to chat if they tell you something is too loud/quiet.
  • In a tournament setting, try to arrange a TO to find you streaming matches and hold the players from starting. You will not have time for this among everything else you’ll be doing.
  • If streaming or recording over a pre-recorded match, be mindful of:
    • Video player UI appearing in the stream/recording video. Use overlays to hide the video in your streaming/recording software while you operate with the video player.
    • Synchronising all streamer’s/recorder’s/commentator’s recordings. To prevent people from getting out of sync, decide on a timestamp to start at and count down to when everyone should hit play.

Recording

  • Recommended minimum quality: 720p and 60fps. Feel free to use higher quality if you like. Just be mindful that if someone has to download it to commentate it or upload it to Youtube, the large file size will make this harder for them.
  • Record game audio and caster audio as separate tracks (can make it easier to fix audio issues).
  • If able to do video editing, the following can be good to make a recording smaller (so faster to upload/download) and better for watching:
    • Removing matches that were replayed (unless the replay was triggered after a significant period of play – can be good to ask the teams what they want in this case).
    • Removing lobby time between matches (e.g. from the black screen after the results/KD screen at the end of a match to the black screen before the map tour at the start of the next match).
  • If you upload a recording (or export a Twitch VoD) to Youtube, make sure to link it in the specified channel in the Series Discord server so that Admins can add it to the Oceanink Youtube playlist for the season. This makes it easier for members of the community to find recordings later. 
  • Recommended information for a Youtube video to make them easier to search for:
    • In the title, description and/or tags: “Oceanink Series”, season number, full team names and optionally abbreviated team names.
    • In the title and/or description: round/week number or date of when the match happened.
    • In the description: names of other recorders/streamers/commentators if anyone else was involved and the link to the relevant bracket.

Streaming

  • Recommended quality: 720p and 30fps at 2500kbps. 
    • 30fps: 1500kbps – 2000kbps is fine.
    • 60fps: don’t go under 2000kbps.
    • These settings are recommended because we want to ensure that as many people as possible from our community can watch and at higher settings, some may not be able to watch due to their own download speed.
  • If splitting the audio to different tracks for recording, ensure all audio sources are on track 1 since it is the only track streaming services receive (e.g. assign each audio source to track 1 and another unique track to account for streaming and recording).
  • If streaming or recording over a recorded match, also be mindful of your internet’s bandwidth. Trying to download a recording and streaming at the same time may stress your internet. We recommend everyone involved download the recording beforehand.