With the recent change to module handling by BtbN, I felt that having
this information might be useful in case someone is actually using make
install to set up their libraries.
The locale parameter was a mistake, because it puts extra needless
burden upon the module developer to have to handle this variable for
each and every single callback function. The parameter is being removed
in favor of a single centralized module callback function that
specifically updates locale information for a module only when needed.
The 'initialize' callback is used before the encoders/output start up so
it can adjust encoder settings to required values if needed.
Also added the function 'obs_encoder_active' that returns true or false
depending on whether that encoder is active or not.
- Updated the services API so that it links up with an output and
the output gets data from that service rather than via settings.
This allows the service context to have control over how an output is
used, and makes it so that the URL/key/etc isn't necessarily some
static setting.
Also, if the service is attached to an output, it will stick around
until the output is destroyed.
- The settings interface has been updated so that it can allow the
usage of service plugins. What this means is that now you can create
a service plugin that can control aspects of the stream, and it
allows each service to create their own user interface if they create
a service plugin module.
- Testing out saving of current service information. Saves/loads from
JSON in to obs_data_t, seems to be working quite nicely, and the
service object information is saved/preserved on exit, and loaded
again on startup.
- I agonized over the settings user interface for days, and eventually
I just decided that the only way that users weren't going to be
fumbling over options was to split up the settings in to simple/basic
output, pre-configured, and then advanced for advanced use (such as
multiple outputs or services, which I'll implement later).
This was particularly painful to really design right, I wanted more
features and wanted to include everything in one interface but
ultimately just realized from experience that users are just not
technically knowledgable about it and will end up fumbling with the
settings rather than getting things done.
Basically, what this means is that casual users only have to enter in
about 3 things to configure their stream: Stream key, audio bitrate,
and video bitrate. I am really happy with this interface for those
types of users, but it definitely won't be sufficient for advanced
usage or for custom outputs, so that stuff will have to be separated.
- Improved the JSON usage for the 'common streaming services' context,
I realized that JSON arrays are there to ensure sorting, while
forgetting that general items are optimized for hashing. So
basically I'm just using arrays now to sort items in it.
Add API for streaming services. The services API simplifies the
creation of custom service features and user interface.
Custom streaming services later on will be able to do things such as:
- Be able to use service-specific APIs via modules, allowing a more
direct means of communicating with the service and requesting or
setting service-specific information
- Get URL/stream key via other means of authentication such as OAuth,
or be able to build custom URLs for services that require that sort
of thing.
- Query information (such as viewer count, chat, follower
notifications, and other information)
- Set channel information (such as current game, current channel title,
activating commercials)
Also, I reduce some repeated code that was used for all libobs objects.
This includes the name of the object, the private data, settings, as
well as the signal and procedure handlers.
I also switched to using linked lists for the global object lists,
rather than using an array of pointers (you could say it was..
pointless.) ..Anyway, the linked list info is also stored in the shared
context data structure.
- Fix an issue that could occur when using more than one video encoder.
Audio/video would not sync up correctly because they were expected to
be paired with a particular encoder. This simply adds a little
helper variable to encoder packets that specifies the system time in
microseconds. We then use that system time to sync
- Fix an issue with x264 with fractional FPS rates (29.97 and 59.94
particularly) where it would create ridiculously large stream
outputs. The problem was that you shouldn't set the timebase_*
variables in the x264 params manually, let x264 handle the default
values for it and leave them at 0.
- Make x264 use CFR output, because there's no reason to ever use VFR
in this case.
- Implement the RTMP output module. This time around, we just use a
simple FLV muxer, then just write to the stream with RTMP_Write.
Easy and effective.
- Fix the FLV muxer, the muxer now outputs proper FLV packets.
- Output API:
* When using encoders, automatically interleave encoded packets
before sending it to the output.
* Pair encoders and have them automatically wait for the other to
start to ensure sync.
* Change 'obs_output_signal_start_fail' to 'obs_output_signal_stop'
because it was a bit confusing, and doing this makes a lot more
sense for outputs that need to stop suddenly (disconnections/etc).
- Encoder API:
* Remove some unnecessary encoder functions from the actual API and
make them internal. Most of the encoder functions are handled
automatically by outputs anyway, so there's no real need to expose
them and end up inadvertently confusing plugin writers.
* Have audio encoders wait for the video encoder to get a frame, then
start at the exact data point that the first video frame starts to
ensure the most accrate sync of video/audio possible.
* Add a required 'frame_size' callback for audio encoders that
returns the expected number of frames desired to encode with. This
way, the libobs encoder API can handle the circular buffering
internally automatically for the encoder modules, so encoder
writers don't have to do it themselves.
- Fix a few bugs in the serializer interface. It was passing the wrong
variable for the data in a few cases.
- If a source has video, make obs_source_update defer the actual update
callback until the tick function is called to prevent threading
issues.
- Add interleaving of video/audio packets for outputs that are encoded
and expect both video and audio data, sorting the packets and sending
them to the output when both video and audio is received.
- Combine create and initialize callbacks for the encoder API callback
interface.
Improve the properties API so that it can actually respond somewhat to
user input. Maybe later this might be further improved or replaced with
something script-based.
When creating a property, you can now add a callback to that property
that notifies when the property has been changed in the user interface.
Return true if you want the properties to be refreshed, or false if not.
Though now that I think about it I doubt there would ever be a case
where you would have this callback and *not* refresh the properties.
Regardless, this allows functions to change the values of properties or
settings, or enable/disable/hide other property controls from view
dynamically.
- obs-outputs module: Add preliminary code to send out data, and add
an FLV muxer. This time we don't really need to build the packets
ourselves, we can just use the FLV muxer and send it directly to
RTMP_Write and it should automatically parse the entire stream for us
without us having to do much manual code at all. We'll see how it
goes.
- libobs: Add AVC NAL packet parsing code
- libobs/media-io: Add quick helper functions for audio/video to get
the width/height/fps/samplerate/etc rather than having to query the
info structures each time.
- libobs (obs-output.c): Change 'connect' signal to 'start' and 'stop'
signals. 'start' now specifies an error code rather than whether it
simply failed, that way the client can actually know *why* a failure
occurred. Added those error codes to obs-defs.h.
- libobs: Add a few functions to duplicate/free encoder packets
- Make it so that encoders can be assigned to outputs. If an encoder
is destroyed, it will automatically remove itself from that output.
I specifically didn't want to do reference counting because it leaves
too much potential for unchecked references and it just felt like it
would be more trouble than it's worth.
- Add a 'flags' value to the output definition structure. This lets
the output specify if it uses video/audio, and whether the output is
meant to be used with OBS encoders or not.
- Remove boilerplate code for outputs. This makes it easier to program
outputs. The boilerplate code involved before was mostly just
involving connecting to the audio/video data streams directly in each
output plugin.
Instead of doing that, simply add plugin callback functions for
receiving video/audio (either encoded or non-encoded, whichever it's
set to use), and then call obs_output_begin_data_capture and
obs_output_end_data_capture to automatically handle setting up
connections to raw or encoded video/audio streams for the plugin.
- Remove 'active' function from output callbacks, as it's no longer
really needed now that the libobs output context automatically knows
when the output is active or not.
- Make it so that an encoder cannot be destroyed until all data
connections to the encoder have been removed.
- Change the 'start' and 'stop' functions in the encoder interface to
just an 'initialize' callback, which initializes the encoder.
- Make it so that the encoder must be initialized first before the data
stream can be started. The reason why initialization was separated
from starting the encoder stream was because we need to be able to
check that the settings used with the encoder *can* be used first.
This problem was especially annoying if you had both video/audio
encoding. Before, you'd have to check the return value from
obs_encoder_start, and if that second encoder fails, then you
basically had to stop the first encoder again, making for
unnecessary boilerplate code whenever starting up two encoders.
- Add a properties window for sources so that you can now actually edit
the settings for sources. Also, display the source by itself in the
window (Note: not working on mac, and possibly not working on linux).
When changing the settings for a source, it will call
obs_source_update on that source when you have modified any values
automatically.
- Add a properties 'widget', eventually I want to turn this in to a
regular nice properties view like you'd see in the designer, but
right now it just uses a form layout in a QScrollArea with regular
controls to display the properties. It's clunky but works for the
time being.
- Make it so that swap chains and the main graphics subsystem will
automatically use at least one backbuffer if none was specified
- Fix bug where displays weren't added to the main display array
- Make it so that you can get the properties of a source via the actual
pointer of a source/encoder/output in addition to being able to look
up properties via identifier.
- When registering source types, check for required functions (wasn't
doing it before). getheight/getwidth should not be optional if it's
a video source as well.
- Add an RAII OBSObj wrapper to obs.hpp for non-reference-counted
libobs pointers
- Add an RAII OBSSignal wrapper to obs.hpp for libobs signals to
automatically disconnect them on destruction
- Move the "scale and center" calculation in window-basic-main.cpp to
its own function and in its own source file
- Add an 'update' callback to WASAPI audio sources
- Implement OBS encoder interface. It was previously incomplete, but
now is reaching some level of completion, though probably should
still be considered preliminary.
I had originally implemented it so that encoders only have a 'reset'
function to reset their parameters, but I felt that having both a
'start' and 'stop' function would be useful.
Encoders are now assigned to a specific video/audio media output each
rather than implicitely assigned to the main obs video/audio
contexts. This allows separate encoder contexts that aren't
necessarily assigned to the main video/audio context (which is useful
for things such as recording specific sources). Will probably have
to do this for regular obs outputs as well.
When creating an encoder, you must now explicitely state whether that
encoder is an audio or video encoder.
Audio and video can optionally be automatically converted depending
on what the encoder specifies.
When something 'attaches' to an encoder, the first attachment starts
the encoder, and the encoder automatically attaches to the media
output context associated with it. Subsequent attachments won't have
the same effect, they will just start receiving the same encoder data
when the next keyframe plays (along with SEI if any). When detaching
from the encoder, the last detachment will fully stop the encoder and
detach the encoder from the media output context associated with the
encoder.
SEI must actually be exported separately; because new encoder
attachments may not always be at the beginning of the stream, the
first keyframe they get must have that SEI data in it. If the
encoder has SEI data, it needs only add one small function to simply
query that SEI data, and then that data will be handled automatically
by libobs for all subsequent encoder attachments.
- Implement x264 encoder plugin, move x264 files to separate plugin to
separate necessary dependencies.
- Change video/audio frame output structures to not use const
qualifiers to prevent issues with non-const function usage elsewhere.
This was an issue when writing the x264 encoder, as the x264 encoder
expects non-const frame data.
Change stagesurf_map to return a non-const data type to prevent this
as well.
- Change full range parameter of video scaler to be an enum rather than
boolean
- Implement a means of obtaining default settings for an
input/output/encoder. obs_source_defaults for example will return
the default settings for a particular source type.
- Because C++ doesn't have designated initializers, use functions in
the WASAPI plugin to register the sources instead.
- Split input and output audio captures so that they're different
sources. This allows easier handling and enumeration of audio
devices without having to do some sort of string processing.
This way the user interface code can handle this a bit more easily,
and so that it doesn't confuse users either. This should be done for
all audio capture sources for all operating systems. You don't have
to duplicate any code, you just need to create input/output wrapper
functions to designate the audio as input or output before creation.
- Make it detect soundflower and wavtap devices as mac "output" devices
(even though they're actually input) for the mac output capture, and
make it so that users can select a default output capture and
automatically use soundflower or wavtap.
I'm not entirely happy about having to do this, but because mac is
designed this way, this is really the only way to handle it that
makes it easier for users and UI code to deal with.
Note that soundflower and wavtap are still also designated as input
devices, so will still show up in input device enumeration.
- Remove pragma messages because they were kind polluting the other
compiler messages and just getting in the way. In the future we can
just do a grep for TODO to find them.
- Redo list property again, this time using a safer internal array,
rather than requiring sketchy array inputs. Having functions handle
everything behind the scenes is much safer.
- Remove the reference counter debug log code, as it was included
unintentionally in a commit.
Make it so obs_data settings input in to *_update are applied to the
existing settings rather than fully replace the existing settings. That
way you can update with only certain specific settings, leaving other
settings untouched. Of course if you're already using the original
settings pointer in the first place then you've already done that, so
it'll just ignore it because you've already applied them.
There were a *lot* of warnings, managed to remove most of them.
Also, put warning flags before C_FLAGS and CXX_FLAGS, rather than after,
as -Wall -Wextra was overwriting flags that came before it.
The API used to be designed in such a way to where it would expect
exports for each individual source/output/encoder/etc. You would export
functions for each and it would automatically load those functions based
on a specific naming scheme from the module.
The idea behind this was that I wanted to limit the usage of structures
in the API so only functions could be used. It was an interesting idea
in theory, but this idea turned out to be flawed in a number of ways:
1.) Requiring exports to create sources/outputs/encoders/etc meant that
you could not create them by any other means, which meant that
things like faruton's .net plugin would become difficult.
2.) Export function declarations could not be checked, therefore if you
created a function with the wrong parameters and parameter types,
the compiler wouldn't know how to check for that.
3.) Required overly complex load functions in libobs just to handle it.
It makes much more sense to just have a load function that you call
manually. Complexity is the bane of all good programs.
4.) It required that you have functions of specific names, which looked
and felt somewhat unsightly.
So, to fix these issues, I replaced it with a more commonly used API
scheme, seen commonly in places like kernels and typical C libraries
with abstraction. You simply create a structure that contains the
callback definitions, and you pass it to a function to register that
definition (such as obs_register_source), which you call in the
obs_module_load of the module.
It will also automatically check the structure size and ensure that it
only loads the required values if the structure happened to add new
values in an API change.
The "main" source file for each module must include obs-module.h, and
must use OBS_DECLARE_MODULE() within that source file.
Also, started writing some doxygen documentation in to the main library
headers. Will add more detailed documentation as I go.
- Add property list callbacks to sources/outputs/encoders so that if
necessary user interface can be automatically generated or perhaps a
property list widget can be used for them.
- Change some of the property API names. obs_property_list_t felt a bit
awkward when actually using it, so I just renamed it to
obs_properties_t.
- Removed the getdata/setdata nad getparam/setparam functions from
sources/services, they will be superseded by the dynamic procedure
call API.
- Add 'set_default' functions to obs-data.*. These functions ensure
that a paramter exists and that the parameter is of a specific type.
If not, it will create or overwrite the value with the default setting
instead.
These functions are meant to be explicitly called before using any of
the 'get' functions. The reason why it was designed this way is to
encourage defaults to be set in a single place/function.
For example, ideal usage is to create one function for your data,
"set_my_defaults(obs_data_t data)", set all the default values within
that function, and then call that function on create/update, that way
all defaults are centralized to a single place.
- Ensure that data passed to sources/encoders/outputs/etc is always
valid, and not a null value.
- While I'm remembering, fix a few defaults of the main program config
file data.
Add a fairly easy to use settings interface that can be passed to
plugins, and replaced the old character string system that was being
used before. The new data interface allows for an easier method of
getting/altering settings for plugins, and is built to be serializable
to/from JSON.
Also, removed another wxFormBuilder file that was no longer in use.
Just a minor fix mostly because I noticed that I kept accidentally
forgetting to add checks to the code properly. This is one of those
cases where macros come in useful, as macros can automate the process
and help prevent these mistakes from happening by accident.
Changed the comments to properly reflect the new callbacks, as I had
forgotten to update the comments for them both.
Also, changed "setbitrate" and "request_keyframe" return values to be
boolean.
- First, I redid the output interface for libobs. I feel like it's
going in a pretty good direction in terms of design.
Right now, the design is so that outputs and encoders are separate.
One or more outputs can connect to a specific encoder to receive its
data, or the output can connect directly to raw data from libobs
output itself, if the output doesn't want to use a designated encoder.
Data is received via callbacks set when you connect to the encoder or
raw output. Multiple outputs can receive the data from a single
encoder context if need be (such as for streaming to multiple channels
at once, and/or recording with the same data).
When an encoder is first connected to, it will connect to raw output,
and start encoding. Additional connections will receive that same
data being encoded as well after that. When the last encoder has
disconnected, it will stop encoding. If for some reason the encoder
needs to stop, it will use the callback with NULL to signal that
encoding has stopped. Some of these things may be subject to change
in the future, though it feels pretty good with this design so far.
Will have to see how well it works out in practice versus theory.
- Second, Started adding preliminary RTMP/x264 output plugin code.
To speed things up, I might just make a direct raw->FFmpeg output to
create a quick output plugin that we can start using for testing all
the subsystems.
