In December 2023, Twitch put out an update that gives Associates and Partners two free(ish) additional animated emote slots... with certain restrictions, hence the "ish". They're tied to using Twitch's own Alerts system, and have an expiration date of 60 days after the last time one of their alerts was triggered (presumably while a stream is live, but it's unclear what the conditions are).
Thing is, Twitch didn't say - and has no way to track - if the alert actually shows up on your stream. Let's unlock those emote slots!
This only takes a few minutes, and we're going to do some extra steps here to make sure Twitch's alerts are are really locked down in OBS in a way that doesn't interfere with your current layout or audio.
First up, head to your dashboard and click the Alerts tab on the left side.
Then, click on "Create Alert Box" if one isn't already made for you on the right side. You don't have to name it. You can if you want, though. I'm not your dad, do what you want.
Now, the nice thing is that Twitch wants you to use every possible alert all the time, so every type of stream alert, including follows, subscriptions, cheers, etc. will have a default set. This is good. We want this. Remember that 60-day timer? Yeah. We want that to be reset as often as possible.
Go ahead and copy the Browser Source URL in the lower right, then pop on over to OBS.
At this point, you have two options: You can either create a separate Scene in OBS where these alerts will live, or you can add them to an existing one. I highly recommend having a separate scene for these and already have a scene set up for testing, so for this guide, we'll be doing that.
Create a new Browser Source. I recommend giving it a descriptive name so you remember what it is (I called mine "Twitch Alerts" for testing), but, again, I'm not your dad. Drop the URL you copied from Twitch into the URL box, and make sure Control audio via OBS is checked. We're going to be revisiting that next. You can send a test alert from Twitch's Alerts panel to make sure they're working, but once you've confirmed that, you can close it.
You should now have an audio source in your Audio Mixer for the browser source you just set up. Right click it and select Advanced Audio Properties, then uncheck every box under Tracks. Once you've closed Advanced Audio Properties, you should see a yellow icon with a ! next to it for the Browser Source, similar to this:
Is this overkill? Yeah, kinda. You can just mute the audio source. By doing this, though, we're making absolutely sure that the audio doesn't come through on any track at any point regardless of global or individual audio settings.
Now, toggle the Browser Source off. We're done! Regardless of if you put them in one of your regular scenes or in scene prison, you won't see them and you won't hear them, but you'll still get the benefits of them. Enjoy your emote slots!
[Update from March 17th, 2024: The previous version of this guide recommended turning the Browser Source off. After doing this myself, the two extra emote slots disappeared after 60 days were up.
My guess is that when the alerts load, they send some sort of data back to Twitch to confirm that they popped while a stream was happening - and the only way for that to happen is if the alert is visible, otherwise it may not load. The easiest way to get around this is to put them in their own separate scene as noted above, and leave them visible.
I'm sorry for anyone who followed the original guide and got caught out by this!]
Looking for more? Check out my Streaming Tech Tips from Superfuture Technolabs post!