Lower third maker: animated lower thirds for live streaming
A lower third is the small graphic that appears at the bottom of the screen to say who is talking. This page explains what makes a good one, why animated lower thirds built from live data beat rendered video files, and how to make your own without opening a video editor.
What is a lower third?
Television directors divide the frame into three horizontal bands. Faces live in the top two; the bottom one is where you put text without covering anyone’s mouth. That is literally all the name means — a graphic placed in the lower third of the picture.
The classic content is a name and a role: Alex Carter — Match analyst. From there the same real estate carries quotes, social handles, locations, match scores, sponsor logos and breaking headlines. In a broadcast gallery the person driving them is the CG operator; on a stream, that person is usually you.
Animated lower thirds vs. rendered video files
The most common way to get animated lower thirds is to buy a pack of rendered .mov files with an alpha channel and play them from a media source. They look good, and they stop being useful the moment the name changes: every new guest needs a trip back to After Effects, a re-render and a new file.
A lower third maker takes the other route. The animation is HTML and CSS; the text is data. You type the guest’s name in a panel and press TAKE — the same template, the new name, on air in the same second. Change your mind mid-show and the strap updates live without leaving the screen.
The practical difference shows up in the third hour of a live show. Video files mean you plan every name in advance. Live templates mean you can name whoever walks into the shot.
About “free lower thirds”
Search for free lower thirds and you will find thousands of template packs. They are genuinely useful for a first stream, but three things catch people out: the licence often forbids commercial or monetised use, the fonts inside the project are rarely licensed for redistribution, and every pack looks like every other pack because everyone downloaded the same one.
Templates you can drive from a panel avoid all three. The typography is yours, the colours are your channel’s, and nothing gets re-downloaded when you change a name.
Making one that is actually readable
- Stay inside the safe area. Keep the graphic about 5% in from the bottom and the sides — phone players, TV overscan and platform chrome all eat the edges.
- Give it enough contrast. A solid or strongly tinted plate behind the text survives a bright, busy background; pure text over video does not.
- Two lines maximum. Name on top, role underneath. A third line is almost always something the viewer will not finish reading.
- Hold for five to seven seconds. Long enough to read twice, short enough to stay out of the way. Auto-dismiss beats remembering to clear it.
- Animate the shape, not the letters. Slide or wipe the plate in and let the text fade after it. Per-letter animation reads as noise at streaming bitrates.
How to build one in LowerThird Software
- Open the control panel and pick a design family — each one already carries a name strap, a score bug, a ticker and event graphics in a matching style.
- Set your colours once. Every graphic in the family follows them, so the strap and the score bug never disagree.
- Type the name and the role. Add a second person if the shot has two.
- Add the transparent output page to OBS as a browser source at 1920×1080 (exact steps here).
- Press TAKE to bring it on air, CLEAR to take it off, or set a hold time and let it dismiss itself.
Want to try it? LowerThird Software is in early access — write to us and we will send you a build to run on your own PC.
Get early access