What is Omphalos?

Omphalos is a "Broadcast Graphics Framework and Application"; that description is taken directly from NodeCG, which is the spiritual successor to this project. Spiritual in the sense that this is an entirely distinct code base that is meant to produce a similar application, but with varying features and in a different way.

The goal of Omphalos is to be your one stop stream control center for streaming broadcast graphics. While you CAN control your stream with it (with an appropriate extension bundle), and although it CAN replace a StreamDeck, the intent is to give you full creative control over the CONTENT that you create.

Omphalos provides a fully customizable way (via web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS) to design any graphic or dynamic content that you like, and gives you full control over what is displayed, and how.

This is perhaps best illustrated with a simple diagram:

In Omphalos you install bundles — little packages of code and web pages — and it orchestrates communications between the extension code, the control panels the bundle provides, and the graphics that are displayed directly in OBS.

The result is the ability for you to design any dynamic graphic concept you can imagine, create a simple control panel to control what the graphic displays or does, and tie it all together with some code that not only controls everything but can also harness the full power of JavaScript to do whatever you want.

Omphalos works with more than just OBS!

Or rather, Omphalos is purely a system that makes it easier to create a dynamic, fully controllable web page. Any streaming software that has the ability to source a layer via a web page will work with Omphalos.

Throughout the documentation, OBS is used as a shorthand for "your streaming software of choice", which is a long and clunky sentence.