How to save a picture (take screenshot) from a camera in game?

Question

it is possible for a camera to take a picture and save it as jpg? I could not find on google or unity.

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by jashan · Jul 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM

Yes, it is possible. And there's even a couple of different approaches you could use:

There's a script for taking screenshots on the Unifycommunity Wiki: TakeScreenshot

The method used to do this is: Application.CaptureScreenshot, [EDIT: Which also has a parameter superSize for high resolution screenshots using an integer multiple of the current screen resolution]

There's also an approach to do [-high resolution-] screenshots [EDIT: with any arbitrary resolution]. I have a script which is based on the script posted in Submitting featured content. This will take a screenshot and store it to disk when you press the key "k" (you could change the key by changing the code). You have to attach the script to a camera for it to work:

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class HiResScreenShots : MonoBehaviour {
     public int resWidth = 2550; 
     public int resHeight = 3300;
 
     private bool takeHiResShot = false;
 
     public static string ScreenShotName(int width, int height) {
         return string.Format("{0}/screenshots/screen_{1}x{2}_{3}.png", 
                              Application.dataPath, 
                              width, height, 
                              System.DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss"));
     }
 
     public void TakeHiResShot() {
         takeHiResShot = true;
     }
 
     void LateUpdate() {
         takeHiResShot |= Input.GetKeyDown("k");
         if (takeHiResShot) {
             RenderTexture rt = new RenderTexture(resWidth, resHeight, 24);
             camera.targetTexture = rt;
             Texture2D screenShot = new Texture2D(resWidth, resHeight, TextureFormat.RGB24, false);
             camera.Render();
             RenderTexture.active = rt;
             screenShot.ReadPixels(new Rect(0, 0, resWidth, resHeight), 0, 0);
             camera.targetTexture = null;
             RenderTexture.active = null; // JC: added to avoid errors
             Destroy(rt);
             byte[] bytes = screenShot.EncodeToPNG();
             string filename = ScreenShotName(resWidth, resHeight);
             System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(filename, bytes);
             Debug.Log(string.Format("Took screenshot to: {0}", filename));
             takeHiResShot = false;
         }
     }
 }

It also shouldn't be too hard to post those screenshots to combine this with the example code in the WWWForm-documentation to post those screenshots to a server.

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Case23 · Jul 21, 2010 at 04:28 PM 1

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I dont now if this is a common issue, but i had to use the function in the LateUpdate call, some of my objects, which i create with Graphics.DrawMesh() were not on the screenshot.

jashan · Jul 21, 2010 at 10:42 PM 2

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Good point - I've changed the code to use LateUpdate() instead of Update() to be on the safe side.

jashan · Dec 11, 2012 at 01:58 PM 1

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@Cawas: Not sure if the parameter "superSize : int = 0" was added later to Application.CaptureScreenshot, or whether I missed it when I wrote the original answer. In most cases, using CaptureScreenshot is probably the best way to do it. An advantage of the other script may be that you can use any resolution, not just multiples of the current screen resolution. I'll edit the wording to reflect that change.

jastit · Oct 07, 2015 at 12:50 PM 1

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the supersize parameter in Application.CaptureScreenshot is not really useful because it only enlarges the pixels - it does not provide higher quality. So this provided script ist excellent for taking screenshots for resolutions that don't fit on my own monitor. Thanks you! One disadvantage: The UI Layer is not on the screenshot. Any idea how to also add the UI Layer this way?

Rares15 · Nov 20, 2016 at 08:51 AM 1

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How i can do to see and ui in the screenshoot?

Maxence_Marchand Rares15 · May 09, 2018 at 01:40 PM 0

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Put the UI on the same layer as the camera (search for something called "Layer" in the top of the Inspector of your UI, set it to 0, it should work. Sorry for the late answer

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Answer 2

Answer by Julian-Glenn · Jul 21, 2010 at 08:58 AM

You could try this:

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/WWWForm.html

Which from the link in this Answer: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/292/is-is-possible-to-output-screenshots-from-unity

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Answer 3

Create a render texture.
Apply it on the camera.
Reference the camera in the script
Set the render texture as active RenderTexture.active
Create a Texture2D to which you dump the current RenderTexture
Put back the original RenderTexture.active back. Things to worry about: PNG files store alpha channels as well as any other color information. Sometimes some object might not appear because they simply have that information on it. Most of the time the Texture2D that you need has to be simply of type RGB24, not ARGB32.

Here is a code snippet that should help you:

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 using System;
 
 public class ScreenCapture : MonoBehaviour
 {
     public RenderTexture overviewTexture;
     GameObject OVcamera;
     public string path = "";
 
     void Start()
     {
         OVcamera = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("OverviewCamera");
     }
 
     void LateUpdate()
     {           
         if (Input.GetKeyDown("f9"))
         {
             StartCoroutine(TakeScreenShot());
         }    
     }
 
     // return file name
     string fileName(int width, int height)
     {
        return string.Format("screen_{0}x{1}_{2}.png",
                              width, height,
                              System.DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss"));
     }
 
     public IEnumerator TakeScreenShot()
     {
         yield return new WaitForEndOfFrame();
 
         Camera camOV = OVcamera.camera;  
         RenderTexture currentRT = RenderTexture.active;    
         RenderTexture.active = camOV.targetTexture;
         camOV.Render();
         Texture2D imageOverview = new Texture2D(camOV.targetTexture.width, camOV.targetTexture.height, TextureFormat.RGB24, false);
         imageOverview.ReadPixels(new Rect(0, 0, camOV.targetTexture.width, camOV.targetTexture.height), 0, 0);
         imageOverview.Apply();
         RenderTexture.active = currentRT;    
         
         // Encode texture into PNG
         byte[] bytes = imageOverview.EncodeToPNG();
 
         // save in memory
         string filename = fileName(Convert.ToInt32(imageOverview.width), Convert.ToInt32(imageOverview.height));
         path = Application.persistentDataPath + "/Snapshots/" + filename;       
         System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(path, bytes);
     }
 }

Answer 4

May be this will help someone. Here it is, follow this steps;

Go to Edit -> Project setting -> Player -> Other Setting -> Bundle Identifier. In that you can type the name company name and the product name like this "com.your_company_name.your_product_name".
Go to Edit -> Project setting -> Player -> Other Setting -> Write Access -> External(SD Card). That will create a new folder in your android device.
Now the path in your device is Android -> Data -> com.your_company_name.your_product_name -> files.

Create a class for take a screenshot and drag that into your maincamera.

using UnityEngine; using System.Collections;

public class Capture : MonoBehaviour { // Store more screenshots... private int Screen_Shot_Count = 0; // Screenshot taking by touch the button. public GUITexture Capture_Model;

  void Update()
     {
         if (Input.touches.Length > 0)
         // Finger hit the button position.
         if(Capture_Model.HitTest (Input.GetTouch(0).position))
         {
             if (Input.GetTouch(0).phase == TouchPhase.Began)
             {
                 // Screenshot name.
                 string Screen_Shot_File_Name;
                 do
                 {
                     // Increament the screenshot count.
                     Screen_Shot_Count++;
                     // Save the screenshot name as Screenshot_1.png, Screenshot_2.png, ...
                     Screen_Shot_File_Name = "Screenshot_" + Screen_Shot_Count + ".png";    
                 } 
                 while (System.IO.File.Exists(Screen_Shot_File_Name));
                 // Taking Screenshot.
                 Application.CaptureScreenshot(Screen_Shot_File_Name);
             }
         }
     }
 }

This script will help you to take a screenshot by using button.

Answer 5

Answer by OmerEizenberg · May 07, 2015 at 09:42 AM

if you want to save to a android device try this :

public static void SaveTextureToFile( Texture2D texture, string fileName)

         {

                     byte[] bytes=texture.EncodeToPNG();

                     if (Application.platform != RuntimePlatform.Android) 

                          File.WriteAllBytes (fileName + ".png", bytes);

                     else {

                          Debug.Log ("Android save file. path = " + Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + fileName + ".png");

                          File.WriteAllBytes (Application.persistentDataPath + "/" + fileName + ".png", bytes);

                     }

         }

a little present which i have worked on for about a day :P

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How to save a picture (take screenshot) from a camera in game?

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