Frames and screenshots

Gaia Sky includes some utilities to save frames and screenshots to disk.

Frame ouptut

Hint

Enable and disable the frame ouptut system with F6.

Gaia Sky has an in-built method to save every frame to an image file. The purpose of this is to produce high quality videos from the still frames. Of course, you can also produce videos by capturing the window with OBS or any other screen recorder.

To configure the frame output system (mode, image format, quality, etc.), check out the frame output configuration section.

Once enabled with F6, Gaia Sky starts saving every frame to an image file in the $GS_DATA/frames (see folders) directory. The system saves every frame until F6 is hit again.

Frame ouptut modes

There are two frame output modes:

  • Simple mode – save the current screen buffer directly to a file. This means that everything that’s on the Gaia Sky window will be in the saved image, including the user interface elements.

  • Advanced mode - render the current scene to an off-screen buffer with an arbitrary resolution. The resolution can be configured in the preferences window, Frame output tab. The advanced mode does NOT render user interface elements or any additional objects that are not part of the scene.

Screenshots

Gaia Sky has an in-built screenshot capturing feature. To take a screenshot press F5 any time during the execution of the program. By default, screenshots are saved in the $GS_DATA/screenshots (see folders) folder. The screenshots are in the format defined in the screenshot settings.

Hint

Take a screenshot with F5.

Screenshot modes

The same two modes available to the frame output system are also available to screenshots.

  • Simple mode – save the current screen buffer directly to a file. This means that everything that’s on the Gaia Sky window will be in the saved image, including the user interface elements.

  • Advanced mode - render the current scene to an off-screen buffer with an arbitrary resolution. The resolution can be configured in the preferences window, Screenshots tab. The advanced mode does NOT render user interface elements or any additional objects that are not part of the scene.