Improved screenshot plugin + screenshot effects in screenshot / after state change fix

[Lasercar]

Does this PR close any issues? If so, link them below.

Closes #3765, fixes #2811, fixes #2284

Briefly describe the issue(s) fixed.

The screenshot preview isn't hidden before a bitmap of the screen is taken, now it has it's alpha set to zero right before the bitmap is taken.
The screenshot plugin in general.

Ok, that should be the final version. All the issues are fixed now.

Include any relevant screenshots or videos.

First version

ayo.it.s.kinda.fixed.mp4

This doesn't fix screenshot spamming completely, so I'm going to work on this a bit more to see if I can get it to not still break, maybe by making it hold off on showing the preview and cursor again if the screenshot button is constantly pressed.

Second version

2025-02-02.16-59-12.mp4

Third version

2025-02-02.20-53-42.1.mp4

Fourth version - Epilepsy Warning

Epilepsy Warning (just in case you missed the first one)

Ayo.finally.fixed.mp4

22 Screenshots (most are taken on the same second), the encoding and saving of each shot is spaced out one second:

Final version - Epilepsy Warning

Epilepsy Warning (just in case you missed the first one)

2025-02-16.22-29-14.mp4

[Hundrec]

You did the meme!

Thanks for working on this :)

[Lasercar]

So I've got it to save to an array while the screenshots are spammed, and then when the spam stops, to save out all the images and make sure that they're unique, but I haven't gotten the cursor and preview to stop appearing in the screenshots, and for the cursor to go back to being hidden/shown before the screenshot spam.

And I've just noticed an issue where the timer for ending the screenshot spam mode breaks after changing states.

So I'm going to give up for now, I've spent why too much time trying to fix those two first issues.
older commit stuff

[charlesisfeline]

eric already did a fix for this in a seperate branch months ago, idk why he didnt merge it to the latest version tho

[Lasercar]

eric already did a fix for this in a seperate branch months ago, idk why he didnt merge it to the latest version tho

Wait, really? Did I spend all that time for nothing?

[Hundrec]

Since we have over 100 open PRs (and many more merged), it's very likely that you'll come up with the same idea as someone else.

I recommend doing a thorough search for similar PRs before creating a new one.

[Lasercar]

Well anyway, here's the new result:

Video + screenshots

2025-02-02.16-59-12.mp4

[Hundrec]

That's actually hilarious
Does the preview show up if you stop spamming the screenshot button?

[Hundrec]

Just checked, this is a unique PR.
Once you address any questions reviewers have, this should be good to go!

[Lasercar]

That's actually hilarious Does the preview show up if you stop spamming the screenshot button?

Sadly no, but I could do that.

Just checked, this is a unique PR. Once you address any questions reviewers have, this should be good to go!

Yay!

[Lasercar]

Ok, I've got it to show the preview on the last image in the buffer.

Ayo.It.s.Fixed.mp4

The only thing it needs now is either some sort of delay for when saving each screenshot in the buffer (timers won't work because they reset between states) and/or multi-threading of the screenshot saving, as you can see, it causes the screen to freeze while it processes the images.

[Hundrec]

I appreciate you doing the meme every time

Please let us know when you get this working with a preview at the end!

[Lasercar]

Please let us know when you get this working with a preview at the end!

Uh, I just did that?

[Hundrec]

Well, your video freezes right now, so we wouldn't want to add that to the game just yet

[Lasercar]

Oh, right.

I'd need help on fixing that.

I guess not.

[Lasercar]

Alright, I've got it saving asynchronously. I can uncomment the timer so that it saves each screenshot with a delay, though if I do that, whenever the state changes any screenshots not already saved will be lost. If anyone knows of a way to delay the screenshots without that issue I'll update it.

Video + screenshots

2025-02-02.20-53-42.1.mp4

[Lasercar]

@EliteMasterEric Alright, I've done what you've requested and finally fixed the screenshot effects sticking around after a state change too!

That means this PR now closes 3 issues!

Hmm, should I sign my username at the top because it's basically a rework of the entire plugin?

[Lasercar]

I could make it save the unsaved images on window close/crash too, like the chart editor does with charts (though only if there's less than 100 images in the buffer, of course).

I can't decide if I should do it though?

[EliteMasterEric]

I could make it save the unsaved images on window close/crash too, like the chart editor does with charts (though only if there's less than 100 images in the buffer, of course).

I can't decide if I should do it though?

I think that there should be a very short hard limit on the number of images in the buffer (since you'd only encounter it if you spam the key really hard), like around 10 images maybe.

[Lasercar]

I think that there should be a very short hard limit on the number of images in the buffer (since you'd only encounter it if you spam the key really hard), like around 10 images maybe.

Hmm, idk, that's quite a low number. I figured 100 images would be acceptable because it takes a good 20+ seconds of spamming the button really hard to reach it (so much so that it hurts your finger a bit) - for example, in the fourth video #4082 (comment) I took about ~20 images in 4 seconds, and saving them didn't effect gameplay that much since they're spaced out every second.

The cap is only really there to catch the people that want to crash the game (or their computer) by making it save thousands of images for no reason or have a macro for the screenshot button to save one every frame or some crap.

Hmm, maybe I could make the cap 50 images, rather than 100? I still think there might be a few people who would unintentionally hit that limit though.

Perhaps I should investigate how other games handle screenshot saving.

I asked how UT2004's screenshots work, and it's nothing like this screenshot plugin - if the screenshot button is pressed, then at the end of the the main draw loop it'll read out the render device's pixels into a buffer and then save them out into a bitmap. It has no buffer and it saves really fast!

So I don't think there's a game that has to handle screenshots similar to this.

[AbnormalPoof]

It seems you removed a feature where you could click on a screenshot preview and it would take you to the screenshot in file explorer. Please add it back.

[Lasercar]

It seems you removed a feature where you could click on a screenshot preview and it would take you to the screenshot in file explorer. Please add it back.

Dang it, why did you have to spot something? It had just gotten the reviewing internally status back...

If you're wondering, it was removed when I commented out that buggy fancy screenshot preview, with the thinking that since steam doesn't do anything like that (it just has a hotkey for opening the screenshot folder), I decided that it wasn't really necessary.

I was planning on making it save unsaved images on close/crash so I might as well do this too while I'm at it. Done!