Photobooth
Photobooth is a plugin that allows you to capture images of the workspace or UI elements entirely in Roblox studio.
Notably, it features the ability to remove skyboxes/backgrounds from images and bindings to allow developers to write their own capture workflows.
Results are output as editable images stored as a mesh part’s texture.
Limitations
Photobooth has a couple of limitations specific to the skybox removal preset. For most users these will likely not be of significant impact, but I’m listing them here so people can see them before purchase.
General:
- No capture can be larger than 1024 x 1024 since that’s the limit of editable images.
- Photobooth can only be used during edit mode in studio. It cannot be used to capture anything during a studio play session.
- The built-in upload feature is currently disabled. You can still upload, but you have to write code to do it yourself. Read more about this further down the post.
Skybox removal:
- No atmosphere / fog support.
- Anything that cannot be frozen in place on screen is not supported. For example:
- Terrain grass.
- Force-field material.
- Certain configurations of color correction such as
Brightness > 0and / orContrast < 0. - Retro color grading is highly recommended for best results, but not mandatory.
Bindings:
- See the OS scaling section below
Warning: This plugin will cause the screen to flash when removing skyboxes. Those with photosensitive epilepsy are advised caution when using this plugin.
I have listed all these limitations because I know a non-free plugin is an investment. I want to be completely transparent about what this plugin can and cannot do before you buy it.
Bindings
This plugin can be used for automation purposes. An example use case might be capturing icons for all the inventory items in your game thereby allowing you to avoid using viewport frames which are more expensive than traditional images.
To use this feature open the viewer and in the settings menu toggle “Bindings” to true.
Roblox may prompt you for script injection permissions.
This will create a ModuleScript underneath ServerStorage which provides a typed interface that can be used to create automated capture workflows. Included are a couple of common template workflows to get you started.
For example:
local Photobooth = require(game.ServerStorage.PhotoboothBindings)
local capture = Photobooth.captureViewport(Rect.new(0, 0, 300, 300), "NoSkybox")
capture.Name = "Example"
capture.Parent = game.ServerStorage
OS scaling
With the advent of high resolution monitors many computers use scaling options built into their operating system to ensure that applications rendered on screen are not too small. Roblox however, always captures in full resolution leading to a number of UX problems.
Photobooth will attempt to resolve this issue automatically, but for the highest quality image when using bindings it is strongly recommended to use your monitor’s true resolution.
i.e. use scale 100% and the display resolution that matches your monitor.
Or on Mac:
Saving Captures as PNGs
If you want to save any of the plugin captures to your computer, you can do so by right clicking the exported mesh part and selecting “Export Selection”.
This will prompt you to export the mesh in .obj format which will include the texture of the mesh in .png format. Both the .obj and .mtl files can be discarded.
Uploading
This feature is currently disabled!
Uploading will be enabled in the future once Roblox provides the proper security tooling to allow creator store plugins to upload assets on your behalf. More detail from Roblox here.
For now, developers will have to write their own code to upload editable images.
local ATTRIBUTE_NAME = "UploadResult"
local AssetService = game:GetService("AssetService")
local SelectionService = game:GetService("SelectionService")
for _, selected in SelectionService:Get() do
if selected:IsA("MeshPart") and not selected:GetAttribute(ATTRIBUTE_NAME) then
local content = selected.TextureContent
local object = content and content.Object
if object and object:IsA("EditableImage") then
local result, value = AssetService:CreateAssetAsync(object, Enum.AssetType.Image, {
Name = selected.Name,
Description = "",
IsPackage = false,
})
if result == Enum.CreateAssetResult.Success then
selected:SetAttribute(ATTRIBUTE_NAME, `rbxassetid://{value}`)
end
end
end
end
When this feature is enabled this is what the upload process will look like:
Reviews
This is a brand new plugin and I think it offers a tool that has otherwise traditionally been locked behind 3rd party applications.
I have spent a lot of time ironing out bugs and issues, but if you find any I’d very much appreciate reaching out to me before jumping to leaving a negative review. If you’ve done that and I haven’t reasonably responded or given a good solution then go nuts!
