How can I export the screen frames, either as images or gif?

[darrenparkinson]

I've just tried ebitengine for an AoC visualisation. I was wondering how I might easily save the resulting visualisation as a gif?

I tried the EBITENGINE_INTERNAL_IMAGES_KEY and also the EBITENGINE_SCREESHOT_KEY, but not sure they are exactly what I'm after (although I can't quite figure out what the EBITENGINE_INTERNAL_IMAGES_KEY is for 😬)

Overall there would be about 240 frames from start to finish. I could advance each frame by pressing a key followed by the screenshot key, but it feels like there is probably a better solution.

Any thoughts or pointers in the right direction greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

[hajimehoshi]

There is no easy way to output a GIF animation. I would do

• Convert the rendered screen image (the argument of your Draw function) to a palleted image by FloydSteinberg
• Keep the converted image to a gif.GIF object (you need 240 palletted images for 240 frames, but you might be able to reduce the number by adjusting the time interval)
• Dump the GIF object as a gif image

If the quality is not good, APNG is another options.

[darrenparkinson]

Thanks for the reply. I wondered if I might do something like that, but wasn't quite sure how to do it. Also, screen is an *ebiten.Image not an image.Image which I felt might be an issue? Apologies for my lack of knowledge on this subject, it seems I have a lot of research to do around image formats etc. Thanks again.

[hajimehoshi]

*ebiten.Image is an image.Image. So you can pass an *ebiten.Image to APIs as image.Image.

[darrenparkinson]

Ah ok perfect! Thanks.

[SolarLune]

Easiest way to do it if you don't need perfect quality is just to record the screen with OBS or something similar, and then convert it to a GIF using something like GifCurry (on Linux), or use a screen recorder.

EDIT: Oh, or yeah, just render images for each frame and create a GIF yourself. This process would actually be fairly easy to package up if you wanted to make it accessible to others, as well.

[darrenparkinson]

Hi, thanks, yes, this is the route I've taken so far. I was just wondering if I could build it in to make it a bit easier... I'll play around with it some more. Thanks again.