Help with high rez screenshots

Development Asset Creation
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1

I want to use UE4 to output images to another program. This other program is for virtual tabletop roleplaying.

To capture the lush 3d scene from top down (especially shadows) AND to have a large enough map (2d) to export I have to take multiple overlapping pictures using the highrez sceenshot.

I’ve now tried several times. But when I take pics I’ve always rotated the camera a bit between shots. Or zoomed in and out by accident.

Anyone know of a way to do this? I’m using the normal viewport editor as this seems to offer the best capture for my need.

2

Reaper2k thank you for taking the time. I’ll have a look. To be even more cheeky, is there any tutorial you would recommend? I will, of course, Google it, as well.

3

Well, i can write it down for you quickly, one sec.

4

You can use a RenderTarget for this. There are plenty of tutorials for RenderTargets, it is super easy and would be perfect for what you want to do.

  1. Create a new “Canvas Render Target” asset under the “Materials and Textures” category
  2. Open it up and set your desired resolution
  3. Be careful here, since the engine needs to basically render the scene in the size of the texture, you can imagine it like you would try to run your game at the resolution you set. This can eat up performance VERY quickly.
  4. Save the texture
  5. Search the “Place Actors” window for “Scene Capture 2D” and drag it into your scene
  6. This creates something like a camera
  7. Click on the new actor in your scene and go to the details panel
  8. Scroll to “Texture Target” and set it to the asset you created in step 1
  9. A bit above this setting, there are settings for FOV and Projection Type
  10. If you want a classic “Top down” style for a map for example, choose “Orthographic” as the projection type
  11. Place the actor however you like, you can see what the Scene Capture actor sees, by looking at the texture asset from step 1. It should refresh, but it can always take a second or two to refresh.
  12. Once your happy with the result, right click the texture and select “Create Static Texture”
  13. You now have a nice texture, showing what the Scene Capture actor captured

This is basically it.

If the shadows dont appear, it could be because of a too low shadow draw distance, try raising it if you run into this issue.

5

I updated the post, read it and tell me if you have more questions.

6

Reaper2k, I’ve just had a look and (kind of) understand the principle. However it still leaves me with the problem of having to manually manipulate the camera. Although, with experimentation I may be better off with a static camera that I then move via the transform box in the details panel. However, this is new to me, and I’d accept any advice or help.

7

Reaper, thanks awfully for taking the time. I’ve followed the steps, and have rendered out an .HDR texture which I open in GIMP. However, no matter how high in the sky I put my SceneCapture 2d, it is always massively zoomed in. So I don’t get anything usable.

8

What I’d like is the overall render, what I get is flowers.

9

It works fine in Persective, but not orthographic.

10

try playing with the settings dude.

11

Thank you for all the help and time Reaper. I made the mistake of thinking that when I set to Orthographic it would be automatically top down. It wasn’t. I got the method to work, thanks entirely to you.
Sadly for me it wont process out large enough, although breaking the world into ‘grid boxes’ for snapshots is easier.