Stage and capture a Retold scenario screenshot

By Yeebaagooon · retold

A scenario-author technique for aligning a scene and taking a screenshot while controlling the editor’s animation state.

By Yeebaagooon
created 17/9/24

Sadly the animation viewer does not allow you to pause animations in place, this can make lining up multiple animations to get that picture perfect screenshot daunting.
However – the editor and scenario can be paused and this is how we can get round this.

The pause key in the editor will allow you to roughly line up your frames – the example given we have Arkantos kneeling down to pray. We can see the exact time this frame occurs listed in the animation editor.

The current time tab is what we are interested in. You will see it reads: 3.40/7.35.

The 7.35 is the total length of the animation, in seconds. The first number is our current progress. Therefore our desired frame occurs at 3.4 seconds or 3400 milliseconds.

We need a way to play the animation, and then get the editor to pause exactly when we want it. Luckily, we can do this with triggers.

I would always recommend rendering the sky, turning unit outlines off, and revealing the map. The effects for this are described below in the camera angle section. All of these effects can be put in the start animations trigger.

The trigger setup is as follows:

Animations_Trigger

Active, no loop
Condition:
Always
Effects:
Unit: Set Animation – your desired animation

Pause_Trigger

Active, no loop
Condition:
Timer milliseconds: 3400
Effects:
Scenario: Pause Game

With this example our animation will run to the point in time that we have specified, giving us much more control. We then enter a freeze frame and use this as our screenshot. However there are a couple of potential problems:

Getting the right camera angle

There are camera restrictions in the editor, so you may have perfectly lined up your units and background yet be disappointed. We can overcome this with a camera track.

The camera track editor looks like this. You want a track with two waypoints and a time of, say, 10 seconds. Click on each waypoint so it is highlighted in white and then press ‘update’. If you now play the track it should focus on the area you have on screen, and you won’t be able to move the camera away from it.

Don’t forget to play your camera track in the editor with a trigger. It can also help to render the fog/blackmap off to reveal the whole map with Render: Fog/Black Map and hide unit outlines with the Cinematic: Toggle Obscured Unit Outlines effect.

Hiding UI elements

You will now find the score, god powers bar and minimap are interfering with your artistic creation. We can remove these so only a small portion of the top game bar and menu buttons remain.

To remove the time, press F11 until the game time disappears. For everything else we need another few trigger effects:

UI: Hide Radial Menu Prompt Panel – Set to hidden
UI: Panel Visibility – Minimap hidden
UI: Panel Visibility – God powers hidden
UI: Panel Visibility – Idle banners hidden

Taking the screenshot

Now we have everything perfect, we can actually take the screenshot! There are a few ways we can do this:

F12 – This key takes a whole screen screenshot. It then saves the screenshot to the following folder:
C:\Users\xxxxx\Games\Age of Mythology Retold\longnumber\screenshots\
⊞ Win +Shift + S – These open the windows screenshot tool. You can select the whole window or click and drag a rectangle to select only a portion of the screen.

Save your screenshot in any program and you’re done!

Want to practice?

We have a dedicated artistic outlet that any forumer can join! Forum accounts are free – head on over to the Continuous Screenshot Competition to find the current theme for the competition. Anyone from complete novice to seasoned veteran is welcome to enter during submission phase. You can always view previous winners and shots in the thread, and we aim to help newcomers with constructive feedback.
You are even welcome to just start a new thread and showcase your art.

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Source: Yeebaagooon · HeavenGames