Snapshot

Snapshot turns Minecraft into a hands-on photography sandbox. Compose through a compact DSLR-style viewfinder, control exposure and focus, save local PNGs, and carry the result as a Photograph or locked Photo Map.

Requirements

• Fabric Loader 0.19.2 or newer
• Fabric API 0.152.2+26.2 or newer for Minecraft 26.2
• Java 25 or newer

Install Snapshot on the server for survival item requirements, paper consumption, Photograph and Photo Map delivery, commands, and permission-controlled world changes. Image2Map is optional and not included in the download. With cheats or operator permission, V opens the viewfinder without an item. Otherwise, hold and right-click the Camera. Opening an inventory, chest, pause menu, or other non-camera screen closes the viewfinder and cancels pending captures so interface clicks can never release the shutter.

Camera controls

• M, A/Av, S/Tv, P, and Auto exposure modes
• ISO 50-12800, 1/8000s-30s and Bulb shutter, f/1.2-f/22, EV compensation, and 2500-10000K WB
• Smooth 18-200mm focal length, manual focus, half-press AF/AE lock, AE-L, AF-L, and nine AF points
• Matrix, centre-weighted, and spot metering with Auto ISO limits
• Histogram, zebras, waveform, false colour, clipping warnings, and focus peaking
• Exposure bracketing and HDR, focus stacking, exposure-matched panorama, Tiled 2X, burst, flash, and aspect-ratio masks
• Six lens simulations, five filter simulations, four colour profiles, and four quality presets
• Five persistent user preset slots: Landscape, Portrait, Wildlife, Astro, and Macro

Live optics and shaders

When Snapshot can use Minecraft’s post-process chain, it reads the main GPU depth texture for live foreground and background depth of field. Aperture, focus distance, aperture-blade shape, cat-eye bokeh, focus breathing, colour grading, and weather-on-lens effects update in the viewfinder. Snapshot preserves an existing Minecraft post effect and falls back to block-depth processing for the saved capture. Transparent surfaces, particles, and shader-specific effects are not guaranteed to write usable depth. Snapshot detects Sodium and Iris, preserves the rendered shader scene in captures, and records renderer and shader-pack state in metadata. Shader packs can still alter depth and post-processing behaviour. Live depth-of-field preserves the sharp scene at full resolution, renders depth-aware bokeh into a half-resolution transient target, then composites and grades at full resolution. Screenshot Ultra or optics.half_resolution_dof=false keeps the bokeh pass full resolution. Snapshot also reduces its sample count when measured frame time falls below the configured target and restores detail when performance recovers. The target FPS, depth response stability, focus-peaking colour and strength, false-colour palette, HUD opacity, and HUD scale are editable in config/snapshot.properties or Mod Menu. Native gamepad viewfinder controls are enabled by default. Start toggles the finder, the triggers handle half-press and shutter, the shoulder buttons cycle controls, the D-pad changes values, the right stick zooms, and the face buttons provide AF, AF-point, command-dial, and close actions. OpenGL is release tested with Vanilla, Sodium, and Iris. Minecraft 26.2's built-in experimental Vulkan backend is also release tested for viewfinder controls and capture on macOS through MoltenVK. The separate third-party VulkanMod renderer is not a supported configuration.

Long exposure & Astro

• Timed accumulation at 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 15s, and 30s, plus two-press Bulb
• Denoise, Deep Sky, and Star Trails temporal stacking
• Modelled dark-signal correction, interval programs, and sidereal/lunar tracking assistance
• 24mm night-sky and 200mm Moon setups, red night vision, and a composition guide
• A Camera Tripod item that stabilises long exposures while it is carried

These are artistic renderer-based simulations, not scientific sensor RAW capture or an astronomical catalogue.

Files & Privacy

Default captures save to screenshots/snapshot/ and the root screenshots/ folder. Snapshot writes to a temporary file, validates the decoded PNG, checks available disk space, and atomically finalises the capture. Metadata and Image2Map sidecars are also atomically replaced. Snapshot can additionally write a pre-CPU-processing source PNG; it may already include renderer, shader-pack, or live-optics output. On a connected Snapshot server, the client sends camera metadata and a small RGBA thumbnail to create the Photograph and locked Photo Map. It does not send the full-resolution PNG or its local path. Snapshot has no analytics or telemetry and does not upload photos to an external service. The local lighttable provides albums, favourites, ratings, comparison, metadata, and a photography journal. Deleted captures move to a recoverable Trash view with Restore, Delete Forever, and confirmed Empty Trash actions. Photograph items open an enlarged map-resolution viewer and display in ordinary item frames.

Verification

./gradlew test runs camera, processing, storage, metadata, and resource-integrity tests. The calibration smoke case constructs a temporary optical chart in the game, captures aperture, focus, ISO, shutter, and left/right AF-point variants, records numerical image measurements, then removes the fixture. The highres case renders four views, verifies the stitched PNG is substantially larger than the framebuffer, and checks its four-frame metadata. Release and Modrinth steps are in PUBLISHING.md.

Image2Map

With Image2Map installed in singleplayer, Snapshot can automatically create the selected multi-map print. Tested integration version: Image2Map 0.14.0+26.2.

Important limits

• Lenses and filters are selectable simulations, not separate equipment items.
• The tripod stabilises from inventory; it is not a placeable tripod entity.
• The in-game Photograph uses map resolution. Full-resolution review is available from the local lighttable PNGs.
• Tiled 2X captures four overlapping views, rectilinearly reprojects and exposure-matches them, then saves a canvas around 1.8 times the framebuffer width and height. It is best for stationary scenes.
• Same-frame off-screen supersampling, a translucent/particle depth pre-pass, depth-history reprojection, and 16-bit output are not implemented yet.
• Snapshot currently has no villagers, exhibitions, multiplayer competitions, video capture, true camera RAW, scientific constellation identification, or placeable multi-size photo blocks.

Snapshot’s original code and assets are Copyright (c) 2026 luci and released as All Rights Reserved/No License. Unmodified official releases may be included in public or private modpacks without prior permission when Snapshot is credited and the official Modrinth page is linked. Modified releases, standalone rehosting, and reuse of Snapshot code or assets still require luci's prior written permission. Its generated viewfinder glyph atlas is derived from Noto Sans JP and remains under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Reporting issues

Please report crashes, visual problems, and compatibility issues at: https://github.com/topluci/Snapshot/issues Include the Minecraft version, Potassium version, installed rendering mods, steps to reproduce, and the relevant log or crash report.