Regarding Screenshot F12 Button

[Ricco]

It's really, really cool!!! However, how do I take consistant pictures without that HUD in the shot. Someone knows what I'm talking about, but if i must I will post an example. I should just be able to push F12 for the shot and done. Something else is interferrrrring with the device.

[Sirius]

Yeah, I've been there. This is normal, the Steam client shoots exactly what is on screen, HUD and all.

You need to reconfigure your keybinds.
There's a binding for switching off the HUD.

In STO, I mean.

[Sirius]

If you are after "beauty shots", you need some practice with angles and backgrounds.

Here are a few more of mine for your viewing pleasure.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657025202

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=659718532

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=404967285

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=401531924

Not that those are particularly good (dat resolution alone, sorry again), but should give you some ideas of what I mean.

The second one is a good example for a bit of a fail. It doesn't look too good (the ship is too small, for one) and the background is sort of lame.

Especially in-flight shots are tricky. In-combat shots even more so since those damned buff effect icons get in the way.

Another cool thing to note is that you can edit screenshots, then re-upload them as Artwork.

I have one example I'm comfortable with sharing:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277760080

This is NOT STO, it's a game called 'Sins of a Solar Empire" with the ST mod "Sacrifice of Angels". I photoshopped (well, gimped) this one a bit to give it a sort of muriel texture, and also did a few other things like deleting (and hiding up) a small very pixelated ship.
I rushed it a bit, so if you look hard at the nebula to the right of the Galaxy's saucer, you see the spot I tried to paint over manually to hide the ship.

This was made for a friend of mine who loves Star Trek and he wanted sort of a "Captain's Cabin Painting" picture as a wallpaper.

[Ricco]

Insane!!! You are a true artist and I hope you are making some kind of real miney from your skills, and if not, do you need an agent?

[Ricco]

That F12 button seems to be permanently bound to the rearrange hud mode. It's not in the option/bindings, and I am clueless as to how to turn it off.

[Ricco]

Thanks, I've got something figured out now. I'm able to turn off the whole UI, and have only picture, but then, can't interact with hails and such. Have to rearrange the Torp button somewhere accessible.

[Sirius]

Yeah, the "trick" is to plan your shot, so to speak.
No one said try to play with the HUD turned off ;)

I usually think about what I want to do, and then switch it off shortly before I take the shot.

And yes, STO is tricky due to the hard coded function keys. I forgot how I did it really, but I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of turning off the HUD, then hit escape after to get rid of the rearrange mode.

Some games are like that, they are not all that well thought out for screenhooting.

I had a few games (an arcade racing game, and Shadow of Mordor, for example) where there was a really cool photoshoot mode built in with filters and camera settings and everything.

Not many games do that, sadly.

Edit: Back to STO and Steam, you can set the screenshot for Steam, if that helps.
Just go to the very top left of your main Steam window, click Steam and choose settings.

You can change Steam's screenshoot key under 'In-Game"

And no, I don't earn money with graphics, although I do have a background in image manipulation and even 3D rendering and modelling, plus a bit of artworking. What I have shown here is merely amateur stuff though, without much fiddling and time investments.

A good, self-made Photoshop / Gimp picture can take hours, if not days of hard work.

[Ricco]

A labor of love. Great stuff, and I appreciate the share. I'm a happier person knowing you exist.

[Ricco]

...also, this may seem like a silly question, but is everyone else seeing that screenshot of the Copernicus shuttle? I'm thinking it's just on my screen and no one elses. It's not the best screenshot I have taken, but it's sentimental. I am excited to know that this image will be much better next time I go through (going to the gtx 1080 in about 4 weeks!)

I had the Galileo shuttlecraft model when I was a kid and this one in the Ranger's bay is a dead ringer!

[Sirius]

Originally posted by Captain Ricco:

A labor of love. Great stuff, and I appreciate the share. I'm a happier person knowing you exist.

Well, again, those are really just quick hackjobs. No real effort put into them.

I could do a lot better, but I rarely have the time. Well, time I have, but not the need to commit to several hours a day making something I would call awesome.

And seriously, Ricco, did you make over 150 screenshots of STO since we started this discussion? o_O
Holy crap dude. I mean, training and all that, but you don't need to upload every single one of them, they are on your harddrive anyway.

Also, I noticed you didn't switch off the shield textures. You know you can, right? Also somehwere in the game's options. I even have that off during regular play, because screw that noise. Don;t need it anyway since the shield HUD is good enough. For me, anyway.

And yes, since your profile is public, we can see your screenshots.

[Ricco]

150?? Really?? I guess I got carried away. Just having some fun. I'm sure I'll get bored of doing it soon.

[Sirius]

Well, some of them look nice. Too bad about the shield FX, but you got the general idea down nicely.

[Sirius]

You can do other crazy things, too, like make an animated GIF.

This is a very crude hackjob for demonstration purposes. It's a tad too fast too - as I said, hackjob.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=746773705

[Ricco]

Originally posted by |x|SiriuS|x|:

Well, some of them look nice. Too bad about the shield FX, but you got the general idea down nicely.

:) Thank you very much. I was so used to the shield visual that I almost will miss it when it isn't there anymore.

[Ricco]

Originally posted by |x|SiriuS|x|:

You can do other crazy things, too, like make an animated GIF.

This is a very crude hackjob for demonstration purposes. It's a tad too fast too - as I said, hackjob.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=746773705

Fascinating.

[Vellari]

There is a screenshot option some where in the options that toggles whether ui is included or not by default.

But you can use console commands too, to be sure (any in-game chat window) to get what you want:

/screenshot (tga file)
/screenshot_jpg
/screenshot_ui (tga file)
/screenshot_ui_jpg

To produce high resolution captures (higher than what your monitor can actually output), you can also use /renderscale to increase quality.

For example /renderscale 2 with a game resoltion of 1920x1080 will actually produce an image 3840x2160, which is, a 4K image.

Don't forget to set /renderscale 1 "back to normal" after taking screenies as increasing renderscale will choke your fps to single digits for sure, higher settings may outright crash the game.

EDIT: Highest I can manage (4GB of VRAM) is /renderscale 4, which for my monitor 1440p produces 10240x5760 resolution images. Any higher, CTD...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16229638/screenshot_2015-07-20-19-06-26.jpg