Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura is a server‑side software rasterizer that renders the world as seen by any entity (player, mob, etc.) directly on the server, producing Photos or Videos as Minecraft maps. It has deep integrations for custom items (Nexo, ItemsAdder) and a custom preset system.

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Features

• Take photos: Generate a map item showing what the target entity sees.
• Record videos: Capture your world on video and play it back on item frames.
• Fully configurable: Resolution, color mode, dithering, render distance, and more.
• Custom item support: Create cameras/camcorders with any appearance via Nexo or ItemsAdder.
• Asynchronous rendering: Never blocks the main server thread.
• No client mods required: Everything is server‑side; maps/recordings work on vanilla clients.

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Installation

Fabric Server

1. Install Fabric API and Polymer (for virtual items).
2. Place camera-obscura-fabric.jar into your mods/ folder.
3. The configuration file will be created on start.

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Configuration

The configuration file is config/cameraobscura/config.json.

{
  "renderDistance": 32,
  "showSystemMessages": false,
  "renderEntities": true,
  "fullbright": false,
  "fov": 70,
  "biomeBlend": 1,
  "ssaa": 2,
  "maxChunkRebuildsPerTick": 5,
  "debug": false,
  "cameraConsumesItem": true,
  "cameraConsumeItem": "map",
  "commandPermissionLevel": 2
}

| Option | Description | |---------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | renderDistance | View distance in blocks (higher = longer render time). | | showSystemMessages | Show “Taking photo…” / “Done!” messages in chat. | | renderEntities | Whether to render entities (players, mobs, item frames) in the picture. | | fullbright | Ignore lighting (everything appears at full brightness). | | fov | Field of view in degrees (default is 70). | | biomeBlend | Radius for blending block colors (biome tint). 0 = no blending. | | ssaa | Supersampling anti‑aliasing factor (1 = off, 2 = 2x supersampling, 3 = 3x). | | maxChunkRebuildsPerTick | Maximum chunks rebuilt per frame per video recording and live-map (to limit CPU spikes). | | debug | Print frame timings and show FPS overlay on the output image. | | cameraConsumesItem | Whether taking a photo consumes an item (e.g. a map). | | cameraConsumeItem | Required item material (e.g. map, paper). | | commandPermissionLevel | Base permission level for commands. |

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Commands & Permissions

Base permission cameraobscura.command.

All commands use the root /camera-obscura

1. Take a map from your perspective

/camera-obscura [scale]

• scale: multiply the map resolution (1 = 128×128, 2 = 256×256, up to 3).
• Gives you a filled map showing what you see.

2. Take a map of another entities perspective

/camera-obscura <entity> <player> [scale]

• <entity>: any living entity (player, mob, etc.)
• <player>: who receives the map item.

3. Save as PNG image

/camera-obscura save [entity] [scale]

• Saves the rendered image as a .png in config/cameraobscura/renders/.

4. Reload configuration

/camera-obscura reload

Reloads the config file.

5. Clear resource/model cache

/camera-obscura clear-cache

6. Give a camera item

/camera-obscura give <preset> [player]

• <preset>: The name of a preset defined in presets.json (e.g. camera, camcorder, instant, polaroid, pro_camera, handycam, cctv).
• [player]: Optional player name; if omitted, gives the item to the command sender.

Examples:

• /camera-obscura give camera -> gives yourself the default camera.
• /camera-obscura give camcorder Pinnit -> gives the player Pinnit a camcorder.
• /camera-obscura give my-preset -> gives yourself an item from a preset.

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📷 Using the Camera Item

Basic Camera

• Hold the camera in your main hand.
• Right‑click -> after a countdown, the photo map item appears in your inventory (or drops on the ground if full).
• The map shows the world from your viewpoint at that moment.

Camcorder

• Same controls, but starts recording instead of taking a single photo.
• The action-bar text indicates recording.
• Release to stop recording, the video will be saved as a map item that can be played back on item-frames.
• While recording, particles appear around the camera (frame effect).
• Videos are stored as APNG in config/cameraobscura/camera_videos/<id>.apng

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Components

The mod uses data components to store camera settings on the item stack.

This allows you to create cameras with different resolutions, color modes, and video parameters using standard commands, recipes, or loot tables.

Available Components