jacomago/p5.capture

🎬 super easy recording for p5.js animations

About • Why p5.capture? • Getting started • API
Options • Browser compatibility • Limitations • Donation

About

Assuming you would like to record p5.js animations super easily, this package is the right choice for you.

👇 Check out the demo:

• Demo on p5.js Web Editor
• Demo on OpenProcessing
• Demo on CodePen

Why p5.capture?

🎩 Stable recording

Recording p5.js animations with screen recording tools can cause jerky recordings. Complex animations can slow down the framerate and make recording unstable. p5.capture hooks into the p5.js draw function and records the rendered frame, so it works like magic.

✨ Keep your sketch clean

Adding recording functionality to a sketch can be very tedious. p5.capture provides a minimal GUI and is designed to add recording functionality without adding any code to your sketch. Let's focus on your creative coding. Of course, you can also use the API to integrate it into your code.

🤹 Any format • One API

Tired of having to use different libraries for different formats? p5.capture supports many export formats including WebM, GIF, MP4, PNG, JPG, and WebP. There is sure to be something you want.

Getting started

Installation

Insert a link to the p5.capture after p5.js in your html file:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/lib/p5.min.js"></script>
<!-- insert after p5.js -->
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/p5.capture.umd.min.js"></script>

You can find all versions in the jsDelivr.

Usage

Basically, the GUI provided by p5.capture starts and stops recording.

That's all 🎉

Export formats

Supported formats include:

• WebM (default): export WebM video using webm-writer-js
• GIF: export animated GIF using gif.js
• MP4: export MP4 video using h264-mp4-encoder
• PNG: export PNG images in a ZIP file
• JPG: export JPG images in a ZIP file
• WebP: export WebP images in a ZIP file

API

The P5Capture class can be used to programmatically control recording.

Static methods

P5Capture.getInstance()

Returns a P5Capture instance.
Used to access the P5Capture instance automatically created when p5.capture is initialized.

P5Capture.setDefaultOptions(options)

Change default options. These options affect both GUI and API recording.
Must be used before p5.js initialization.

P5Capture.setDefaultOptions({
  format: "gif",
  framerate: 10,
  quality: 0.5,
  width: 320,
});

function setup() {
  // do something...
}

Instance methods

start(options?)

Start recording with the specified options.
options can be omitted.

stop()

Stop recording and start encoding.
Download files after encoding is complete.

Instance properties

state (Read only)

Returns the current recording state ("idle", "capturing", or "encoding").

Examples

The following example shows how to record the first 100 frames and create a GIF video:

function draw() {
  if (frameCount === 1) {
    const capture = P5Capture.getInstance();
    capture.start({
      format: "gif",
      duration: 100,
    });
  }

  // do something...
}

The following example shows how to add an event handler that starts and stops recording with a keystroke:

function keyPressed() {
  if (key === "c") {
    const capture = P5Capture.getInstance();
    if (capture.state === "idle") {
      capture.start();
    } else {
      capture.stop();
    }
  }
}

Options

Name	Default	Description
format	"webm"	export format. "webm", "gif", "mp4", "png", "jpg", and "webp"
framerate	30	recording framerate
bitrate	5000	recording bitrate in kbps (only available for MP4)
quality	see Quality option	recording quality from 0 (worst) to 1 (best). (only available for WebM/GIF/JPG/WebP)
width	canvas width	output image width
height	canvas height	output image height
duration	null	maximum recording duration in number of frames
autoSaveDuration	null	automatically downloads every n frames. convenient for long captures (only available for PNG/JPG/WebP)
verbose	false	dumps info on the console
disableUi	false	(only P5Capture.setDefaultOptions()) hides the UI
disableScaling	false	(only P5Capture.setDefaultOptions()) disables pixel scaling for high pixel density displays

Quality option

The default value of the quality option is different for each format.

Format	Default
WebM	0.95
GIF	0.7
JPG	0.92
WebP	0.8

Browser compatibility

It may not work depending on your environment.
Tested in the following environments:

	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Safari
WebM	✅	✅	✅	❌
GIF	✅	✅	✅	✅
MP4	✅	✅	✅	✅
PNG	✅	✅	✅	✅
JPG	✅	✅	✅	✅
WebP	✅	✅	✅	✅

The browser versions used for testing are

• Chrome 98.0.4758.109
• Edge 98.0.1108.62
• Firefox 97.0.2
• Safari 15.3

Limitations

• p5.capture currently only supports p5.js global mode

Donation

This project is open source and always will be, even if I don't get donations. That said, I know there are people out there that may still want to donate just to show their appreciation so this is for you guys. Thanks in advance!

• Tezos
• PayPal