Camera Obscura Mod FAQ

Craft or obtain a Camera item, hold it like a spyglass to frame your shot, then right-click to take a photo. The photo will be saved as a map item in your inventory (or as a PNG if you use the save command instead).

You need the Camera item and a consumable item (usually a map, but this is configurable). Each time you take a photo, one of the consumable item is used up.

Yes, use the `/camera-obscura save` command to export a high-resolution PNG image directly to your server's files. You can scale it up to very large sizes for detailed documentation.

No, the mod is entirely server-side. All rendering happens on the server using raycasting, so players only need the mod installed on the server.

Yes, all camera settings including render distance, field of view, brightness, and whether entities appear in photos can be adjusted in the camera-obscura.json configuration file.

Map photos are stored as items in your inventory and can be placed in item frames for display; PNG photos are high-resolution image files saved to the server that you can download or share. PNG exports support larger scaling.

Yes, photos saved as maps can be used for map art projects. You can also export as PNG and process the image externally before converting it to map art.

Map items have a fixed resolution limit. For higher quality, use the `/camera-obscura save` command to export as PNG and scale it up to 10× the default size for sharper detail.

Entity rendering can be toggled on or off in the configuration file, but you cannot selectively hide individual players or mobs in a single photo.

Photos are rendered server-side on demand, so taking a photo may cause a brief performance spike depending on your render distance and world complexity, but it doesn't continuously drain resources.