Paralives' Photo Mode

Happy Thursday everybody! Hope you are having a good one! Today I wanted to show you something that we hope you’ll be using to capture great shots of the game, the Photo Mode! We're currently hard at work on the core live mode features under the summer heat but this is a little something that we’ve quickly done in our spare time since it will be very useful for us to showcase the game and for players eventually as well!

Photo Mode Basics

Put simply, the Photo Mode is a special mode where time is stopped and you have greater control on characters, the time of day and other settings in order to take special pictures of the game that you then can share - potentially on Twitter. You can open photo mode at any spot in the game and I’ve decided to demonstrate its use in the rooms we have built for the Paramaker showcase video!

Just entered Photo Mode here...!

While in Photo Mode, you can move your characters around, have them play different animations, tweak the position of items, change the time of day to get different lighting profiles and even add characters from outside your household, just to take that perfect shot! The user interface still has room to be improved, but we’ve already used it to take some pretty funny pictures internally. When you leave Photo Mode, everything is put back how it was, so you can take more liberties with your pictures.

I used the Photo Mode to place some characters, set their animations and the time of day before capturing this picture!

In Photo Mode, you can move and rotate characters easily to place them as you wish and create the scene you have in mind. Note that if you are reading this post from the Patreon mobile app, this animated GIF and the following ones might not play for you.

Any animation from the game can be chosen as well as a specific time in the animation, allowing players to get creative and make any situation they can imagine!

In Photo Mode, time is frozen and you can select the time of the day. Yes, this building has no roof!

Filters, Effects and More!

Another nice thing we can do with the Photo Mode is to give players options to customize the photos they are taking. Frames, stickers, filters and other camera effects will allow for some next-level shots!

• Frames will allow you to put a border around your picture, the pictures you take can be cropped to the size of the frame.
• Stickers are images you can move around on the screen to add some charm to the scene.
• Filters, like black and white and sepia will give a distinct feel to your screenshots.
• Special effects like depth of field or bloom will help make the picture more cinematic
• Bonus: new effects, frames, stickers and filter presets can be created by modders in the mod system!

Sebastian didn’t get to participate in today’s photoshoot. (This picture uses a black frame, a black-and-white filter and the Paralives Logo as a sticker!)

Here are some of the other filters that we like!

Fish eye

Faded print

Alternate reality

Color pop (green in this case)

This was a really fun feature to create, and it’s really fun to play around with it too! Also, it will make our life easier when capturing scenes from the game and players will be able to use it to share great moments from their gameplay sessions. I hope you enjoyed this first look at our Photo Mode and that you’ll have a great weekend!

Jérémie out.

Edit - May 11, 2023: This post is now public, feel free to share it!