Steam adds Screenshot Manager, allows taking and sharing screenshots

by Mike Schramm on Feb 24th 2011 10:00PM

Steam has added a screenshot-sharing feature to its service, detailed over on the official blog. In any Steam game with the Steam overlay running, you can hit a hotkey (default F12) to snap a screenshot, and then save and publish them off to your Steam Community profile, or save them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Once taken, you can access "Screenshots" under the "View" menu in Steam, and the app even lets you access them directly on your hard drive via a "Show on Disk" button. It's a very groovy way to integrate something that not all games make clear. Now, how long until we can capture video like this?

Source: Steam

Tags: facebook, pc, screenshots, sharing, Steam, twitter, Valve

Reader Comments (36)

Hey, I am all for making things easier for the user. Yay Steam for being one of the best places for a community and awesome sales on, usually, awesome games! :D

Why is Steam so amazing.

Note that's a statement and not a question.

@Lone Starr
More like improper punctuation.

@dsp4

For you maybe. For me it's amazing. I travel a lot and go between computers. I prefer gaming on desktops versus a laptop and not having to carry HD's around. Steam + Cloud makes it so easy for me. Not to mention, the deals that Steam offers lets me play great games I would otherwise pass over.

@Lone Starr Also everyone uses it anyways, so no need for XFire anymore for ingame-chats with friends.

Yeah, video capture would be very cool (though all source games have their own video capture software which doesn't seem to effect FPS), but I've been dabbling with Xfires broadcast system which is rather cool to show off to my friends while chatting to them. If Steam bought in a live video system I would be very happy.

The only downside is that my lappy has a lot of trouble with most video captures, which is no surprise really.. I want a new laptop :P

@ClarkyAC
Video capture software and games don't like each other. Even though I have a high end PC, sometimes when I record a game it decides that it's better than me and crashes. The way that Source games record video is by recording the buttons you hit and your movements. They're normally called demos.

@Zacmanman Yep. that's pretty much the way to go with games. Record movements and character interactions and the render them each time the video is played.

@Zacmanman

No what i'm referring to is the "startmovie (NAME) avi" command followed by the "playdemo (NAME)" command, which allows you to capture your demos in video format.

This means you can record the demo without the drop in fps, then convert that demo into a video format. "host_framerate 30" in console will mean the demo recording would look laggy, but the output video would be a smooth 30 fps..

The video recording in Source games basically takes a bunch of screenshots, a separate audio track, and when you run the converter, it combines the two.

It works, but it's not extremely easy, and it can take a long time on a slower system. A straight-up video recording would be nice, but it would impact the system performance.

@ClarkyAC
I don't think it captures video though, at least not in the same way that FRAPS and other programs do.

Damn, finally. This took too damn long.

Steam seems like the IE of game communicators:
http://i.imgur.com/VIRNJ.jpg

@(Unverified) Wow, I didn't know XFire invented video and screen capture. Thanks for letting me know!

@PointlessPuppies Was there another game communicator before xfire that allowed you to take in-game screenshots and upload them to a profile I didn't know about?

Please, feel free to link it here. Or are you just spouting words of nonsense?

@PointlessPuppies They didn't invent it, they made a really nice implementation designed for games. (as opposed to the usual screen cap software designed for desktop use)

@(Unverified)
Thank goodness for Xfire. I mean how the hell would I have taken and shared screenshots before?

What argument are you trying to exact here? The level of intelligence in your thoughts? I think it's pretty clear how much there is in them...

They're two entirely different platforms that have two entirely different goals.

Is this something incredible? No. Is it something that the community asked for and received from a receptive company?

Why, yes, yes it is....

@(Unverified)
Call me when xfire sells me games for $5.

@Mmmmz "What argument are you trying to exact here? The level of intelligence in your thoughts? I think it's pretty clear how much there is in them..."

Yeah, it is probably over your head a bit.

Let me explain it to you in a dumbed down way.

1) 3 days ago I was stating how I use xfire because it has features like screenshot/video upload.

2) I also stated how I'm sure Steam would eventually get these features, and when it did, people would act like it is some brilliant new innovation.

3) Sure enough, today, Steam rolls out this update, and behold, Steam gets tons of publicity over a feature that has been in other game communicators for a year+

@Vault Boy like mmmz above states:

"They're two entirely different platforms that have two entirely different goals."

I wasn't comparing the companies as a whole, only their communicator sections.

@(Unverified)

Your check's in the mail

One day, Steam and some idiot-proof os like ios, android or suchlike will release a dumbed-down pc box, with keyboard, mouse and joypad. And lo, for.it will be good.

@primal convoy actually, I wouldn't mind something like a steam os meant to dualboot with windows. They'd be able to reduce cpu overhead dramatically and they could make things like driver updates a thing of the past. It would also mean that you'd be able to play steam games on any x86/x64 based system.

Steam is great. If you would have told me that a couple years ago I would have laughed my ass off.

*cough* WoW does it already*cough*

Down vote me to infinity. Or beyond.

Err, take screenshots?

Most games do. Source engine games default to F5. But this allows you to upload screenshots to your profile in any game using F12.

If you meant video, only the Mac version can because it uses Quicktime.

does anybody know a way on how to switch the controls from F12?

@jr0cha
Fomr the client itself:
Steam > Settings > Interface

@jr0cha
Steam > Settings > In-Game > Screenshot shortcut keys

Had to switch it away from F12 cause I gotta press the Function key to use it, and some things move too fast to press both and get the shot I want.

@SystemPatch
yah i cant use the F keys because im on a laptop and they all have a specific function (brightness, wifi, volume...)

This is nice, but three things that would have been more useful imo.

1. Option to remember that you logged in on a browser forever, instead of having to annoyingly reenter your pass + ID every single DAY!

2. Related to one, STOP ASKING ME FOR MY AGE IF I AM LOGGED IN!!!! This is nuts crazy, if I am logged in, it should remember how old I am. Its got all my info on the last eight gazillion times I have logged in or bought a game.

3. Search/filter in the steam client to search for games you own. I have a LOT of games and even organizing them into folders(which annoyingly defaults to open folders and doesn't stay closed), it still takes a while to find your game.

@Ender7
#2 is more code for the open browsing of the store, so that people whore aren't logged in/don't have an account can still see what's there. It might take a bit of a rewrite of the code to get that to work, while still keeping the open browsing aspect and M rating check.

#3 however, was added in thist update. Check for yourself, it should be just above your game list.

@Ender7 They did add a search bar.

Another cool thing is that the screenshot taken will be used as the background in the game's library page

Steamshots! Missed opportunity?

Not only capture video, but stream!

Steam adds Screenshot Manager, allows taking and sharing screenshots

Reader Comments (36)

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:06PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:11PM Lone Starr said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:17PM AutomaticClutch said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:14AM Lone Starr said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:48PM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:18PM ClarkyAC said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:23PM Zacmanman said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:35PM gonintendo said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:35PM ClarkyAC said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:01PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 1:35AM Zacmanman said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:20PM Zacmanman said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:25PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:30PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:36PM gonintendo said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:57PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:30PM Vault Boy said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:13AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:14AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:40AM darkinchworm said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:28PM primal convoy said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:40PM gonintendo said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:31PM Shig said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:32PM kph59 said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:04PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 10:40PM jr0cha said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:31PM Vault Boy said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:35PM SystemPatch said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:15AM jr0cha said

Posted: Feb 24th 2011 11:54PM Ender7 said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:33AM SystemPatch said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 12:33AM Gordon Freeman said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 2:52AM Rentaro said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 7:35AM Drew327 said

Posted: Feb 25th 2011 8:44AM Frito said

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