Godot Movie Maker and screenshots on macOS without --headless
I wanted Godot to write screenshots and short videos from a script on my Mac, the way it does in CI on Linux. Godot 4.7.1 on macOS 26.5.2 can't do it in --headless , but it can with the real renderer and the window off the screen. One thing I haven't solved: the app still comes to the front while it runs. Everything below ran on a 640 × 360 test project with one script: extends Node2D # Saves the…
In pursuit of capturing screenshots and short videos using Godot on macOS, the author discovered that the --headless mode, which works on Linux, is not available on macOS. However, rendering off-screen can achieve similar results. The solution involves keeping the real rendering engine running while placing the window off-screen using override.cfg settings. By launching Godot with specific command-line arguments, the script can save a PNG file after reaching a specific frame.
Using Movie Maker mode, the author captured a 48-frame animation at 24 frames per second, resulting in a 2-second video. The video was created using ffmpeg, converting the PNG sequence into an MP4 file. Despite efforts to minimize focus interference, Godot still occasionally became the active application after finishing its task.
The issue of Godot remaining in the foreground after completing its task remains unresolved. This workaround was tested on a single Mac running macOS 26.5.2 with Godot 4.7.1 and the Forward+ renderer, using a single display setup.
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