On-ride photos

Like at a real park, your ride can take a photo of every train at its most thrilling moment. Riders find it on their page, in the Photos tab, and can download it. You can also hang the latest photos on a wall in the park — see Leaderboards and photo walls.

Setting it up takes four steps: a sign, a camera, a screenshot, and a bit of framing.

1. Prepare the photo studio (once for the whole park)#

The photos are drawn by UTP Connect, from your trains' models and your riders' skins. For that, it needs the game's textures. In the administration, open Settings:

1. Minecraft client jar — in the card with Minecraft client jar, under the Save button, click Fetch from Mojang and give your server's Minecraft version (for example 26.2). UTP Connect downloads the game's textures straight from Mojang.
2. Your resource pack — if your park uses one (custom train models, custom blocks), upload its .zip in the Resource pack section. Skip it otherwise: a train made of plain Minecraft minecarts is drawn from the client jar alone. The same upload can also be sent to your players as they connect: see Your resource pack.

2. Place the sign#

Under the track, where the photo should be taken, place a sign:

[train]
utp-picture
7

When a train with at least one rider passes over the sign, the shutter fires. There is nothing to switch on in the administration: the sign is the switch. To stop taking photos, take the sign away.

3. Place the camera#

In the game, go where the camera should be — say, at the bottom of the drop, facing up the track. Look exactly where you want the photo framed, and type:

/utp photo 7

The camera takes your eye position and the direction you are looking in. (Crouching lowers it; flying works too.) The chat confirms: "Camera placed for The Plunge."

From now on, the ride's form in the administration has a Photo tab. It only appears once the camera is placed.

4. Take a screenshot from the same spot#

Without moving, and with no train in sight, hide the interface with F1 and take a screenshot with F2. This picture becomes the photo's background: the scenery, with the train and riders drawn on top of it.

5. Frame it in the administration#

In Rides → Edit → Photo:

1. Upload your screenshot as the Backdrop.
2. Set the Field of view to the one you took the screenshot with — usually 70. The server can't know it (it's a setting of your game). The tab shows no preview of the train: send a train with a rider past the camera, look at the photo, and if the train sits off the track, adjust and save again. It applies to the photos taken after it.
3. Rows per photo: how many rows of seats appear on one photo. A train with six rows and "2 rows per photo" gives three photos, one for each group of riders.
4. Optional: a Frame — a PNG or WebP image with a transparent window in the middle, laid over the photo, with your ride's logo for example. Use the Across, Down and Zoom sliders to place the photo in the window. 1920 pixels wide or more looks best.
5. Click Save the camera.

Check what the photo draws#

Once the camera has taken a photo (a train with at least one rider over the sign), the Photo tab says what the photo made of the last one, in the box The last train past the camera:

• Drawn — what is in the photo, counted: the items of your train (your resource pack's models, or the game's), its blocks, its plain minecarts (with the furnace, hopper or TNT they carry), and its seats.
• Seen in game, never in the photo — the parts of a train no photo can draw: text, WorldEdit schematics, attachments added by other plugins, and any entity other than a minecart (a shulker or an armour stand, for example). The photo shows the train without them.
• Drawn short of something — a model or a texture that neither your resource pack nor the client jar has. Most often the client jar has not been fetched yet (step 1) — the box then says so — or the pack you uploaded is older than the one on your server.

What riders get#

A few seconds after the shutter, riders see "Your photo on The Plunge is being developed…" in their Photos tab, then the picture. They can browse their photos and Download each one in full size.

Photos are kept 30 days by default. Change it in Settings → Keeping photos (0 keeps them forever). And if you'd rather never see an empty seat, turn on Fill empty seats: stand-in riders fill the gaps. Only real riders get the photo.