How to write from shader to a texture to a PNG in Unity?

Question

I want to write the information from my shader into a texture and save it in a png.

I found this:

http://forum-old.unity3d.com/threads/save-texture-generated-by-a-shader.326561/

and this

System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(Application.dataPath + "/"+"picture5886.png", texture2.EncodeToPNG());    //app path n1! 

But currently it seems to be unsolved.

Lets say I do Graphics.Blit(src,temp,mat) into a "tempTexture". I would have the temp texture then somewhere in my world, right?. How can I save that into a png?

Answer 1

First you need to get your shader's output into a Texture2D, so create one of the appropriate size. You'll commonly want ARGB32 format and no mipmaps:

Texture2D outputTex = new Texture2D(width, height, TextureFormat.ARGB32, false)

If the content you want to save has already been rendered by a camera in the scene, you can skip ahead (although in this case Unity's screenshot features may be a shorter route to your goal if you don't need anything fancy)

If you want to use an off-screen buffer instead, we'll need to create a RenderTexture to write it into.

RenderTexture buffer = new RenderTexture(
                               width, 
                               height, 
                               0,                            // No depth/stencil buffer
                               RenderTextureFormat.ARGB32,   // Standard colour format
                               RenderTextureReadWrite.Linear // No sRGB conversions
                           );

(Assuming you don't need a depth/stencil buffer and don't want to work in sRGB - otherwise, use the parameters that are right for your use case)

Now we bind our RenderTexture and material/shader pass, and run our shader across every pixel.

Graphics.Blit(sourceTexture, buffer, material, passIndex);

If your shader doesn't require texture input, you might need to supply a dummy texture for sourceTexture - I haven't tested how it handles null there. ;)

Now we need to copy the data out of the current render target (whether it was the buffer we created above, or one used internally by a scene camera) and into our outputTex:

RenderTexture.active = buffer;           // If not using a scene camera
outputTex.ReadPixels(
          new Rect(0, 0, width, height), // Capture the whole texture
          0, 0,                          // Write starting at the top-left texel
          false                          // No mipmaps
);

Now you can use outputTex.EncodeToPNG() and write the results to a file as described in the question. You should use persistentDataPath rather than dataPath if this is something you're doing at runtime though - dataPath is not guaranteed to be a writeable location in a release build.

Answer 2

copy this：

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
public class SaveShaderTexture : MonoBehaviour
{
    public int TextureLength =1024;

    public Texture2D texture;
    public void Save()
    {
        RenderTexture buffer = new RenderTexture(
                               TextureLength, 
                               TextureLength, 
                               0,                            // No depth/stencil buffer
                               RenderTextureFormat.ARGB32,   // Standard colour format
 RenderTexture buffer = new RenderTexture(
                               TextureLength, 
                               TextureLength, 
                               0,                            // No depth/stencil buffer
                               RenderTextureFormat.ARGB32,   // Standard colour format
                               RenderTextureReadWrite.sRGB // No sRGB conversions
                           );

        texture = new Texture2D(TextureLength,TextureLength,TextureFormat.ARGB32,true);

        MeshRenderer render = GetComponent<MeshRenderer>();
        //texture = render.sharedMaterial.GetTexture("_MainTex") as Texture2D;
        Material material = render.sharedMaterial;

        Graphics.Blit(null, buffer, material);
        RenderTexture.active = buffer;           // If not using a scene camera

        texture.ReadPixels(
          new Rect(0, 0, TextureLength, TextureLength), // Capture the whole texture
          0, 0,                          // Write starting at the top-left texel
          false);                          // No mipmaps

        System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(Application.dataPath + "/"+"SkinLut.png", texture.EncodeToPNG()); 
        // texture.Save();

    }

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        // Save();
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        // Save();
        if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
        {
            Save();
        }
    }
}