Is there a way to save Render Targets permanently?

This is linked to another question I had posted but because this is something I was curious about I wanted to get some information on this as well.

Whenever I look up information relating to taking snapshots in-game Render Targets are always recommended, there doesn’t seem to be a way to convert a render target texture into a normal texture and from what I read up from other users there’s no need to.

But my problem with the Render Targets is that they seem temporary. I tried to find a way to keep them as they are in between reloads but every time a project is reloaded the render targets I had saved before are now green textures, the same texture you’d get on an empty render target.

Not only is this inconvenient for the development build but it seems that render targets can’t be used at all in packaged builds because they reset once the player restarts the game, the save game icons become empty green textures.

Is there a way to save render target texture data, keeping it consistent even upon reload?

After spending a lot of time trying this myself I can tell you that there is no way to do this without using C++ or :

  1. Install plugin : It contains functionality to save the render target as a png,jpg etc. But it’s currently not working with 4.11, but if you can wait a bit i’m sure it will be fixed.
  2. IF you can’t wait , buy In-Game Photography from the marketplace and use that. From what I can see it’s still based on plugin , but after some work i did manage to get it running on 4.11 , unlike the Rama one.

Hope this helped.

Hi, I’m going through this same situation, too.
Once i’ve downloaded plugin, how can i use it? Where do i have to put the downloaded files?
Thanks a lot for your help.

The node you’re looking for is “Export Render Target” - this is what I’m using to export in game created render targets. You need to specify the file type - .jpg .png .tga ect. They will use the properties of the render target to generate the file.

If you want to re-use them you’ll need to re-import them. For that use “Import File as Texture 2D”. After that you can slot them into a texture parameter using blueprints.

It’s kind of a work-around but until they let you save render targets in game this is the only fix I’ve found.