Canvas

Available since LÖVE 0.8.0
It has been renamed from Framebuffer.

A Canvas is used for off-screen rendering. Think of it as an invisible screen that you can draw to, but that will not be visible until you draw it to the actual visible screen. It is also known as "render to texture".

By drawing things that do not change position often (such as background items) to the Canvas, and then drawing the entire Canvas instead of each item, you can reduce the number of draw operations performed each frame.

In versions prior to 0.10.0, not all graphics cards that LÖVE supported could use Canvases. love.graphics.isSupported("canvas") could be used to check for support at runtime.


When drawing content to a Canvas using regular alpha blending, the alpha values of the content get multiplied with its RGB values.

Therefore the Canvas' pixel colors will have premultiplied alpha once it has been drawn to, so when drawing the Canvas to the screen or to another Canvas you must use premultiplied alpha blending – love.graphics.setBlendMode("alpha", "premultiplied").

Constructors

love.graphics.newCanvas Creates a new Canvas. 0.8.0

Functions

Canvas:clear Clears the contents of a Canvas to a specific color. 0.8.0 0.10.0
Canvas:getDimensions Gets the width and height of the Canvas. 0.9.0
Canvas:getFSAA Gets the number of FSAA samples used when drawing to the Canvas. 0.9.1 0.10.0
Canvas:getFilter Gets the filter mode of the Canvas. 0.8.0
Canvas:getFormat Gets the texture format of the Canvas. 0.9.1
Canvas:getHeight Gets the height of the Canvas.
Canvas:getImageData Generates ImageData from the contents of the Canvas. 0.8.0 0.10.0
Canvas:getMSAA Gets the number of MSAA samples used when drawing to the Canvas. 0.9.2
Canvas:getPixel Gets the pixel at the specified position in a Canvas. 0.9.0 0.10.0
Canvas:getWidth Gets the width of the Canvas.
Canvas:getWrap Gets the wrapping properties of a Canvas. 0.8.0
Canvas:newImageData Generates ImageData from the contents of the Canvas. 0.10.0
Canvas:renderTo Render to a Canvas using a function. 0.8.0
Canvas:setFilter Sets the filter mode of the Canvas. 0.8.0
Canvas:setWrap Sets the wrapping properties of a Canvas. 0.8.0
Object:type Gets the type of the object as a string.
Object:typeOf Checks whether an object is of a certain type.

Supertypes

Examples

Drawing something to the Canvas and then draw the Canvas to the screen.

function love.load()
    canvas = love.graphics.newCanvas(800, 600)
 
    -- Rectangle is drawn to the canvas with the regular alpha blend mode.
    love.graphics.setCanvas(canvas)
        love.graphics.clear()
        love.graphics.setBlendMode("alpha")
        love.graphics.setColor(255, 0, 0, 128)
        love.graphics.rectangle('fill', 0, 0, 100, 100)
    love.graphics.setCanvas()
end
 
function love.draw()
    love.graphics.setColor(255, 255, 255, 255)
 
    -- The rectangle from the Canvas was already alpha blended.
    -- Use the premultiplied alpha blend mode when drawing the Canvas itself to prevent improper blending.
    love.graphics.setBlendMode("alpha", "premultiplied")
    love.graphics.draw(canvas)
    -- Observe the difference if the Canvas is drawn with the regular alpha blend mode instead.
    love.graphics.setBlendMode("alpha")
    love.graphics.draw(canvas, 100, 0)
 
    -- Rectangle is drawn directly to the screen with the regular alpha blend mode.
    love.graphics.setBlendMode("alpha")
    love.graphics.setColor(255, 0, 0, 128)
    love.graphics.rectangle('fill', 200, 0, 100, 100)
end

See Also


Canvas:getWidth

Canvas:getWidth Gets the width of the Canvas. Function Synopsis width

2017-03-21 15:41:49
Canvas:getFormat

Canvas:getFormat Available since LÖVE 0.9.1 This function is not supported in earlier versions. Gets the texture format of the Canvas.

2017-03-21 15:41:44
Canvas:getDimensions

Canvas:getDimensions Available since LÖVE 0.9.0 This function is not supported in earlier versions. Gets the width and height of the Canvas

2017-03-21 15:41:42
Canvas:getPixel

Canvas:getPixel Available since LÖVE 0.9.0 and removed in LÖVE 0.10.0 Use

2017-03-21 15:41:47
Canvas:clear

Canvas:clear Available since LÖVE 0.8.0 and removed in LÖVE 0.10.0 It has been replaced by

2017-03-21 15:41:41
Canvas:renderTo

Canvas:renderTo Available since LÖVE 0.8.0 It has been renamed from

2017-03-21 15:41:52
Canvas:getFSAA

Canvas:getFSAA Available since LÖVE 0.9.1 This function is not supported in earlier versions. Removed in LÖVE 0.10

2017-03-21 15:41:44
Canvas:setWrap

Canvas:setWrap Available since LÖVE 0.8.0 It has been renamed from

2017-03-21 15:41:54
Canvas:setFilter

Canvas:setFilter Available since LÖVE 0.8.0 This function is not supported in earlier versions. Sets the

2017-03-21 15:41:53
Canvas:getImageData

Canvas:getImageData Available since LÖVE 0.8.0 and removed in LÖVE 0.10.0 It has been renamed to

2017-03-21 15:41:46