How to make Godot devlog videos automatically

The automatic way to make Godot devlog videos is Ziva's Devlog, part of the Ziva plugin for Godot. It records your game runs and the editor while you build. After every 3 game runs it makes short vertical videos: 10-15 seconds, 1080x1920, with short captions, ready for TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.

This is an example devlog that Ziva recorded automatically from a simple test project. As you build your own game with Ziva, you get devlogs like this of your own changes. The point is the use case; the gameplay is not meant to impress.

Devlog is on the Pro ($50/month) and Ultra plans, works on Windows, macOS and Linux, and saves MP4 files that you post yourself. If you want a narrated multi-minute devlog, trailer footage rendered at a fixed frame rate, or clips with your game's sound, another tool fits better; the table shows which.

Disclosure: Ziva.sh makes Ziva, and this is a repost of our guide. Facts about other tools come from their own pages, checked 4 November 2026.

Godot devlog and gameplay clip tools compared

Movie Maker is for footage you set up, OBS records whatever is on screen, and AI clippers cut recordings you already have. Devlog covers the gap between them: it records the game while you develop it and makes the clips without you starting a recording or opening an editor.

A Godot plugin that records your game while you build

While Devlog is on, Ziva adds a recorder to every game the Godot editor launches, whether you press F5 or Ziva runs a scene or a playtest for you. The game records itself from the inside, so there is no OS screen-recording permission to grant. Nothing is written to your project.godot, and exported builds never include the recorder.

It captures:

• The game's own viewport only, not your desktop or other windows, at up to 1280 px wide.
• 30 fps, or 15 fps on the Compatibility renderer.
• Stills of the editor, at most one a second and only when something visibly changed. These become before and after shots and a timelapse of the build.

The two Godot-native options work differently. The GIF Recorder addon keeps a rolling buffer and you press F11 to trim and export a GIF, so you choose each moment. Movie Maker renders offline at a fixed frame rate, and the Godot docs warn that it "is not designed for capturing real-time footage during gameplay". Neither makes edited, captioned clips.

Turning it on

1. In the Ziva chat header, open ⋮ and choose Devlog videos, then click Start recording.
2. Keep building. Ziva makes new videos after every 3 game runs, or click Make videos now.
3. Open a video to edit its captions, then click Save video.

Typing /devlog in the chat opens the same panel. Making a batch takes a few minutes.

What you get

Each batch is up to 3 videos made from the footage recorded since your last batch, mixing:

• Gameplay highlights. Ziva scores each run by on-screen motion and keeps the most active stretches.
• Before and after shots of the editor for the changes you asked Ziva for, labelled BEFORE and AFTER.
• A timelapse of the editor while you built.

Ziva's AI picks the shots, frames each one for a vertical screen on a blurred backdrop (the whole frame, a square, a crop that follows the action, or a zoom) and writes a short caption per shot, without hashtags or emoji. You can edit any caption and update the video; that re-render runs on your computer. Save video copies the MP4 to Videos/Ziva Devlog (Movies/Ziva Devlog on macOS).

Every frame is real footage of your game or editor. Devlog does not generate images or video. Raw recordings stay on your computer and are deleted after 14 days. When videos are made, a few frames and what you asked Ziva for go to Ziva's AI editor; the panel estimates this at about $0.05 of your usage per batch.

The manual route: Movie Maker or OBS

TikTok and YouTube Shorts use 9:16 video, typically 1080x1920.

Movie Maker. Click the movie reel button in the top-right corner of the editor, set Editor > Movie Writer > Movie File to an .ogv or .avi path, and run the project. The output size follows the window, or the viewport if your project uses the viewport stretch mode. The window is clamped to your screen, so for a 1920-pixel-tall video on a 1080p monitor, use the viewport stretch mode with Display > Window > Size > Viewport Width and Viewport Height set to 1080 and 1920 (the docs suggest the movie feature tag to apply that only while recording). Convert the OGV or AVI to MP4 with HandBrake or FFmpeg, and check your game still reads in portrait.

OBS Studio. Capture the game window, set Base (Canvas) Resolution to 1080x1920 and position the game in the canvas. For moments you did not plan, enable the Replay Buffer and set its save hotkey. You still trim, reframe and caption the clip afterwards.

Devlog does not change your project settings: your game keeps its own resolution and the 9:16 framing happens in the edit.

From the command line

For a script or CI job, Movie Maker has flags:

godot --path /path/to/your_project --write-movie output.avi --fixed-fps 30 --quit-after 900 

--quit-after counts frames, so 900 frames at 30 fps is 30 seconds. A relative output path is relative to the project folder. Something still has to play the game: a scripted camera path, an AnimationPlayer with Movie Quit On Finish enabled, or recorded input. Stop with get_tree().quit() or the window's close button; the Godot docs warn that Ctrl+C leaves an AVI without duration information. Cutting and captioning are still up to you.

What Devlog does not do

• No sound: no game audio, music or voiceover. Captions only.
• Clips are 10-15 seconds, not a narrated multi-minute devlog.
• It does not post anywhere. You upload the files yourself.
• Godot only. Unity, Unreal and Isaac Sim are not supported.
• Pro and Ultra only. It needs a signed-in Ziva account even if you chat with your own Claude, Codex, OpenRouter or local model.
• Only runs launched from the Godot editor are recorded, not exported builds. Resizing the game window stops that run's recording.
• You can edit captions, but not trim, reorder or reframe shots, or rename videos.

When another tool is better

• A narrated devlog of several minutes: record and voice it yourself, or use a narrated-devlog tool such as Flockbay's Video studio.
• Trailer-quality footage at a fixed frame rate, or above your screen resolution: Movie Maker.
• Clips with game sound, or anything beyond the Godot game viewport: OBS Studio.
• Clips from streams you have already done: Eklipse or Opus Clip.

The full guide, with an FAQ, is at https://ziva.sh/blogs/godot-devlog-videos.

How do you make clips of your Godot game today? Drop your workflow in the comments.