image_state(3)

🎀 image_state(3) 🎀

okay so this is image_state from the Arcan Lua API (section 3 of the manual, bestie, we love a classic) and it's genuinely one of those tiny little functions that you'll forget exists until something looks weird and you're like "what even is that thing" 💅

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🦋 NAME 🦋

image_state — get a string representing the internal subtype of a video object ✨

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

typestr
image_state( vid )

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so real talk — this one is primarily intended for debugging / troubleshooting purposes 🫶 like it's not the main character of your renderer, it's the little bestie behind the scenes holding up a lil sign telling you what you're actually looking at.

it hands you back a string, and that string will be one of these:

• frameserver
• 3d object
• asynchronous state
• 3d camera
• unknown

that's the whole list, no cap 👑

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⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

first one, super simple — load an image, ask it what it is, print the vibe:

function image_state0()
      local img = load_image("test.png");
      print(image_state(img));
end

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🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

and the second one, where we make a null_surface, tag it as a model, and print... well, img, exactly as written 😭 copy it verbatim and it is what it is:

function image_state1()
      local cam = null_surface(32, 32);
      camtag_model(cam);
      print(image_state(img));
end

no notes, we're keeping it exactly as the page says it — you saw it here first 🙈

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👑 SEE ALSO: 👑

• image

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okay that's the whole thing, short and sweet and iconic fr fr 🎀 this page comes to you from the Arcan Lua API, section image_state(3), dated October 2026, and the source is just image 💜 mwah, go debug something, you got this 🦋✨