tutorial EPIC Technique for Centered City Screenshots

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

See here for a much easier way to do this.

Old tutorial:

Exact Position In City Technique for Centered City Screenshots
(This is useful for before and after pictures.)

This is a technique I discovered a long time ago and both @Cyclone Boom and I use it. We've been intending to write up a little tutorial for it and I'm just now getting around to it.

The basic idea is that peeps do have incremental saves of their cities and might at some point want to show before and after pictures. Here's an image I posted a year or so ago and I was curious what that area looks like now.

Cori's Farmhouse in the Year 884:

 

I go to the same location in Year 1924 of my current play version, press Ctrl+X to bring up the cheat dialog box and type in terrainquery then press Enter:

^ Note: Neither this cheat command nor the upcoming sizeof require the Extra Cheats DLL, but it's ok to have that mod installed.
 

To activate said Terrain Query, click the Query button:

 

Edit Start: @Cyclone Boom has found this should be done in the Zones DataView. Sometimes when centering on the coordinates and having the trees and buildings visible, it can be off by 1 to several pixels in the final screenshots. When using the Zones View, this little glitch does not occur and the images will match up pixel for pixel. End Edit.

Next mouse over a location where the image is to be centered. Write down the X and Y coordinates. (In this case X=2143.9 and Y=2716.2.) Right click to center the city there:

 

This gets it really close, but it's way too easy to wiggle the mouse a fraction of an inch and not really be centered exactly where it should be. So, Ctrl+X again and type in sizeof 13 in the cheat box:

 

After you press Enter, the city will be zoomed in more than you can do with the mouse scroll. It'll get all pixelated, but that's ok. Find your exact position again for X and Y and right click. Because you have some wiggle room where the X and Y doesn't change, this'll be more precise:

 

Save the city:

 

As soon as the save finishes, the zoom is reset:

 

Exit the game and copy in your prior saved version of the city. (Be sure you have a separate saved copy of the current one, ofc.) Center that roughly the same as the other image:

^ This won't be lined up perfect yet. That comes next.
 

Do the terrainquery and sizeof 13 cheats, then find the exact position for X and Y that you wrote down, and right click the mouse to center this one the same as the other:

^ Note: You can use a larger number than 13 (up to 64) for sizeof. I picked 13 for this tutorial as a balance between precision and still being able to make out the location visually. It is the X and Y coordinates which are the important part.
 

Save the city and now you are ready to grab the screenshot(s).

I did several zooms for each picture and then re-numbered them so they are in Before and After sequence. (To best see how precise this method is, click one of the pictures below and use your right and left arrow keys to flip between them.)

An additional use for the sizeof cheat is to use sizeof 0 to zoom out one more notch when you want to see more of a large city tile.

  Edited May 9, 2021 by CorinaMarie  
Add Linky to Updated Tutorial.

[infamousjbe 592]

This is neat. Will have to keep in mind for the next big development project.

 

But what I'm most curious about, do you really like living next to trash? hehehe   and it looks like your little trashy property isn't connected to the rest of the network. Assuming this is another one of your sort of "bend the game to your will" discoveries? Does the landfill not actually need to be connected to the entire road infrastructure in order to clean up the entire city? Just "some" road will surfice and the city majically cleans itself up?

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

4 minutes ago, infamousjbe said:

But what I'm most curious about, do you really like living next to trash? hehehe

Here's a linky to my reply to @Naomi57 with regard to a very similar question.

 

5 minutes ago, infamousjbe said:

Does the landfill not actually need to be connected to the entire road infrastructure in order to clean up the entire city? Just "some" road will surfice and the city majically cleans itself up

You are correct. The little Trash Town is not connected to the rest of the city.

As long as there is at least one residential property on the same streets (or roads) that do connect to the landfill then the game is happy. The rest of the garbage from everywhere else is magically teleported to the landfill. Ofc, to get a residential lot to grow there also needs to be some place for those Sims to work. Quite often I'll grow a Farley's Foundary then a Tiny House and after that add a huge landfill in an isolated little town which then serves the whole city tile.

[infamousjbe 592]

Cori Quote: "weekly ritual of going to the dump and poking around for goodies"

I can commend that. Love me a good dive for treasures. I infact have a weekly swap meet dumpster diving that I do here in San Digeo. A night time swap meet every Wednesday (bar rain) that ends at 10pm. We show up at 9:30, because that's when the vendors start throwing everything away. Originally it was for the art supplies, but ended up being much more than just that. Tho I am drowing in canvases now. lol.

 You can see some of the goodies we get in the Swap Meet Dumpster Dive Reveal vidoes posted on my YT channel. We get pretty punny with the junk, you might find it amuseing. Here's a link to the latest one. Yes the hat was a score. Some of the items are still brand new with the tags or sealed in plastic. It's sad and amzing what gets thrown away.

ps. besides my art, there are a couple SC4 streams I've done lately as well.

  Edited November 26, 2019 by infamousjbe  
more shameless promoting

[Naomi57 2,985]

14 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

As long as there is at least one residential property on the same streets (or roads) that do connect to the landfill then the game is happy. The rest of the garbage from everywhere else is magically teleported to the landfill. Ofc, to get a residential lot to grow there also needs to be some place for those Sims to work. Quite often I'll grow a Farley's Foundary then a Tiny House and after that add a huge landfill in an isolated little town which then serves the whole city tile.

I like learning about little quirks like that, and that's one I'll probably try out one day.  I remember reading one of your posts on that, after I'd gone to all the trouble of making an underwater trash tunnel for my Canarsie Pol island city.  Oh well, I still like my trash tunnel.  

Actually, that will be really handy for my plans to make a roadless (almost) neighbourhood, one day.  I had a little play with that concept back with SimCity 4 vanilla, and didn't twig that the trash was magically teleporting to the landfill.  

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ctrl+X again and type in sizeof 13 in the cheat box

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

An additional use for the sizeof cheat is to use sizeof 0 to zoom out one more notch when you want to see more of a large city tile.

Whoa!  Such a neat cheat, I learn so much from your posts, @CorinaMarie.  Thank you!

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

As Cori said, we've found this a really useful method for comparisons of city scenes over various durations. The key thing it allows is to make sure the camera is positioned pixel perfectly each time, and so the SizeOf 13 (or similar multiplier) allows the magnification for accuracy. This combined with TerrainQuery once right clicking allows it to be set, and then saving the tile makes sure that position is saved with being oriented at the exact same place.

This means the tile can be sped up to just see how growth naturally changes over time. If moving the camera and it's a good idea to note this down, and maybe use the signpost tool in game is one way. Then the position can always be set back again whenever you're ready for another snapshot to be captured.

Here's an animation I've put together for Cori's I6 tile in her Corillion region using 22 images:

Corillion I6 Tile Timelapse
Years 269 to 1904

Click here to view in a higher resolution (1200 x 675) as a larger 9.94 MB file size.

Note: It's much more impressive in the larger size, but due to capacity reduction restrictions placed by the Humane Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Carrier Pigeons (HSPCCP), I've made the image in the thread as the small size instead. This complies to ensure those who rely on pigeons for internet transfers (like me), they won't come to any suffering.

For these comparisons I used the mentioned SizeOf 0 trick so more of the tile can fit in view. The orientation here is North facing which explains why the tile appears from a different perspective. For the farmhouse in Cori's pics above, those are facing West so it's properly positioned as seen from the front.

The neat thing about this EPIC technique is it can be done for any city location at various different zoom levels. A specific neighbourhood, a particular farm, or even to see how urbanisation takes effect over time. It'd be cool to see everyone's comparisons, and feel free to reply with them here too as you learn the technique.

(Or even in the existing before/after Showcase thread.)

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

12 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

As long as there is at least one residential property on the same streets (or roads) that do connect to the landfill then the game is happy. The rest of the garbage from everywhere else is magically teleported to the landfill. Ofc, to get a residential lot to grow there also needs to be some place for those Sims to work.

I'd known that any surplus could be exported, but I hadn't realized that any village could serve within a city. That's good to know. Garbage can now go to an island off-shore or something like that.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

I guess I should've named this thread: Cori's Garbage Topic.

 

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

I hadn't realized that any village could serve within a city.

Yep. Here's one that's a rural farming area with a little isolated trash town:

 

The reason it's so sparsely settled is shown in the popup topography map colors. Only the green colored land in the data view is fertile enough to grow decent crops. The brown represents hard, rocky clay soil and would be near impossible to eke out a living there as a farmer.

Here's the zoning overlay showing the farms using the best tillable ground:

 

And a close up of the secluded little trash town:

 

Here's an annotated view of my trashy home from post 1. World is turned so north is to the south for the best view:

^ If you haven't guessed, I went by Rina when I was little.
 

And here's a random landfill where someone makes a profit selling useful items scavenged from the incoming rubbish:

[Naomi57 2,985]

Cori's Pre-Owned Junk Store has the cutest landfill I've ever seen.

I used to have landfill just 1km from my house, when I was a kid.  There was no Pre-Owned Junk Store there, but many, many happy hours spent as a child wandering, and building collections of the things my brothers and I discovered there.  Landfill contained much more joy for me, as a child, than the playground they built over it when they sealed it up.

You humour never ceases to get a smile, or laugh, and in this case, many smiles, from me, @CorinaMarie.  Love those labels of yours.  

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

22 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

@CorinaMarie.  Love those labels of yours.

I do too! They really are delightful indeed.

I've previously had the pleasure of touring Cori's I6 tile after she invited me over for some sightseeing, and I saw many more Cori-isms too.

So in another CoriBoom™ presentation we've put together for you (and anyone else interested), here's a few extra examples...
 

More Collected Cori-isms in City Tile I6

Starting from Lighthouse Isle as located in the south west corner:

 

It's a popular tourist destination due to the numerous creatively quirkily named buildings.

Here we start from the south side where the ferry terminal is strategically located:

(That guy there is incredibly strict with his lawn maintenance routines. Apparently he mows and manicures it five times per day in the summer months.)

 

Hopping up to the middle:

Evidently from the lack of parked cars, there aren't too many customers curious about my Shoppe.
And it looks like a board meeting is in progress at the front. Better lower those prices.
 

Spoiler

It's a reference to the urban legend where this phrase became famous.

 

Over in the north west corner:

 

Then just further along slightly, the north east corner is home to the suitably named main retail market trader on the island:

By the way...
For making multiple queries appear in picture, one has to mouse around extremely fast while capturing these images in slow motion.

 

Moving along to the mainland near the eastern border is where a certain Mandatory Vacation Resort is located:

It has the motto imposingly inscribed inside each and every room:
"Free room and bored. You won't want to stay another day, but you're doing so anyway!"

 

Strictly at 10:30pm each evening, they put on a spectacular synchronized lights show parade for the guests:
(To the tune of The Great Escape theme.)

(This results from while we were modding emergency vehicle flashing lights as another project. Something might come of that someday.)

 

Continuing on to brighter parts of the tile, there happens to be a quaint little island aptly named (yep, you guessed it)...

Quaint Island

Here's the main attractions:

(And yes, I can confirm the weekly scheduled siren testing on Friday mornings sure is rather loud.)

 

Here's a few selected other curiosities:

  

  

(There still might be a few more I'm yet to discover. It's about time I booked another tour!)

 

In addition to naming particular prominent buildings and structures scattered around the tile, Cori uses signposts for labelling certain notable city locations too.

For instance in the south west side:

As a side benefit, there are five fairies ferries in the above pic. 

 

This next one is somewhat cryptic, but does have a real meaning when deciphered:

 

Here's an important place which relates back to the EPIC technique:

I use this as the landmark location to look for when using the TerrainQuery command, and this way I know where to go for centering the camera. Using the SizeOf 13 helps with making sure this is set precisely, and then I zoom out and set the SizeOf 0 which widens the perspective slightly (to fit more of the tile in view).

 

Lastly but certainly not leastly, I'm incredibly honoured how Cori thought to include me as part of her city tile too...    (Thank you!)

(Which formed the inspiration for our MySimtropolis mod.  Yes, sign ups are still open.)

 

22 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

You humour never ceases to get a smile, or laugh, and in this case, many smiles, from me, @CorinaMarie.

So yeah, it truly is wonderful and I couldn't agree more.

[Naomi57 2,985]

Many laughs and smiles to wake up to, thanks for the tour, CB!

My favourites were:

• The Morse code Radio tower.
• Mal's Practise Clinic
• Noisy Neighbour
• No, you change course!  (yes, I did pick up on that one)  
• Cyclone Boom's Curiosity Shoppe
• Cloud Factory
• Dihydrogen Monoxide  
• Donut Brigade and Crossbar Hotel - "You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave."

A YouTube of that light show would be so cool.  

Funny enough, the Wikipedia page got a laugh from me, too, when I read, "The U.S. Navy has a webpage debunking it."  Of course they do!