tutorial How to Make High Resolution Region Screenshot

[Propfam 2,288]

Hello,

There's nothing wrong with Region Census/in-game screenshot of the region and it has been used for long time by dozens of city journalist. However, if you want to see your city in closer and having city signs, this is for you.

Requirements

1. The game and your chosen region of course.
2. Photoshop, GIMP, Affinity, Paint.net, etc. Choose whatever image editor you have.
3. 3 hours+ of working time.

Preparing the images needed

I'm going to use EPIC technique by @CorinaMarie to make a consistent and centered screenshots.

1. Find the central coordinate of the tile. I'm using medium tile. So, the coordinate would be (1/2x16x128, 1/2x16x128) equals (1024, 1024)
2. Pick the zoom you want. I personally choose zoom 0 because
   1. Not requiring much time stitching the tiles.
   2. More importantly, to avoid precision lost. I don't have a macro to do let's say zoom 5 in precise manner.
3. Center the view using the EPIC technique.
   
   
4. Capture your tile using your tool of wish.
5. Repeat this process for another tile.
   

Stitching the images

1. Open your Photoshop.
   
2. Open your city images.
   
3. Select the city edges using Polygon Selection Tool. GIMP users, use Scissor Selection Tool.
   
4. The tile is now selection.
   
5. But, it's not perfect. We'll fix it later.
   
6. If there are areas not selected, add them by selecting the one step icon from the original icon in the toolbar and do step 4 except this time for those areas.
   
7. If there are areas that unnecessarily selected, throw them out by clicking the two step icon from the original and do step 4 except this time for those areas.
   
   
8. The city edge is now selected. Now it's to inverse that selection.
   
9. By clicking Select -> Inverse. GIMP user, click Select -> Invert.
   
10. The selection is now inversed.
    
11. Delete areas within the selection.
    
12. The areas are now gone. The next step is to deselect.
    
13. Now, there's no selection anymore.
14. Repeat the same for other tiles.
    
15. Create a document with size of (game width resolution x number of horizontal (small, medium, large) tiles) x (game height resolution x number of vertical (small, medium, large) tiles). Make sure to choose only one type of tile measurement. If you wish to calculate different tiles, pick one tile size and then adjust the other sizes with some ratio. For instance, you settle for large tile, then the medium and small each account for 1/2 and 1/4. This time we're focusing on 2 tiles.
    
16. The document is created.
    
17. Copy the first image.
    
18. And paste it in a new layer. For GIMP users, don't forget to anchor the floating layer first to the new layer!
    
19. Transform it to top left.
    
20. Do the same with the second image.
    
21. Except this time, you have to align it properly.
    
22. Zoom to see is there any misalignment.
    
23. Try to wiggle the position a little bit till the tile is aligned perfectly.
24. There are now 2 aligned tiles. If your canvas is large enough, you can repeat this process for other images. Since we only need 2 images, we decided to just crop right away.
    
25. Crop the image using the Crop Tool.
    
26. The image is now cropped.
    

For those of you who have these maps like me, you can add more cities to your maps by resizing the canvas and modify the tile images using the above method.

Final touch

I personally done with that image. So, I export the image to PNG using Save for Web. But, if you wish to add some effects, I'll cover one of them: background.

1. Open Background3D(your preferred zoom level).png in the game's Plugin folders, not the Documents'.
   
   
2. The background image is now opened. Copy that to the map.
   
   
3. Put the new layer below all existing layers and turn off the existing layers to see the background.
   GIMP users,
   
   
   And don't forget to anchor the image! Otherwise, you can't advance to the next step.
4. Transform your background. For GIMP users use Unified Transform Tool.
   
   
5. Skew your background by right clicking and click Skew. GIMP users, the function is located in the same group as Unified Transform Tool. Hold the icon down and select Shear.
   
6. Skew it 22,0 degrees (roughly the skewing degree of SimCity 4). For GIMP users, unfortunately you can't specify degrees directly on it. You have to make a guess your skew will be 22,0 degrees.
7. Right click than select Scale. Again, for GIMP users, located in the same group as Unified Transform Tool.
8. Scale the object.
   
   
9. Right click and click Rotate. Then, rotate it till 12,5 degree (again roughly the rotate degree of SC4). Again, GIMP users can find it in the same group as Unified Transform Tool.
10. Click other tools and click Apply. GIMP users only need to press Apply in the transform dialog.
    
11. Now activate all other layers.
    
12. Your region is now backed by a background. You can take a step further by blurring the background, for instance.

I wish I can make clouds and flares but Photoshop doesn't allow me to do so because my new layer above is empty.

With some creativity, you can complement this technique with

I hope this tutorial useful. Thanks for reading and trying!

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

While I've not attempted to use your method, I very much like this concept.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

This is a useful concept for piecing together images to view a region in a high resolution.

We've added the Featured star  to your thread, because this is particularly helpful for people who might wish to pursue the method. I imagine the same technique could be performed using free image editing tools such as GIMP or Paint.NET as well. It would give a whole new perspective to see the landscape in this form.

[Terring 6,473]

That's a great idea. I'm gonna give it a try for sure

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

This, is a very fine content. Something you could definitely take to YouTube. Job well done @chfzdn.  

Making a regional screenshot is something I really miss in SC4. Especially true, if one has a very large region, way beyond the 16x16 confines. The game simply does not offer enough viewing room to take a whole, single screenshot at once. Your approach solves this problem.

Just one thing that deserves a correction - I'd recommend using a cheaper and more-user friendly graphics processing program instead of Photoshop, which (in my eyes at least) is an elitist subscription nightmare.

I strongly suggest using either Affiinity Photo (about $60-70, perpetual) or GIMP (GNU, completely free). They are yours to keep forever, much cheaper than Photoshop and have just as many features, sometimes even outpacing Adobe.

[VetinarisClerk 271]

Awesome technique, @chfzdn.

GIMP for the win.

[Propfam 2,288]

10 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

This, is a very fine content. Something you could definitely take to YouTube. Job well done @chfzdn.  

Making a regional screenshot is something I really miss in SC4. Especially true, if one has a very large region, way beyond the 16x16 confines. The game simply does not offer enough viewing room to take a whole, single screenshot at once. Your approach solves this problem.

Just one thing that deserves a correction - I'd recommend using a cheaper and more-user friendly graphics processing program instead of Photoshop, which (in my eyes at least) is an elitist subscription nightmare.

I strongly suggest using either Affiinity Photo (about $60-70, perpetual) or GIMP (GNU, completely free). They are yours to keep forever, much cheaper than Photoshop and have just as many features, sometimes even outpacing Adobe.

I'd use the CS6 that I owned long time ago. I don't like the new subscription model. That's why I keep my CS6 instead of moving on to let's say CC 2020.

[Propfam 2,288]

Update: the tutorial has been adapted to GIMP! So, you can replicate this using GIMP. Not only GIMP, but also Affinity, Paint.net, etc since I used the commonly used features.

[pcwhiz24 1,185]

If you take pics of cities at night, you can stitch them together and make regional pics at night

 

Here's a couple of them I made using this method with Paint.Net a while back:

I photoshopped the highways a bit hehe

 

I even used this method on my very "real" regional night mod!

 

Original Thread:

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Is there any way to capture a large city tile? It looks like the farthest zoom does not offer a complete view.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

13 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Is there any way to capture a large city tile? It looks like the farthest zoom does not offer a complete view.

While at the farthest out zoom, you can use the cheat: sizeof 0 after doing Ctrl+x, but it still won't show it all. The closest I can get is using that and running the game in 1600 x 1200 resolution.

[Propfam 2,288]

Unfortunately, you have to use a macro to capture from the upper left to the bottom right.

[Toby Ferrian 873]

Protip: Use a mod that changes the city view background to a solid color (like this one), it'll make it much easier to cut out the background

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

On 24.01.2021 at 11:38 PM, CorinaMarie said:

While at the farthest out zoom, you can use the cheat: sizeof 0 after doing Ctrl+x, but it still won't show it all. The closest I can get is using that and running the game in 1600 x 1200 resolution.

I just tried this method at 1080px and it actually works ok! Entire big city tile visible! 

[Simizen 1,098]

for better consistency with the cities, turn off the clouds when taking these pix. That way, they don't look chopped up when pasting them together. Unfortunately, it looses the realism of adding clouds over the city, but, at least you get a clear view of it.