Entry no.47 - A Twisted point of View
Wow, it's been so long I don't even know what to say! But I do know where to begin... A few weeks back I happened to come across this in my chrome homepage feed; https://gamerant.com/SimCity-4-change-camera-angle-3d-mod/ Immediately I assumed it was some sort of April Fools' joke due to the timing. I'm guessing most did, after all we've had a few of these in the past, exactly like this if I recall correctly. At first I shrugged the 'news' off, but in the days that followed I found myself thinking more and more; "what if it's not a joke?" Finally, curiosity got the better of me, I was prepared to say; "Okay, you got me, good one." but lo and behold, there she was. So, I downloaded the mod, dusted off my copy of SC4, and booted the game up once again.
All I can say is; MIND BLOWN. It pretty much goes without saying, but this is one of the greatest SC4 mods of all time, up there with the NAM. Thank you @memo, for gifting us with this development and for personally getting me back into playing the game for the first time in years. I honestly wasn't sure if I would ever play SimCity 4 again especially with the release of Cities Skylines 2, though it also helped that Paradox really fumbled the ball on that one. For now I've just been enjoying playing around with the new camera and scoping out all my cities from entirely new perspectives. So while I haven't done much work in new areas of my region just yet I'll be revisiting an old fav and the very first city I profiled in the CJ; Cisco Bay. This entry also serves as a sort of mini tutorial of the 3D CAM mod and my own personal experiences with it.
So without further ado, let's enter into the 3D realm... 
Top down view - Camera Pitch 85, Camera Yaw 0
This was the first angle that I tested
A camera pitch of exactly 90 will result in buildings not showing up, just the bare lots (seen the images in the spoilers below) and water also becomes completely transparent. Buildings will start to appear as you slowly deviate from 90 degrees; by about 85 degrees they should all be visible.
Here's how the city map I made many years ago compares with that top-down shot, not too shabby, I'd say! I'm rather proud of how accurate it turned out, considering such views weren't available before. Mapmaking will become so much easier with this top-down view. Perhaps someone could develop an automatic map-making mod, just a thought... 
Straight down - Camera Pitch 10, Camera Yaw 0
Yaw 0, low-angle pitches make for an interesting perspective, particularly with regards to transportation networks. However, many individual buildings will unfortunately have noticeable distortions at this angle.
The Side profile - Camera Pitch 0, Camera Yaw unchanged.
This angle allows you to capture ground-level shots of a city's skyline silhouette, which can help in identifying the tallest buildings and structures in a city, and more easily observe the changes in elevation. Most buildings will have a skewed perspective, but the effect is less evident if the yaw is changed. The good thing is that, no matter how unusual or warped a building's profile is, its overall height is accurate. However, it's important to note that a pitch of 0 isn't actually possible - the closest the game seems to allow is a pitch of 1 degree; entering 0 will not lower the pitch any further than 1. This means that buildings closer to the camera will be at a slightly lower level, so it's not a perfect height comparison but it's close enough to it. Another interesting effect is that once you get close to a pitch of 3, the background completely disappears (above ground level), resulting in a blacked-out sky. This makes sense when you think about it since the background is only 2D and doesn't extend indefinitely; there is a limit to its size. This limitation becomes evident as early as pitch 15 when zoomed out to higher levels. The black background feels a bit bare, so adding effects like clouds does wonders to enhance the overall ambiance.
The black background also lend itself well with night time shots;
The 45/45 "all-evens" view - Camera Pitch 45, Camera Yaw 45
Compared to the other angles this one is generally less interesting as it's closer to the standard frame of view. But it can create nice symmetrical vantage points as it lines up perfectly with diagonal networks. This angle also has the benefit of limited building distortions.
9
It also works well with mmp edited terrains
11
Low Angle perspectives - Camera Pitch from 5 to 20, Camera Yaw unchanged or 0
Next, a look at various areas of the city using various other perspectives, starting off with views of Broadcast Hill and the Sky Bridge. The blue tiles seen in the distance is just a custom background I use.
13
The Sky Bridge and The Great Western Tower
15
16
17
18 Palmetto beach
19 Downtown CB
Network elevation changes are so much more noticeable using low pitch perspectives
21
22
23
24
25 Broadcast Hill overlooking the Guardian's Gate bridge(no fog vers.)
26 A foggy haze rolling through Cisco Bay as if often does along the Trueno River
27 One of my favorite shots of this whole set; the small but detailed Port of Isuza
These views really demonstrate the beauty of the in-game Rail Cantilever bridge, perhaps still the game's best when it comes to intricate details.
29
30 Hydro corridors never looked so good either
31 Electrical jungle
32 Don't even ask me what's going on here v. Just an absolute mess of metal and wires, any guesses as to how many pylons are in there or where the corridor starts and where it ends(furthest)? ?♂️
I'll close things out with my favorite pic - I love how you can get so much into one single compact image now. This mod pretty much eliminates the need for vertically extended panoramic screenshots. Also with Sepia editing you can made neat postcard-like images like the ones below.
Thanks for stopping by, feels good to be playing SimCity again! 
-
42
-
1
10 Comments
Recommended Comments
Sign In or register to comment...
To comment in reply, you must be a community member
Sign In
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowCreate an Account
Sign up to join our friendly community. It's easy!
Register a New Account