Suggestion: Print City function

[Keith]

I've asked for this in games dating back to Impressions' "Pharaoh". I'd like a print function that would print a view of my entire city.

I know, in CotN we could zoom out, screen capture, then print but something would always be missing from the screen in larger cities.

I would like it to have two selectable views to print. One from a 45 degree perspective and one from a direct overhead view.

It might not be bad to include a grid pattern toggle option for the overhead view for those that like to plan their cities and map everything out.

Maybe add a zoom feature to the views so selected areas can be printed.

This function would print directly to the printer and not require a screen save and a paste to a graphic editor to do the job.
http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/pics/praetorian_rule.gif
http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/animated/Keith_scorpio.gif
Keith Heitmann (mailto:dheitm8612@aol.com)
Listen to the music of the CityBuilders while online:
Caesar III Music Player (http://www.geocities.com/kheitmann1/C3Player.htm)•Pharaoh Music Jukebox (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/java/pharaoh.htm)•Zeus Music Jukebox (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/java/Zeus.htm)•Emperor's Music Box (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/java/erotmk.htm)•Official Pharaoh/Cleopatra Walkthroughs (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/walkthroughs/PC_Walkthroughs/)•Official Zeus/Poseidon Walkthroughs (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/walkthroughs/zp_walkthroughs.htm)•Children of the Nile Musicbox (http://members.aol.com/dheitm8612/java/cotn/cotn.htm)•Children of the Nile & Quiz (http://panzerblitz.proboards9.com/index.cgi#test)•Visit PlanetNile (http://www.planetnile.com)

[Thucydides]

Great suggestion Keith! By coincidence I am helping my son with a project for scouts tonight where he has to design a city to earn a badge. He has worked on Simcity4 and we can't print the result of in any usable form... smile

[CaitGrey]

Can you make snapshots or screendumps? You should be able to paste them into some other application and print them from there?

[Thucydides]

Can you make snapshots or screendumps? You should be able to paste them into some other application and print them from there?

smile... that is what I decided to do with my son. It is messy though. Mind you I am not sure how many people would want to print out their city on a regular basis, and I wouldn't want to see production effort spend on fixing this problem if it mean something more central to the gameplay missed out.

[Keith]

Can you make snapshots or screendumps? You should be able to paste them into some other application and print them from there?

Yes, you can do it that way and it's a long and tedious process that's been done since the days of Caesar III.

What I would like for a single process that would scale the city so the entire thing was visible and printed directly to your printer with the click of one button.

This would eliminate the need to make several screenshots and then try to line things up and pasting them together to make one big picture.

Caesar II's old City Map mode let you see your entire city when you zoomed back. It's a view like that I'm asking for and for it to be printed without the need of a graphics editor first.

[MarkDuffy]

SnapPrints! :D (We already have the zoom, rotate & tilt.)

Great idea, Keith.

Add to fix-dvd problem: XP compatable printer. ;)

[vovan]

If this feature were implemented, it would probably have to be some sort of diagram view, though. I imagine otherwise, if you fit the whole city on one page, it would be pretty hard to discern what is where. Also, personally, I would rather the "whole city view" was saved to an image file or something, instead of being printed directly, because what if I want to see the diagram of the whole city, but am out of paper / ink / printer otherwise unusable? I don't want to be out of luck on that one. :)

I like the idea though.

[prof786]

if the city is too big, maybe you can print the city in parts
or you can just take individual screenshots which should also be an option in c4. infact, print could be a feature since we all use it so much.

[wolf]

Great idea, and I add my name to the list of enthusiastic supporters! I definitely would like an ingame screenshot feature.

[sitearm]

See also this thread (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7098) about being able to print the city's underlying layout (blueprint) as well as it's appearance.

Useful for trying to share or illustrate a city's design with another player, or to record stages of a city's development for your own use.

[Merepatra]

Great suggestion Keith. Its something I've often wished for when I've made a city I particularly like.