More Awesome Than You!

Everytime I take my Sims to a downtown lot, I have this horrible camera angle - I am looking down at the action.  This sucks!  Anyone know why and how I can change it to the normal angle?

Perchance you pressed the top view mode button which is on the bottom interface bar to the left? Press it again and it will revert.

You talking about when you tab to use the camera? I have this problem, whenever I tab all you can see is the sky image. It's only on some of the downtown lots but it is bloody annoying.

That is only in the buy and build mode, not in actual play

I may have a similar problem is it when you are zoomed out your camera is looking horizontally but when you zoom in it slowely moves to a more vertical downward view (oposite to the standard).

I have that issue on some of my lots, not just community ones either, sometime it does it and other time it is OK,  Not sure how to fiz it but this may give others a better idea of what happening.

I don't see anything that resembles a top view mode button.  Just walls up and down and my zooms and such.  Now, when my Sims returns home from downtown, the camera angle will be normal.  It's only when I am in a downtown lot.

The tab key doesn't seem to work for me when I am in a downtown lot.  :-\

Edited:  I wonder, is there some kind of cheat you can type in to change the camera angle?

My bad - I haven't even used the thing before.  :-X

You can adjust the camera angle by holding down CTRL and the left mouse button, and then moving your mouse. If you have a wheel on your mouse, and can hold that down and move it that way as well.

That doesn't seem to do the trick.  It only zooms the camera in and out and doesn't change the angle.  Thanks though for your input.  :)

Thats what I have been doing and it works a treat. It adjusts the camera on the vertical plane. Whenever I enter a downtown lot its like I looking from above, not level with them. Ctrl key and holding down the wheel on my mouse, whilst moving the whole mouse up or down fixes this.

Meh, but I *LIKE* the Death From Above camera. In fact, I modified usercameras to make that effect default, so the camera stays at a high overhead angle and only flattens out when I bring it in real close, like a dive bomber.

Okay smarty pants, so you know how to modify the angle.  What do I need to do to get it back to normal?  I hate looking from above.

Did you go into build mode in your downtown lot and leave the camera angle from above when you left the lot? If you save it like that sometimes when you go to that lot in live mode the camera view is still the same, but there's no way to change it since you can't access build mode in live mode. I don't know if it's actually true, but I heard that's what used to happen to people with community lots. I don't know if it would happen in dowtown lots. It's never happened to me so I don't know if this will work, but maybe you could try going into build mode at the downtown lot and make sure that the camera angle is not from above. Then go back to the lot with a sim and see if it worked.

 :) I will give that a try, because I did build a lot of my own and was probably in the overhead view with I saved it.

 :-[ Well, that didn't work either and I was hoping that was the cause.  I may have to do the unthinkable and place a call to EA Games tech support to find out what the hell is going on because it annoys me to no end to have to play from the top view.  I find it very difficult and I know it's not right.

You said that you used your mouse to zoom in and out.  That is normal for that application which means that you can do this next trick.  Click the wheel and while holding it down a crosshair will appear on the screen.  Still holding it down, move the mouse in the direction you want the screen to go.  (It will change as you do it so you can see the effect as you change the setting.)

 :D YES! YES! YES!  Thank you so much!  That fixed my problems.  You don't know how happy this makes me.  I was going nuts, really I was, playing with that awful angle.  I don't know how JM can play like that looking from above.

Thank you again and thank you to everyone else who offered their advice.

It's simple, really. Looking from the side causes the view to be blocked by tall objects. The "straight from above" view angle guarantees that you can see everything you need to see. Sure, maybe you'll mostly just see the top of everyone's head, but that's all you really need when giving commands.

Actually, I've been meaning to bring up this topic for a while. I tend to play zoomed out so I can see most of a lot, as JM says, it's way easier to give commands. That's why I don't worry too much about sim makeup, clothing etc, I rarely see sims that close up.

Lately I've been making a conscious effort to zoom in, to catch expressions and thought bubbles. I never paid them much attention until I read about so many other people commenting on them.

So... what's your angle folks, how close do you get to your sims? I'm interested to know how other people play the game.

I usually keep a medium zoomed out view, it's much easier to give commands that way and believe me, when you play with free will off you have to issue LOTS of them! I only zoom in if I want to get a closer look at something that piqued my interest. Also, having played (read: been addicted to) games like the Bladur's Gate series I'm kinda used to that angle, so that's usually the angle I use. Which means that the houses and community lots I build (did I mention I only play custom neighborhoods? Did I also mention I'm a control freak?) are layed out in a way that suits that particular angle. I only use top down view when I'm placing roof lights to check the symmetry.

I have a 15 to 20 degree angle shot on my 4 button. I then increase the angle for 5 through 7. The 4 button is nearly always the diagonal closest to the kitchen that faces the road, the 5 button faces the road the other way, 6 and 7 are the away from road diagonals.

Dr Beast, other games, yes I played Neverwinter Nights amongst others, the angles do become kind of default. I hadn't thought of that. My houses are often configured for a particular direction to view too.

dizzy-two, I'd forgotten about the camera presets till you mentioned them again. I used them quite a bit at first when I built ginormous lots. *makes mental note* :)

Uh...NWN is a crappy game that unfortunately succeeded the Baldur's Gate & Icewind Dale masterpieces! Excuse me, but what self-respecting RPG does NOT allow you to form a party?! And don't even mention the uncontrollable henchman. Oh, he's controllable in the expansions? I know that, I have both. So why the hell didn't they make him controllable in the core game as well, even with the expansions installed?!
Anyways (ranting over), how do you make camera angles selectable?

I haven't read past this post yet but have to comment on this post by Trubble.

I have this too!  Filled in the Nightlife bug report for it aswell.

To reproduce this (bug?glitch?) go to FM downtown with a sim, focus the normal camera on the centre Karaoke machine upstairs then zoom in, hit tab and you'll see the sky.  When viewing the sky move the camera upwards and you'll see the lot upside down.  This also happens in the downtown neighbourhood view sometimes but I can only persistantly reproduce it at FM by the karaoke.

Edit:
As to preferred camera angles..
I like being able to see my sims facial expressions and tend to build/furnish my lots for viewing from a certain position (ie facing front/back/side of the lot).  How anyone can stand being zoomed out is beyond me, you miss so much from up there!

I think I'm going to go do a bug report for it also - I need to go tour Downtown first just to check.

It's happened to me on the FM lot wherever they are - no matter how much I swivel it I can never see the lot in tabbed view and only the blue sky and random run out of graphics to display kinda thing blue stuff. I will tour later and do my bug report.

I also hit tab whilst on the Pleasantview neighbourhood screen and it crappola'd out on me, went blue and was not responding, computer made a funny noise so I killed it.

Kind of glad to hear I'm not the only one :)

I was able to get out of it by hitting Tab again, but it sounds like you are having more serious problems with this.  The funny noise could be a coincidence - have you checked the hardware lately?  Perhaps one of the fans is on it's way out or is in dire need of cleaning, check your video card and it's fan (if it has one) is functioning correctly too.  An ingame bug should not cause any hardware malfunction like that, I don't like the sound of the noise you described - get it checked over just in case.

Ohhh no it was just when I pressed the buttons on the keyboard, you know when it shouts at you like "why are you pressing buttons, they will achieve nothing?!" I regularly climb inside my PC, all is well with it.

At FM I can get out by hitting tab, the camera is where I left it in the normal view. The P'view crash happened once, I've not tried it again. Thanks :)

Well in that case I'll shut up now  :D

No no no, I do appreciate the suggestions :) I'll try and get screenshots today or tomorrow, try and see what happens with P'vew as well.

I came late to rpg's - in fact nwn is the first one I got hooked on.* Someone offered me Baldur's Gate not so long ago, maybe I should give it a go. Does it run in winxp?

* till I got seriously sick of slugging endless zombies in endless dungeons. My poor character is still stuck somewhere in a catacomb in the middle of a desert.


Find an angle you want, then 'ctrl 4'. To return to that same angle later it's 'shift 4'
You can do 4 through 9, giving 6 preset camera angles. :)

You can also just press the number without shift.  The shift button just makes your view jump directly to the spot instead of the effect of your camera panning to that view.

Wicked! I didn't know about panning, must try. Thanks.

'k, very Age of Empires-like, hehe! Thanx ppl!
I haven't tried Baldur's Gate on WinXP, played it under Win98, only Icewind Dale and it worked all right. I haven't played BG for AGES!

Just for grins, I submitted this same question (not quite exactly the same words though) via email to the EA Tech Support people to see what kind of "help" I would get - they sent me a canned response, referring me to the BBS for game hints and tips. ;)