Drone Camera Mode / First Person View / Photo Mode / Beaver eyes

25 votes

- A completely free camera, with a shorter focal length. FOV of 90°, and closer near clip plane.
- Accessible through the pause menu, for taking pictures.
- The most important aspect to me would be the ability to move the camera itself upwards and downwards, as well as look straight up, and pivot around the camera location.
- The mouse wheel would then, instead of moving the camera forwards and backwards, just change the focal length (zoom).
- There should probably be buttons for moving up and down as well, maybe Q and E, since we don't need them for rotation in this mode.
- Mouse would be locked to the center and hidden, like a real first person camera.

Less important:
- Holding LCTRL could then give you access to your cursor to change camera settings and maybe filters in a side panel? TAB could toggle hud (including the side panel)
- I don't think SPACE should be used to move up, because I think the game should still be able to run during this mode, and space toggles time.

Under consideration Suggestion UI Suggested by: Maxi (04 Oct, '21) • Upvoted: 02 Mar • Comments: 16

Comments: 16

06 Oct, '21
Gin Fuyou Admin
You've checked unlock camera in settings, right? I know most of those things are not implemented with it too, and I think it's quite useful features.
06 Oct, '21
Tom Merged
It would be much easier to focus the camera on specific areas of a district if its center of rotation was itself, like a first person camera, rather than a point in front of it.
07 Oct, '21
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Have the camera rotate around itself rather than a point in front of it" (suggested by Tom on 2021-10-06), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
14 Oct, '21
Gannonite
I want soooo badly to be able to zoom out farther. I'm building districts with grand vistas that take up the entire usable space a district center can reach and I can never zoom out far enough to get the whole district in view without swinging the angle down super low. I'd be fine if it only worked while paused so it doesn't entirely tank performance to render a wider zoom view.

Plus one as well for FBV (First Beaver View) mode. The game is so wonderfully detailed from the design to what a single beaver does in a given day, and I love building intricate networks of tunnels inside of large stacked structures. I want to see what they see.

Also, having a game controller that can do flight style controls. Basically, I want to do epic fly throughs of heavily built out play-thrus that can better show the immense scale and detail of what I've built.
19 Jan, '22
Devin Merged
I use the disabled UI a whole lot, but I'd like even more precise control. Mostly what I'm looking for is the ability to more precisely control the height of the camera and the FOV, beyond just using the scroll wheel. Also being able to control the pitch, yaw, and maybe even roll could be cool. Maybe getting real fancy with it a depth of field could be neat.
19 Jan, '22
Gin Fuyou Admin
"photo mode" (suggested by Devin on 2022-01-19), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
20 Dec, '22
Raul Merged
I would love if there was just a button, maybe on a highlighted beaver's stats page, to lock the camera to the perspective of our Beavers. I think it would be really fun to see how huge our creations are in comparison to the citizens of our cities. I really wanna' see what the city looks like from a park bench, and it would be great for sharing screenshots in the right setting.
27 Dec, '22
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Beaver Cam" (suggested by Raul on 2022-12-20), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
01 Apr, '23
T-Rob Merged
Like in city skylines I think it would be great if you could click on a beaver and follow them in first person or close up third person and see where they are going and what they are carrying. I know you can already click on the beaver and see somethings about them but, maybe even see inside some of the builds/houses.
01 Apr, '23
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Following a Beaver" (suggested by T-Rob on 2023-04-01), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
25 Aug, '23
Kamil Merged
I'd love to see my own colony form a beaver's POV, so that I could either:
1.) Walk as a beaver and explore the colony on my own
//OR//
2.) Snap a camera onto a beaver's head.
It would be cool to find out how would it be to live in a beavers' colony (probably horrible).
30 Aug, '23
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Beaver point of view camera" (suggested by Kamil on 2023-08-25), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
27 Jan
night Merged
I'm not quite positive as how to say that because just saying free cam will be taken for what it already has. But I find myself quite often trying to fly around as in a typical game where you go in the direction you are facing in the 3D space and using "jump/crouch" to go up and down.

As an alternative to the perspective based camera we have now.
The isometric management games are normal to be hovering above godlike, but something about this game has be flying around more like minecraft. I'd like to easily move up/down while looking at the same place, and use forward/back rather than constantly on the scroll wheel.
03 Feb
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Option for the Camera.. to move as an object?" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2024-01-27), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
02 Mar
OneHoop Merged
It would be great fun if you could click a button on the contemplation spot that would snap the camera angle to the POV of a beaver at that contemplation spot! This should either be done with better camera controls, or the suggestion to press V to return to normal view.
05 Mar
Gin Fuyou Admin
"Make Contemplation Spot a clickable POV" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2024-03-02), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.