Why does this not have the ability to just screenshot my ONE save as I play it from a specific view automatically? I want a timelapse.

Please does anyone know where the "views" data is stored? I would like to set up different views for different cities but I don't think we have such an option at the moment.

Ahaha sorry, didn't got so much requests tha'ts why, I can work on an update end of Mai, half of the work was already made.

2-3 months more like lol

if you could add option to create timelapse real time in game with preset timer (F.E. i set timer to 10 minutes and 5 locations +csl and mod is taking screenshots and csl every 10 minutes

Hi @SWAGis17, should work yep.
Hi @Patitodo, I will try to improve this in the following 2-3 weeks with the new update, I finally have some time again to work on the mod :)
@Big Headed Dutchman happy to help :)

Does this Mod work as of 1/15/23 ?

Hi @microscraft

I'm trying your mod and I'm in love with the idea, but I'm also getting screenshots which are not full "free camera" but with faded icons and city limit borders. Is there a way to avoid that?

Thanks!

@microscaft That seemed to have fixed it. I think it was indeed just bad luck, as now everything works as normal. No crashes, No errors. Thanks mate!!!!! :D

Hi @Big Headed Dutchman
I think the config file is corrupted, you may delete it in the Mod Directory, it will then be recreated automatically.
If it happen again, it means your game isn't writting the views correctly.
I the next version I will add a correction so it will not crash again if the config file is corrupted, but the reason why it happen, this I don't know, maybe not enough space on disk, or just badluck and need to try again.
Sry

When I set my second position my PC crashed. Idk if it was due to the mod, but this is the error it gave me after. I can't find something wrong with the mod via compatibility report, and by own testing it's not conlflicting with any mods I use.

Not sure if this is an error on my side. Thought id report it anyways. Below is the error code I get
A Mod caused an error [System.Exception]
Details:
System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
at HistoryGamePlayByMicroscraft.HistoryMod.getConfigs () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at HistoryGamePlayByMicroscraft.HistoryMod.getConfig (System.String key, System.String def) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at HistoryGamePlayByMicroscraft.HistoryMod.OnEnabled () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Reflection.MonoMethod:InternalInvoke (object,object[],System.Exception

Hi @AkalaMangala,

I will have a look into your suggestions, unfortunately the end of year is very time consuming these days so I can't give you any ETA. Will MP when I have news.

Thank you very much for your feedback ! :D

@micorscraft. Hey, first off I absolutely love your mod. Gives Great results with hardly any effort. I wanted to make a few suggestions if you don't mind. First, could you add a shortcut to run the screenshots so we don't have to go into the content manager to take them. Second, could you integrate with Play It so we could chose what time(s) of the we took the screenshots at. Even just being able to set two times, one for day and one for night would be pretty awesome. Thank you

@thajonah Will be a pleasure to see the result! If you have any question with the mod feel free ton contact me :)

@microscraft i'm in the same boat so i'll give that a shot, thanks

Hi Biffa,
so I downloaded with "Start a New City Like a City Planning Pro in Cities Skylines!" to debug a bit, there were some problems with your other mods but should be fine now except that unfortunately as your game will not load a second save when starting the screenshot session, you have to set up the anti crash option to restart the game on every save. I tried like this with your config and it worked, did you tried already ?

I also put a system to prevent the mod for trying to load the save on start if the last time it failed.

If you still have trouble, if the mod pack you made is not up to date, I may miss a mod conflict. If you wish send me the mod logs (no private data inside) or mod config (or also LOT mod config), both in the HistoryMod folder, but in all case better to try again with new version of the mod first. I'm sending you a Steam MP so you tell me more precisely if you wish me to try to make the mod compatible with your config :)

Thank for feedback also!!

StayHungryStayFoolish: The new version now has an option to set a timer every x minutes, when it pop up, you can accept or refuse, if you accept it will take the screenshot of current game according to your views, and then go back to actual view, weather and time so you can continue playing. Is that what you wished ? Because I can't do it in the background while you still play, I need to move the camera to do the screenshots.

Also I corrected other things with this version, you may have a look on the change notice if wished. I also added an option to not have the mod change the weather or time of day when doing the screenshots if wished.

Thank you for feedbacks :)

Hi StarrWulfe, thanks for the feedback!
The mod is only adding the screenshots automatically ordered by views and time and cityName in the HistoryMod folder which is created. There is no mp4 creation yet but this is something I'm planning on! Maybe next week :)

So for now, every x time you wish to do the timelapse, just copy paste the screenshot in your video editor to render it. What is happening with the mod for now is mainly taking the screenshot without you needing to move or go to each views manually + also doing this for multiple saves by loading them automatically if wished.

(bonkers -- meaning COOL!)

This is bonkers-- I do this manually by just saving screen positions and "flyovers" with ACME and just keep screenrecording into MP4. Remember you can always use FFMPG to remux video and and new pieces into the end without having to redo/recompress the whole thing, saving time and precious GPU cycles.

If that's what's happening here, awesome. I'll check through the code later and see if I can contribute something with my not-the-best coding skills ;p

It is a great idea to make a high-resolution screenshot from the same position (or a bit moving one), frequently. Like in every active 20 minutes. It is a great option to make later a timelapse video from these screenshots.

StayHungryStayFoolish & Biffa, I updated the mod so it create the folder correctly.

I'm now looking into "Start a New City Like a City Planning Pro in Cities Skylines!" collection to see if there is any incompatibility or so. I will also prevent the mod for automatically reloading a save if the last time it tried it failed, so you don't have to unactivate it next time. Thank you for the feedbacks! Will come to you as soon as I have news.

Have a nice weekends everyone!

ok, so I tried it on my heavily modded city and as is normal, you can't load a save without a full restart of CS. It actually froze on the 2nd save load so I manually Termianted CS (using Load Order Tool) but reloaded. On reload the history mod kicked in again automatically, and on save load I was hit with lots of mod errors. I terminated again and tried to load CS as normal (from LOT) but again History mod kicked in and tried to load a save automatically. I had to disable History mod from with LOT (I guess without LOT you would have to unsub from History mod) to stop it auto loading a save again.
I love the idea of the mod but at the moment, not working for me on a modded game. With normal loading of saves on vanilla games I woudl assume you wouldn't have the issues I did.
Will keep an eye out for any updates :-)

Same error on load here, solved by adding a folder called historyMod manually.

Biffa thank you for your feedback 😊
Yes my game is heavily modded too, it works, but took me 2 nights to do the 355 saves I had ahah thats why there is a lot of options to avoid crashs, The best thing is to try by limitting to 10 saves to load, see how your game handle it, if after 2-3 loaded saves it crash or so, config the mod to restart the game automatically every saves, but better to avoid as this will easily double the time needed. I will do some test with LOT tonight too and come back to you.

Anyway, I even implemented a small window terminal programme that you can activate which will check if the game crashed and restart it automatically to continue, on my side that happend one time only.

I will probably write a more detailed explanations for people who have a lot of mod like us tonight. But if anyone have any question on heavily modded game feel free to ask me :)

Hi StayHungryStayFoolish, I'm very concern by what you say bcs I didn't try it on other configs, logs.txt is supposed to be the file where all the logs of the mod are put in. I have a theorie, I may have forget to check if historyMod directory is created when the log function is called, I will check and correct this when I'm home if its the problem, until then you can try to create the folder historyMod where it is said it should be, then restart. Does that do the trick ? Or does this directory already exist and the problem is somewhere else ? If that was the problem I'm really stoopid to not have think of that! Sorry

At the end of the loading it said: Could not find a part of the path "C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\historyMod\logs.txt".

Looks like a great mod, will test it soon. Wondering how it will work on a heavily modded game that I use Load Order Tool to load my game? I assume after the first load with LOT that I manually do it will be fine, but with a few minutes load time per save...this could run all night and the day after! Let's find out :-)

Thank you StayHungryStayFoolish ! Really nice feedback!

Well, I was looking to replace Camera Positions thanks to your message and then I realise I can do it without ACME or Camera Positions :) So the new update doesn't require any other mod anymore (except if you want to do a CSL Map view export)

Can you explain me a bit what is Detours ? I had to learn c# kind of this week to do the mod and I'm very new into this, didn't find so much explanations also on how to create a mod/etc so I may not have the best habits :)

I will contact them then thank you :)
If you have any other feedback I'm all listenning :)

Joel

What a great mod, what a nice idea, and great video processing, I am a fan of your youtube explanation!

Please know that unfortunately, Camera Positions Utility uses obsolete Detours functionality which blocks compatibility with other mods, but its functionality is included in ACME. Most of the actual users are using ACME.

You will not find Camera Positions Utility, but you will find ACME in the Plazas & Promenades DLC Compatible modlist.

Please contact algernon or Chamëleon TBN via Steam or Discord. Your mode idea is perfect it just needs a bit of integration to be part of the essential mods of Cities Skylines. Thank you for your efforts.