The disclosed methods include generating a navigation presentation for a device navigating a route. A virtual camera modifies how it captures map portions to produce scenes in the navigation presentation based on changes in navigation context. The method identifies different attributes describing different navigation contexts at different times during the navigation presentation, and uses these attributes to identify styles for operating the virtual camera. The method uses a style to specify the camera's positional attributes which define map portions that the virtual camera identifies for rendering to produce navigation scenes for some time (until the navigation context changes, or the presentation ends when the context does not change again). When the navigation context changes, the identified attributes may change. This change may cause selecting a new virtual camera style. When the style changes, the method modifies the way the virtual camera captures the portion of the map to render.