Post by deekyfun on Jul 31, 2022 13:08:35 GMT
I wanted to share some screenshots about the Zoo I'm making in Planet Zoo.
I've named it Tranquility Zoo. Because I need something calming in my life, which is hectic and horrible, and this was meant to be a chilled out, relaxed zoo. Somewhere I can be at peace. At the same time, there is a vaguely unsettling mood in the atmosphere; perhaps it's a little too tranquil - like maybe they're pumping some kind of relaxant chemical into the air. For the animals, and, maybe, for you. The guests are meant to take their time, get comfortable, and only half-see the security guard watching them from around the corner of the ice cream shop. I wanted the approach from the entrance to evoke a kind of peace.
This is the first zone, which is focused on European animals. At this point, about 50 hours in, I'm mostly happy with it. It's not as decadent a build as some I see on Youtube, using millions upon millions of pieces to create a geometricaly accurate fence post, but I've tried to be kind of presentational without making the fans in my computer spin so hard they render the machine airborne. Anyway, this shows you the general layout and content. Any Planet Zoo veterans looking may note that I have left the zoo entrance as 'vanilla'. I am sorry for commiting that sin. It will be rebuild at a later date, when I can be 'bothered'.
The Flamingo Habitat was the first habitat I built. There is an upper viewing platform and one lower down close to 'the action'. Flamingo seemed a good choice for the 'starter' animal in Tranquility Zoo; not too flash, but not blowing your load on animal number one either. The main concept I wanted was to have a restaurant which looked over the Flamingo, so the guests could dine Al Fresco while yonder Flamingo frollicked. I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My daughter decided it was a Zizzi's, and we went from there.
This picture represents the darkest time in Tranquility Zoo's 85 year history. This is not zen. It is a clusterfuck of humans who cannot possibly be enjoying animals in this way. Though I did get a kick out of imagining my 10 Flamingos staring out at that concentrated slab of humans and thinking 'wow, they've really packed them in here; that can't be ethical, surely?'. Anyway, it got so bad I had to step in a tell everyone to 'calm the fuck down' and go see something else. We're now imposing a strict 2500 guest limit rule, like all chilled-out places have.
Next up is the Badger Habitat. I love this habitat. I went all out on the foilage. I also filled the viewing fence section with stinging nettles because they looked nice and I'm hoping to catch a few mouthy youngsters out. There is no Dock Leaf in this zoo. I was surprised, given the narrow selection of European animals in Planet Zoo, that Badger was on the menu. Where I'm from, the only viewing of Badgers is on the verges of A-Roads where they look stressfully less than pristine. Do people see Badgers at Zoos? They do at this zoo.
The next section is the centrepiece of the European Zone. The Grey Wolf habitat. In my real life excursions I've found wolf habitats are often a lot of staring at nothing while the wolves presumably laugh at you behind rocks or trees. In Tranquility Zoo, I wanted to give those suckers no place to hide. The habitat is big, it's viewable from all sides, and the feature is a large circular rock I have named 'Wolf Rock' which gives guests a raised platform to see into their cave sleeping area. I also built another restaurant with overlooking viewing on the habitat, as at this point I have become obsessed with guests eating pizza within viewing distance of 'an animal'. You may also notice that here at Tranquility Zoo we encourage our staff to roam freely alongside all the animals. Turnover, as you can imagine, is fairly high.
Alongside the Wolves is an Ibex Habitat. When building this, I wanted a nice rocky mountain side which allowed some traversal up along the mountain top. I managed to achieve this but the Ibex never bloody bother to go up there so I don't know why I bother. To give them a hint, I put a statue of one of their own up at the top. It's quite cool to see that thing as you're wandering around.
The Lynx habitat is tucked into a corner alongside a small Deer area, which has a shared viewing platform, allowing the guests to view both predator and prey, and imagine the carnage that would ensue if that one feeble barrier were to crumble. Such is the fragile nature of life. The Deer habitat was meant to be a small area, but I do feel a little guilty that it's a wee bit cramped (although within Planet Zoopedia specifications). I need to do a bit more work to it. I'm pretty happy with the Lynx habitat. It give them quite a bit of room to roam, some areas to relax out of view, but guests seem to see them. A lot of the work when planning the habitats is focused on trying to set up decent, semi realistic viewing areas without stressing the animals out.
Next up, in the middle of the European Zone, is the Grey Seal Habitat. This is probably my favourite one. It has a small zoo guide presentation area, viewing along the top across a large bridge, and an underwater viewing gallery which has a top floor restaurant where, you guessed it, guests can enjoy more italian food while watching Seals do their thing. I did permit this restaurant to also sell Burgers, so you can tell I'm quite pleased with it. When I stumbled on the second storey viewing restaurant, in the small hours of the morning, I literally clicked my fingers, I was so smugly pleased with myself.
The back end of the European zone is kind of Artic themed, and the big showpiece is the Polar Bear Habitat. They have a large enclosure with a viewing walk way allowing guests to do a little loop inside the habitat, which they won't stop banging on about so they must like it. There is also a large seated talk area for presentations. The Bears rarely attend.
We also have Reindeer and Arctic foxes as new additions to complete the European Zone, but I'm still working on their habitats at the moment. I'm quite happy with the reindeer viewing area as a kind of broken up wooden 'thing'. There's also a nice meeting area, picnic area based around a single tree which I'm hoping will stand out around all the rocky snowy landscape once it's fully complete.
The last thing, also a work in progress, is the Zoo train, which is intended to take guests around the entire zoo. I've build the first station and tracks leading out of the European area, but obviously with none of the other areas done there's still a fair bit of work to do before it gets to start working. I did consider calling it 'Around the Zoo in 80 Years' as once it's done, that's about how long it'll take in-game to get around it.
The last shot is one of the whole zoo, to give an indication of how much work there is left to do here. I've made a start on the connections in the Africa area, and a few animals to try and get the feel nailed down. I'm finding the ground colouring a bit limiting, as I kind of wanted yellower grass for parts of Africa, and redder sand/dirt for Australia, to give those zones are more distinct feel. The next steps will be finishing off Euro and starting properly on Africa.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this short (!) zoo tour. Please come again.
I've named it Tranquility Zoo. Because I need something calming in my life, which is hectic and horrible, and this was meant to be a chilled out, relaxed zoo. Somewhere I can be at peace. At the same time, there is a vaguely unsettling mood in the atmosphere; perhaps it's a little too tranquil - like maybe they're pumping some kind of relaxant chemical into the air. For the animals, and, maybe, for you. The guests are meant to take their time, get comfortable, and only half-see the security guard watching them from around the corner of the ice cream shop. I wanted the approach from the entrance to evoke a kind of peace.
This is the first zone, which is focused on European animals. At this point, about 50 hours in, I'm mostly happy with it. It's not as decadent a build as some I see on Youtube, using millions upon millions of pieces to create a geometricaly accurate fence post, but I've tried to be kind of presentational without making the fans in my computer spin so hard they render the machine airborne. Anyway, this shows you the general layout and content. Any Planet Zoo veterans looking may note that I have left the zoo entrance as 'vanilla'. I am sorry for commiting that sin. It will be rebuild at a later date, when I can be 'bothered'.
The Flamingo Habitat was the first habitat I built. There is an upper viewing platform and one lower down close to 'the action'. Flamingo seemed a good choice for the 'starter' animal in Tranquility Zoo; not too flash, but not blowing your load on animal number one either. The main concept I wanted was to have a restaurant which looked over the Flamingo, so the guests could dine Al Fresco while yonder Flamingo frollicked. I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My daughter decided it was a Zizzi's, and we went from there.
This picture represents the darkest time in Tranquility Zoo's 85 year history. This is not zen. It is a clusterfuck of humans who cannot possibly be enjoying animals in this way. Though I did get a kick out of imagining my 10 Flamingos staring out at that concentrated slab of humans and thinking 'wow, they've really packed them in here; that can't be ethical, surely?'. Anyway, it got so bad I had to step in a tell everyone to 'calm the fuck down' and go see something else. We're now imposing a strict 2500 guest limit rule, like all chilled-out places have.
Next up is the Badger Habitat. I love this habitat. I went all out on the foilage. I also filled the viewing fence section with stinging nettles because they looked nice and I'm hoping to catch a few mouthy youngsters out. There is no Dock Leaf in this zoo. I was surprised, given the narrow selection of European animals in Planet Zoo, that Badger was on the menu. Where I'm from, the only viewing of Badgers is on the verges of A-Roads where they look stressfully less than pristine. Do people see Badgers at Zoos? They do at this zoo.
The next section is the centrepiece of the European Zone. The Grey Wolf habitat. In my real life excursions I've found wolf habitats are often a lot of staring at nothing while the wolves presumably laugh at you behind rocks or trees. In Tranquility Zoo, I wanted to give those suckers no place to hide. The habitat is big, it's viewable from all sides, and the feature is a large circular rock I have named 'Wolf Rock' which gives guests a raised platform to see into their cave sleeping area. I also built another restaurant with overlooking viewing on the habitat, as at this point I have become obsessed with guests eating pizza within viewing distance of 'an animal'. You may also notice that here at Tranquility Zoo we encourage our staff to roam freely alongside all the animals. Turnover, as you can imagine, is fairly high.
Alongside the Wolves is an Ibex Habitat. When building this, I wanted a nice rocky mountain side which allowed some traversal up along the mountain top. I managed to achieve this but the Ibex never bloody bother to go up there so I don't know why I bother. To give them a hint, I put a statue of one of their own up at the top. It's quite cool to see that thing as you're wandering around.
The Lynx habitat is tucked into a corner alongside a small Deer area, which has a shared viewing platform, allowing the guests to view both predator and prey, and imagine the carnage that would ensue if that one feeble barrier were to crumble. Such is the fragile nature of life. The Deer habitat was meant to be a small area, but I do feel a little guilty that it's a wee bit cramped (although within Planet Zoopedia specifications). I need to do a bit more work to it. I'm pretty happy with the Lynx habitat. It give them quite a bit of room to roam, some areas to relax out of view, but guests seem to see them. A lot of the work when planning the habitats is focused on trying to set up decent, semi realistic viewing areas without stressing the animals out.
Next up, in the middle of the European Zone, is the Grey Seal Habitat. This is probably my favourite one. It has a small zoo guide presentation area, viewing along the top across a large bridge, and an underwater viewing gallery which has a top floor restaurant where, you guessed it, guests can enjoy more italian food while watching Seals do their thing. I did permit this restaurant to also sell Burgers, so you can tell I'm quite pleased with it. When I stumbled on the second storey viewing restaurant, in the small hours of the morning, I literally clicked my fingers, I was so smugly pleased with myself.
The back end of the European zone is kind of Artic themed, and the big showpiece is the Polar Bear Habitat. They have a large enclosure with a viewing walk way allowing guests to do a little loop inside the habitat, which they won't stop banging on about so they must like it. There is also a large seated talk area for presentations. The Bears rarely attend.
We also have Reindeer and Arctic foxes as new additions to complete the European Zone, but I'm still working on their habitats at the moment. I'm quite happy with the reindeer viewing area as a kind of broken up wooden 'thing'. There's also a nice meeting area, picnic area based around a single tree which I'm hoping will stand out around all the rocky snowy landscape once it's fully complete.
The last thing, also a work in progress, is the Zoo train, which is intended to take guests around the entire zoo. I've build the first station and tracks leading out of the European area, but obviously with none of the other areas done there's still a fair bit of work to do before it gets to start working. I did consider calling it 'Around the Zoo in 80 Years' as once it's done, that's about how long it'll take in-game to get around it.
The last shot is one of the whole zoo, to give an indication of how much work there is left to do here. I've made a start on the connections in the Africa area, and a few animals to try and get the feel nailed down. I'm finding the ground colouring a bit limiting, as I kind of wanted yellower grass for parts of Africa, and redder sand/dirt for Australia, to give those zones are more distinct feel. The next steps will be finishing off Euro and starting properly on Africa.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this short (!) zoo tour. Please come again.
