Thanks JB. The game will tell you which species will cohabitate together, but turns out there's a lot more that will. There's also some that definitely won't; I put two breeds of wolf in the same enclosure and they all killed each other. Fun times.
Thanks Wagi -- the game has several options for rock clusters, kind of like Planco. There's some rubble piles and some that are just rocks. I agree it's a great way to outline a water feature.
Yes, I suspect our bears will be extremely pampered in this park. Particularly the South American Big Bears.
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Lots of stuff happening all over the zoo, but mostly the completion of the desert dome. First some housekeeping; I saw a picture of this clock tower and wanted to re-create it for my entrance plaza. I liked that it was mostly see-through and wouldn't block any sightlines, kind of important for an entrance area.
The clocktower replaces the big concrete ball fountain, which has been kept and relocated to the front of the desert dome, replacing a boring planter that looked just like the one next to it.
Last week I mentioned how the desert dome was blocking visibility to Elephant Hall and how I would have to do some theming between them to bridge the two...
Having the elephant sculpture jut out from the sidewalk a bit makes it more visible to peeps down the path, telling them there's something to see in this direction. And adding another entrance/exit onto the desert dome in this location will lure some additional traffic and give peeps exiting the dome the view of Elephant Hall as it was originally meant to be seen back in the 60's or 70's or whenever. The brick path between the two is meant to imply some original pathwork that survived through the years.
Since it's raining, let's duck back into Elephant Hall briefly to see some minor renovations added since the last update... planters, lighting, wall decor, new seating... very subtle but at least it's not as stark as it used to be. Also, I would like to point out the new AlmightyTouch 2000 stainless steel touch screens that have been added to every habitat throughout the zoo, courtesy of AlmightyTech Industries. Patent pending.
The main event this week is the desert dome. Had to make some significant improvements on the exterior, the roof over the base was very jagged and had to be replaced with something non-gridded. While out there I added some trim and pulled back on my over-the-top desert landscaping that would be inappropriate for this region. There's plenty of opportunity for desert vegetation inside.
This is based off of a similar dome at the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha. Mine has three habitats that run along the perimeter with some additional exhibits in a central cave, 7 species in the entire building. The challenge for me was not to make this feel like one big giant open room that you walk into and see everything all at once; in this case sightlines needed to be blocked so that you would see something new around each corner and feel like you were exploring.
The first habitat was formerly occupied by the dingos. But since they all ignored our very strict no-violence clause in the HR handout and all killed each other, they are not being replaced at this time. Their habitat has been given to the African Wild Dogs, who seem to be much less wild.
Next, we have the camels. We had to include them because there is a camel on the sign over both entrances.
Barely worth showing but I'll show it anyway, here's the 3 exhibits inside the central cave.
I originally wanted 4 habitats, but since all of the animals were complaining about enclosure sizes I dropped down to 3 and increased the other 2 enclosure sizes. To make up for that, the third habitat is combining the Springbok's and the Gemsbok's. Not just because both their names end with "bok" but because they are both from desert biomes and I didn't have any other animals left.
There are also some dead spaces not part of any habitat where I just landscaped with biome-appropriate foliage; it's part of the desert experience. Lots of cacti.
Finally, and we'll have to go back out to the rain for this, a new structure was added outside of the zoo that changes the skyline. It's the Perkins Learning Center, which I assume to be mostly classrooms for both high school and college level future zookeepers. Or maybe just people who like animals. As long as they pay the tuition we really don't care what they do.
What I like about this building is that I didn't have any real world influences, just a rough idea of the size I wanted. From there it was just lots of editing with the adding and subtracting of elements until it felt like something that might exist. I also took this as an opportunity to play with some of the few lighting options this game has.
The back of that building isn't finished yet; I want to add some additional parking and some sort of garden back there that connects all the way up with that dead-end path between the elephant and desert dome buildings.
No overhead this week; there's lots of spoilery stuff happening throughout the park and our marketing people didn't want any of that leaked to the public. I'm afraid if I don't comply they'll just get rid of me like they did with the dingos.
credit: The glass dome section of the Desert Dome is from the workshop, I wasn't about to make that myself. Played with a few workshop options but this one seemed to be the right size and didn't have any other theming to get rid of, making it easy for me to customize to my needs. Looks like I'll be doing something similar with the aviary; the one I built is a big mess.