Anyone else terrible at building?

[Robbierotten]

Anyone else that just can't build anything? It's really disheartening and dampening my enjoyment for the game. I can't seem to do anything besides build simple rectangular/square shaped structures. I see all these beautiful and elaborate designs on Youtube and in the Workshop -- people using pieces in ways I never thought possible. I just look at the list of building parts and go blank. I don't know how to mesh all these parts together. Everything I make looks awful.

Sure, I can download a bunch of workshop items. But it feels more fulfilling to me to be able to use my own structures as opposed to just pasting in someone else's work. I don't know, it's just frustrating.

 

[floridameerkat]

I'm the same. It definitely makes the game a little less fun, as I really just want to watch the animals, but to do that I need to build them a habitat first. I don't think there's anything wrong with square or rectangular exhibits, though. A lot of real life zoos don't make super complex or fancy looking habitats; they just make ones that work for the animals. I have recently started making "L" shaped exhibits, just to give my zoos some variety.

 

[Garyd73]

Yep me too, it was the same with PC which is why I prefer the career over Sandbox.

I don't believe Youtube gives you a fair indication of what most people can produce in the Planet series of games, the popular ones are mostly so far ahead of most people in terms of skill and creativity it is very unfair on yourself to try and emulate them. More than anything it takes time and practice, the building tools are not easy to master but are very powerful.

There are some good building tutorials online that are worth watching, the main things to gather are building around the grid/group (or not) and using X and Ctrl X to build with. The problem I have been left with is around creativity like you just staring at the screen without ideas, I very rarely have the time needed to dedicate to building something elaborate as it would take me upwards of 4-5 hours.

However I did fine it useful to either watch a video of someone building or something similar to what I want to create on a second screen/tv/picture next to me when doing it.

If you are having issues with enclosures I tend to find verticality makes a big difference and just doing some terror forming along with foliage and rocks generally gives me something I am happy with. Putting reeds or rocks around a pool of water makes a huge difference.

 

[Agathorn]

To be fair this is kind of looking at a professional artist's painting and then wondering why you can't make something the same. I agree it can be frustrating, as you want the game to let you be creative like that but in all honesty to match what YTers do, you need to learn a lot of tricks and almost break the game in some ways. That is not representative of what the "average" person is expected to achieve.

 

[Silhouette]

I think about that sometimes, but here's the catch guys:

Many of those aren't just done blindly from inspiration. I'm going to use Geekism and MaskedBandit here as examples. You look at a lot of stuff they do and all the detail they put into it and think "damn, how's that possible?" But then when they talk about their builds, they mention using 'x' building as inspiration, or that they literally copied 'x' place. While this isn't the case every time, they've also had years of using real buildings as blueprints for their projects, so it's probably natural to them now to understand architecture.

So if you find yourself struggling to make things, look up references! Find zoo pictures or places you've been and try to recreate them in-game with the pieces available to you. The more you draw inspiration from real life, the more you'll subconsciously become more aware of real architecture and detail.

 

[PeppyPepp]

Don't give up just yet! As someone who has never played PlanCo I am also having some difficulty with the building system. The amount of pieces is insane and it can get a bit overwhelming. Don't worry about it. If I mess something up and I can't fix it I just try to cover it with something like a tree or a rock or I put flowers around it or whatever.

 

[Souldrake]

I suck at building but mainly because I start out... don't really have inspiration for anything... then don't wanna spend the time to actually make the thing I was trying to make before. I did make a climbable cave for my Formosan black bears which isn't pretty but it works... it was rather frustrating to make though since apparently you need to use climbable platforms to make the bears climb up the rocks...

Frontier-- climbable rocks please?

 

[Sirlacker]

The hardest part is knowing what you have to work with.

Start off copying some designs and then adding your own twist once you're into the build process.

You'll definitely get there eventually!

 

[bamber]

I am useless at building I am an engineer by trade so creativity is horrible so take with a pinch of salt.

But a few tips have helped me. What is boring is square and rectangular buildings - Break up the outlines and square shapes

Avoid square and rectangular buildings

I avoid square and rectangular by building L and T shaped buildings. if you build L and T shaped building you have a bigger variety and so better looking buildings that look different.

Roof heights

On T and L shape building this is easy use different pitches for different legs of the roofs

These two alone massively change the outline of your buildings and make a big difference and make them look different

F Key

I use the F key a lot it centre the object in the middle of the wall - so your windows look great and all in a line

Inside and outside of the grid

Build on the inside of the grid with a 4m wall.then on the outside put in a 1m wall around the base and change the colour it now looks like a facia board and is quite nice. effect Changing colour of a facia bored was almost another tip

Use 2m grid size

Change the grid size to 2m adding a outhouse on the gable end does wonders to the look of a rectangular building

I am by no means creative but by just doing a few of these it breaks up the outline of your buildings and they look better. you can then move other stuff like combining themes ( a brick building with Asian trim looks ace)

 

[Amrah]

@bamber already made a great list of tips

I would like to add one:

Make sure to add some decorations and plants at the end. This gives a finishing touch and makes even simple buildings a lot more interesting

 

[Siska-Coda]

@bamber: Thanks for sharing this tips! They are really good to remember

I have problems building, too. I never played Planet Coaster so I am not familiar with all the stuff and how to utilise them. But I made it my mission to practice, practice, practice.
I have a whole "zoo" just to test building things. Basically, it's just a map of random buildings, nothing connected and so one because I just play around with the stuff.
And I took good looking blueprints from the workshop, placed them and tried to build it myself so I get a better feeling. This really helps me! But the downside is that I only played with animals for maybe an hour or two, because I practice building so much, but I want all of it to look good, so... practice it is

 

[bamber]

Thanks for the comments remember I am absolutely useless at design BUT these add some simple creativity to your shapes and give you confidence to try more

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Good advise, bamber.

... Inside and outside of the grid

Build on the inside of the grid with a 4m wall.then on the outside put in a 1m wall around the base and change the colour it now looks like a facia board and is quite nice. effect Changing colour of a facia bored was almost another tip ...

To this one, I have an addition:
It's not even neccesary to leave the grid - unless, of course, you want the salient.

One beautiful detail of PZ/PC's building system is, that the wall pieces are not completely symetric, but a tiny bit off-center.
The result is that we can turn them by 180° and they will show/hide in other walls.
The arcs can be filled with different wall types or, as in your example, a certain part of a wall can be "colored" differently without otherwise visible salient.

--

But, yea, the main tips were already posted multiple times:

1) Get inspirations from looking at pictures! Lots of different ones and then specific ones for the actual building project. The greatest naturalistic painters didn't create their pictures just out of their imagination. They sat in the nature and painted what they saw or had barely dressed models sit in front of them.
It's important though to learn to recognize details and not just "gaze" at something superficially. Analyze, what you are seeing! Point out to yourself, what makes this building different to other building styles, what defines its character.
If you really want to dive into it, try to draw it. That's what we did in our anatomy courses when I studied biology. There is no better way to learn about an object. What are the size relations? What are the angles? What the little details that add to the overall picture? But again, this is probably taking things too far ...

2) Familiarize with the available pieces. Go to the sandbox, filter for a theme so you get a feeling for it and are able to finde the pieces more easily later and just place them down. Look at them. Try to imagine what else you could do with them. Even if no other use is apparent, your brain needs to know stuff in order to be able to associate with it later, when you need it.

 

[Fishook]

Another good tip, is get a blueprint and the edit it to see how they have come up with their ideas utilising building parts. I am determined not to use any blueprints what so ever playing Planet Zoo, my main problem with building is that it is very time consuming. I know I will never compete with some of content creators who are just brilliant. The addition of Franchise Mode has really got my creative juices going compared to Planet Coaster, as I also enjoy the management side of it as well.

 

[Arthur Dent81]

Good to hear that I am not the only "horror house" builder. I will watch tutorials this weekend. Have to learn the mechanics first.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

Don't be discouraged making basic shaped buildings with simple details, fully embrace it. You will get better as you get used to all the pieces & just keep at it. Instead of, "Happy little trees" just think, "Happy little boxes"

 

[stridecolossus]

Another suggestion: download some blueprints from the workshop and have a good look at them, you don't have to use them in your zoos necessarily (can can therefore just recoup the money) but you get to see in detail how the 'experts' put together interesting and innovative buildings, without the effort of doing it yourself!

Like many people in this thread I struggled to create anything that didn't end up looking like a concrete shoe box - the construction UI is powerful but (IMHO) hideously un-intuitive to use, which makes things harder when you're already struggling to come up with something creative. Nothing wrong with borrowing other peoples great work, copying, amending, adapting, etc.

 

[Bo Marit]

I'm not the most natural builder either (anyone remember my Burger Stairs to Hell from Planet Coaster...? No? Good.), but I've always felt empowered by our lovely communities who are ever so supportive!! For me personally, it did take time (and a lot of livestreams!) to get used to so many pieces and what you can do with them, but once you've made a couple of things it definitely gets better. The filter system and Steam Workshop are definitely your friends!

Don't feel too discouraged, we've all started from zero!! I hope the lovely reactions in this thread make you feel a bit better ❤

 

[Nescio1]

Dont look to much to silvaret and ladydesigner and others, they really discourage people from building I think, cause you never will be able to build buildings like they do. I am indeed horrible in building, and yes i use a lot of blueprints in my parc( so everyone who makes them and uploads them, thanks )
But for the underwater viewingroom for my saltwater crocs i had to build one myself, and indeed it may not look like geekism or rudirenkamel made it, but it works
I never got a image in my head of what i am gonna build, I just start somewhere and see where i end up, again it may not be the pretiest, and i may need to redo complete parts, but in the end it works...and its mine

 

[AlexVonHumbug]

Anyone else that just can't build anything? It's really disheartening and dampening my enjoyment for the game. I can't seem to do anything besides build simple rectangular/square shaped structures. I see all these beautiful and elaborate designs on Youtube and in the Workshop -- people using pieces in ways I never thought possible. I just look at the list of building parts and go blank. I don't know how to mesh all these parts together. Everything I make looks awful.

Sure, I can download a bunch of workshop items. But it feels more fulfilling to me to be able to use my own structures as opposed to just pasting in someone else's work. I don't know, it's just frustrating.

If you can just build "rectangular/square shaped structures" than make it one of your features. Think about the persian gardens and the gardens of mogul-india, even the khmer-buildings. You can build spectacluar zoos with square shapes.