Biome Terrain Paints

[wildrapscallion]

The ability to use any biome terrain paints no matter what biome map you're using would be a great addition! This would give us the ability to make more realistic enclosures - for example, having lions on a Tropical map is fine and dandy, but being able to use the Grassland terrain paints for their enclosure would be spectacular!

 

[NZFanatic]

The ability to use any biome terrain paints no matter what biome map you're using would be a great addition! This would give us the ability to make more realistic enclosures - for example, having lions on a Tropical map is fine and dandy, but being able to use the Grassland terrain paints for their enclosure would be spectacular!

That would be the absolute opposite of realistic. The grassland grass paint is already unrealistic as it is - the African savannah is only 'yellow' when its dry, but flourishes green in the wet season like normal grasslands.

What most zoos do to replicate savannah environments is use a lot of sand and clay and very little, if any, grass (huge areas of grass can be difficult to maintain).

 

[wildrapscallion]

We already use biome-specific plant life and rocks, why not terrain? I don't see the issue.

 

[NZFanatic]

We already use biome-specific plant life and rocks, why not terrain? I don't see the issue.

Don't even get me started on the foliage. The rocks can be given a pass as lots of zoos use intensive artificial rockwork in a variety of colours, but the foliage bugs the hell out of me. Outside of a climate controlled environment there's no way you could plant a kapok tree in a temperate zoo, yet we're expected to do this anyway to keep the animals (who honestly don't actually know any better anyway) happy.

It's a sort of annoying feature with PZ though. Real zoos don't use a lot of foliage in most exhibits either because the animals eat and destroy it. Many great ape enclosures use fake foliage or purely use climbing structures with food hidden around them to stimulate foraging, because apes are notoriously destructive. Same with elephants. When foliage is used it's either native foliage to the zoo's environment that looks lush enough to be passed off as tropical or whatever or its exotic foliage that can be grown wherever the zoo is.

 

[wildrapscallion]

I can see this point of view.. but for those of us, like myself, who like to create a little slice of the biome that a specific animal comes from, being able to use different terrain paints would be helpful.