I was always confused by this, because games from over 15 years ago (including Zoo Tycoon 2) were able to implement diving and underwater navigation. Surely 15 years later this should be no problem, and even expected in the base game? I really should've asked this earlier because everyone seems to understand it except me, lol
Can someone explain why underwater navigation is difficult to implement?
- Thread starter Jeminyne
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Mostly because nobody except Frontier knows the limitations of the Cobra Engine.
My theory has always been that the Cobra Engine water isn't actually a 3D substance but a 2D surface (so animals can "swim" across the surface just as they "walk" on land - hippos also "walk" on the land beneath the 2D surface). I can't say for sure, of course, because I don't work at Frontier and don't know how the Cobra Engine actually works.
My theory has always been that the Cobra Engine water isn't actually a 3D substance but a 2D surface (so animals can "swim" across the surface just as they "walk" on land - hippos also "walk" on the land beneath the 2D surface). I can't say for sure, of course, because I don't work at Frontier and don't know how the Cobra Engine actually works.
Ohhh yeah that makes sense. I remember right, the Zoo Tycoon 2 water was also an animated 2D surface, then when you go under it, the game just gives your screen a blue filter and adds bubbles, changes the way sound reverberates, and boom you have water. No volumetric substance involved-- the animals are just animated different when in the "water" and clumsily navigate on an x, y, AND z axis. Planet Zoo definitely seems to be the same thing. So if underwater swimming was possible in ZT2 without volumetric water, it should be in Planet Zoo... but yeah I know nothing about the Cobra engine so I can't really say. Thanks for taking the time to answer!
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I think the other thing to note is that on a 2D surface like land (i.e. a singular directional plain), the animal's hitboxes only need to calculate for what is in front of or above them. Moving underwater would be pretty similar to moving through the air; the hitbox would need to also calculate for what is below them. Animal hitboxes are also currently very large and their range of movement is calculated based on navigable terrain - I imagine it's quite difficult to calculate for navigable space when the animal is literally moving through space in any direction.
As I said, of course, I'm only making assumptions. As far as I'm concerned, if Frontier says it's difficult (and they have, during a Reddit Q&A in the past) then I see no reason not to believe them. If it was easy to implement then I have no doubt we'd have seen it already - including underwater navigation would open up a lucrative market, after all.
Something does seem to have changed in the latest update/DLC, animals are now able to tell how deep the water is unlike before. You can check it by for instance using kangaroos, their traversable area is impacted by how deep the water is. Some parts of the water are traversable, whilst others aren't.
It seems like something is moving in the terms of water navigation, which is always a good thing even if it doesn't lead to underwater navigation.
It seems like something is moving in the terms of water navigation, which is always a good thing even if it doesn't lead to underwater navigation.
I just watched Rudi's video where he pointed this out as well. I honestly don't remember it being in the game before which is indeed interesting!
Here's the video if anyone wants to watch it for themselves:
That seems promissing. But did it really change? I know the zoopedia always said that "water is a barrier if deep enough". So some kind of deepness was calculated at the beginning as well. Maybe just "feet can reach ground" or "feet can't reach ground"?
I still have high hopes in Frontier regarding water navigation though. I believe they will tackle that problem eventually.
They did make a note for update 1.3 that they included shallow water animations, including some animals sleeping in shallow water. My guess is it's more of a "is the water deeper than x meters: yes/no?" to trigger these animations and make it traversable, so still not quite 3D navigation.
That is a great video Rudi made. I actually watched it earlier today on YouTube. It gives me a little hope frontier will find a way to pull off some form of underwater animations for the future. I think we can all assume frontier is very aware of the requests for marine and aquatic species and I’m sure they will do all they can to possibly make these a reality.
I understand that water animations and coding taking into account 3 vs 2 planes of field will make it more difficult, if we do see full on swimming and fully marine animals it may be quite a while. On the other hand I wouldn't mind if they were able to develop it along the means they have in part so far, and allow animals like seals and penguins to float, or just paddle along the surface such as other animals currently do, only a little more indepth.