So I’m starting a new zoo project as many of you know, and I’ve come to the part of it where I’m going to build a parking lot. This is actually my first time doing one, so I need a few tips and tricks on how to do it. I’m also having the parking lot basically right off a highway exit, so I could also use some tips on how to kinda connect things. Thanks!
How do I Build a Parking Lot?
- Thread starter Orkan
- Start date
Plaster pieces, lots of plaster pieces
Step 1 : Build a large grid of plaster wall floor pieces colored to your preference of road material. You can expect this to be in the several hundreds and get bored very quickly of placing these. I use the gray asphalt path as default so I can match the road with the path using colour code #999292.
Step 2 : plan out your parking spaces layout and place the safari jeep vehicle (African off road vehicle), using vertical plaster pieces or primitive rectangles, make a parking space to your standards around the vehicle. You can then duplicate the parking space to make a line of spaces, duplicate more and more and eventually you get an empty parking lot.
Step 3 : you can add lights, foliage planters, kerbs to decorate the parking lot both inside and around it. Optionally you can place the jeep to fill the parking lot, do not use workshop vehicles to fill up the spaces, as nice as they look they are like 800 pieces per vehicle. The average realistic parking lot is 200-400 spaces big.
Or you can just watch my Calgary zoo entrance speedbuild showing how to build a small parking lot, here i used the path method instead of the plaster floors. Sadly I never recorded my detailed Houston zoo one with realistic road texture work :
Source: https://youtu.be/iXz4SE86Tjk?si=USyJqFLS3wfh9aKM
Step 1 : Build a large grid of plaster wall floor pieces colored to your preference of road material. You can expect this to be in the several hundreds and get bored very quickly of placing these. I use the gray asphalt path as default so I can match the road with the path using colour code #999292.
Step 2 : plan out your parking spaces layout and place the safari jeep vehicle (African off road vehicle), using vertical plaster pieces or primitive rectangles, make a parking space to your standards around the vehicle. You can then duplicate the parking space to make a line of spaces, duplicate more and more and eventually you get an empty parking lot.
Step 3 : you can add lights, foliage planters, kerbs to decorate the parking lot both inside and around it. Optionally you can place the jeep to fill the parking lot, do not use workshop vehicles to fill up the spaces, as nice as they look they are like 800 pieces per vehicle. The average realistic parking lot is 200-400 spaces big.
Or you can just watch my Calgary zoo entrance speedbuild showing how to build a small parking lot, here i used the path method instead of the plaster floors. Sadly I never recorded my detailed Houston zoo one with realistic road texture work :
Some more tips are to not build a parking lot that's massive (unless it's a recreation of an average American zoo), use a mix of gridded pieces with your paths (find the right color to blend in with your paths, so you can have nice edges), and to break it up with decorations and along with cracks and asphalt pothole repairs (use the moss and the grungy decals).
Here's my WiP parking lot for my next zoo, you can't even see where the plaster and paths meet (def made this one too large but I like how it looks).
For the road to parking lot connection, check out real zoos and see how they do it. It took me forever to figure out how I wanted the road to connect, and I just used a similar road layout as the Indy Zoo
Here's my WiP parking lot for my next zoo, you can't even see where the plaster and paths meet (def made this one too large but I like how it looks).
For the road to parking lot connection, check out real zoos and see how they do it. It took me forever to figure out how I wanted the road to connect, and I just used a similar road layout as the Indy Zoo