How I think walk-through exhibits can be significantly improved

So I think for walk-through exhibits, something that'd be amazing would be to give us greater control of their shape. To make it fairly intuitive, I'm using the 4mx4m grid as that's what the game's walls use. So, using blender, I made mock-ups of 4 pieces that work with the grid: a full square, a quarter circle, and a right triangle. I also provided an example of the sort of floor plan you can make with these pieces. The freedom this offers to players will be far more conductive to zoo-building than just 1 kind of. As well, it shouldn't be a Herculean effort to code (I could be wrong tho)





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I think there is a reason why it is the shape it is. If you could freely piece together the exhibit there would have to be a set of loops for every single layout possible. While something like this would be really cool i dont think its realistic to think it will come in the game
Well theoretically there could be loops restricted to the smaller pieces ("small" they are still all atleast 32m3 units), so loops contained to just one part of the exhibit are certanly possible.
Another possibility would be that the game could check for continued space on the borders and have larger loops enabled based on that aswell as transition loops from one zone to the next
 
Well theoretically there could be loops restricted to the smaller pieces ("small" they are still all atleast 32m3 units), so loops contained to just one part of the exhibit are certanly possible.
Another possibility would be that the game could check for continued space on the borders and have larger loops enabled based on that aswell as transition loops from one zone to the next
Oh, that's an excellent idea. Idk why I didn't think about it
 
Wholeheartedly support this idea. As long as we're bound to the current very large exhibit box, I don't see myself using it that much. It's very dissapointing how limiting it can be for creativity. At this point I think it's clear we're gonna get a bird for the walkthrough exhibit at some point, but it would be awesome if wwe could put them in smaller (or larger) exhibits that don't necessarily have to be walkthrough. We're long overdue a rework of the exhibit system. You don't put a tiny frog in a 4x4x4m box, that's ridiculous. Anyone who's actually been to a zoo can testify how small some exhibits are. Please Frontier, give us more variety in terms of size. Maybe just give us the static exhibit animals as props so we can put them in smaller boxes of our own making? I don't want to have to resort to using mods every time I want to create a realistic reptile house.
 
So I think for walk-through exhibits, something that'd be amazing would be to give us greater control of their shape. To make it fairly intuitive, I'm using the 4mx4m grid as that's what the game's walls use. So, using blender, I made mock-ups of 4 pieces that work with the grid: a full square, a quarter circle, and a right triangle. I also provided an example of the sort of floor plan you can make with these pieces. The freedom this offers to players will be far more conductive to zoo-building than just 1 kind of. As well, it shouldn't be a Herculean effort to code (I could be wrong tho)





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I love the idea but it'd extremely hard to code in the current engine, based on the system they use.
 
I love the idea but it'd extremely hard to code in the current engine, based on the system they use.
Not necessarily. It'd just be a modular system of the already existing exhibit. It should be possible within the engine I believe. You'd just have to find a way to have an exhibit detect if there's adjacent modules and depending on that have certain looped animations for the animals. It's ambitious, yes, but isn't that exactly what you're looking for in a good game?
 
As well, it shouldn't be a Herculean effort to code (I could be wrong tho)
Well theoretically there could be loops restricted to the smaller pieces ("small" they are still all atleast 32m3 units), so loops contained to just one part of the exhibit are certanly possible.
How is that different from what we currently have? You can make the exhibit 'null' with the animals restricted to the original space but build around it however you want with whatever pieces you want, so unless I'm missing something all of this is already possible.
 
We are talking about changing the actual area detected as the WE not building pieces or something.
Imagine it like this:
The WE is 8x12x16 if im not stupid. Thats the area where the animals can fly around in and loop in.
What tigris and i are saying is, that it would be a great change if we could actually adjust this area by having zones that are 4x4x4 (basicly exhibit box size) and some form variations like round shapes.
With those "null" area pieces we would like to be able to form the area the animals are flying in for creative freedom, because otherwise if you dont want the animals to clip outside of their habitat you need to allways build the size of the WE or larger, which limits creativity.
Ofcourse some other changes that would need to be possible would be freely placeable enritchment pieces, as the places that they normslly would spawn in wouldnt be guranteed to be inside the exhibit.
+ that would just be cool in general
 
How is that different from what we currently have? You can make the exhibit 'null' with the animals restricted to the original space but build around it however you want with whatever pieces you want, so unless I'm missing something all of this is already possible.
You gotta understand. I know diddly about how video games actually work.
Thus, idk what's feasible and what's not.
 
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You gotta understand. I know diddly about how video games actually work.
Thus, idk what's feasible and what's not.
No, like, your idea is feasible, I was just wondering how it's different to what we already have, but Konig explained it.

In terms of opinion I don't really see that it makes a huge difference.
 
Ok so if anyone out there knows anything about coding for games, could you explain to me how something like this could work? My idea is that you could have a per-determined series of loops that take place on different sizes of grid ranging from 1 4x4 piece to more. I could also see this with the terrariums but for 1/2m pieces
 
Ok so if anyone out there knows anything about coding for games, could you explain to me how something like this could work? My idea is that you could have a per-determined series of loops that take place on different sizes of grid ranging from 1 4x4 piece to more. I could also see this with the terrariums but for 1/2m pieces
The current engine does not support modular building. The WEs have preset looped animations tied to certain objects.
A modular system like you suggest would require the game to essentially replace every possible configuration you put with a new complete building, which means either the developers have to account for every WE shape possible, or the game has to create dynamic loops. The former is way too much work and the latter is not supported in the current system, and would actually be more akin to full on functional aviaries, which would be great but are not in the game as of now.
 
The current engine does not support modular building. The WEs have preset looped animations tied to certain objects.
A modular system like you suggest would require the game to essentially replace every possible configuration you put with a new complete building, which means either the developers have to account for every WE shape possible, or the game has to create dynamic loops. The former is way too much work and the latter is not supported in the current system, and would actually be more akin to full on functional aviaries, which would be great but are not in the game as of now.
What if we could freely place such objects and the AI can simply find a path between them. Heck, most zoo birds usually just perch anyway so a few things like feeding perches, nest boxes, and a null perch would be amazing
 
What if we could freely place such objects and the AI can simply find a path between them. Heck, most zoo birds usually just perch anyway so a few things like feeding perches, nest boxes, and a null perch would be amazing
That seems the most logical way to implement free flight, habitat/aviary objects that define a waypoint is probably the most performance friendly way for pathfinding for the birds. We already have a simple version of that in the walkthrough exhibits where butterflies go through alternative loops around a certain target
 
That seems the most logical way to implement free flight, habitat/aviary objects that define a waypoint is probably the most performance friendly way for pathfinding for the birds. We already have a simple version of that in the walkthrough exhibits where butterflies go through alternative loops around a certain target
Yeah if you just give us a variety of perches and 1 null perch, it'll be golden. You could then have a stripped down version of this for exhibit animals
 
With the sloths having come, I think this would especially benefit them as you can then place that exhibit in much more creative ways such as in another forest exhibit
 
With the sloths having come, I think this would especially benefit them as you can then place that exhibit in much more creative ways such as in another forest exhibit
This goes back to what I originally said - it's already possible. You can plonk the WE down in the middle of an existing habitat, or build a habitat around it. So for example if you wanted a mixed capuchin/sloth habitat, you'd put the null WE exhibit down with the sloths in it, and build a capuchin habitat around and through it. The capuchins would be able to enter the WE freely and 'mingle' with the sloths.
 
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