Königs Building Tipps
- Thread starter KönigDerKaffeebohnen
- Start date
@KönigDerKaffeebohnen I once again call upon your services for a problem:
I’m building a small armadillo pen and they can’t move. There’s plenty of space but they still have zero traversible area. Why is this and how do I fix it?
I’m building a small armadillo pen and they can’t move. There’s plenty of space but they still have zero traversible area. Why is this and how do I fix it?
Thats up to you.
Learning is about trying things out yourself and trying to use advise, not just hoping that someone tells you what to do.
Try looking in the first post, theres a whole segment about how to make walls look good
Funnily enough I actually just put a window there and a TV so the people waiting in line can watch something. The front is complete and I’m almost done with the whole entrance. I’ll post more photos in the What did you do in PzZ today thread soon!Thats up to you.
Learning is about trying things out yourself and trying to use advise, not just hoping that someone tells you what to do.
Try looking in the first post, theres a whole segment about how to make walls look good
So here we go for another longer post, this time about habitat design.
So first of the number 1 flaw that i see in most peoples build is terraforming.
To be frank, the flatter your map the more boring your zoo. Using your terrain tools alot before starting to build even your first anything is a big help to get a more interesting layout.
For a small example of that with a habitat, heres one view for my lion habitat.
First of, you directly see the hill for my african savannah and elephant habitat in the back on the left, while you can see both the viewing gallery and the house for the gorillas on the right.
For the lions themself, there are instantly five different levels of elevation at play. In the habitat, youve got 3 layers + the water moat, with the edge of the water where the first 2 lions are, the second layer with 2 enritchment items and the third lioness and another layer at top of the hill, with foliage between each layer.
This creates a far more dynamic view that makes the habitat appear bigger then it actually is as more of it is activly visible, aswell as obstruct the view on the area behind the hill, giving the lions a low stress zone to retreat to for all you non sandbox players.
This central hill structure also has another big strenght, as it helps contain the animals through moats, while the visitors can have rather unresricted viewing opportunitys.
The path here is around the same height as the second layer of the hill, making the visitors both being able to look at the animals at eye level, aswell as the animals not being able to break out.
Its a rather easy pattern of walkway/pathway for the animals, a layer of foliage, next layer of pathway, more foliage etc, with a few eye catcher and break ups inbetween with rocks, tree, bushes and enritchment items.
This also helps to effortleslly seperate habitats for a nice panorama view, as moats can be placed between the habitats, in this case between my meerkats and the lions again. This moat is practically invisible for the visitors, giving another zone to retreat to for your animals, but also means that for them if they look from across the meerkats, which we can quickly check.
And even if this is an older screenshot, it really shows the benefit doesnt it? The lion is standing aproximatly where the tree is in the upper picture and it creates a nice view on not just the meerkats but also the lions and elephants, which activly benefits the meerkat habitat.
This pic also shows an important aspect of a good zoo, dont build isolated habitats.
If a habitat is isolated it needs to stand on its own, which is possible and i also have some of this kind that im very happy with in my current zoo, but if your not working on the border of your zoo, its allways good to think of your habitats as a part of a bigger picture.
And dont just take my word for it.
This is zoo hagenbecks african panorama, looks good doesnt it? Well its infact the first of its kind.
Opend in 1907, Zoo hagenbeck was the worlds first zoo without cages completly seperating the visiors and animals by using different kinds of moats and the entire zoo had a focus on panorama views, with this being the african panorama with flamingos in front, zebras and antelopes in the middle, lions behind them and barbary sheep on the rocks in the back.
Its a rather simple technik but it revolutionised the way real world zoos were build, so i can highly recommend adding them into your build.
But now that you made the layout of your habitat, used moats and custom fences, how do you actually fill it?
First of, should you fill it?
This is the tortoise habitat in my tropical house, looks great doesnt it?
Well this is what the inside looks like
When creating a habitat, ironically whats in it is the least important compared to whats in front and whats behind it. The front is ofcourse your main view for the visitors, giving extra importance to your hopefully custom fences, aswell as the distance between the visitor and the habitat and how you filled it. No distance? A little bit with dirt rocks and grass? Vividly planted like here? And the same goes for the back. Whats your fence? Is there another habitat visible behind it? Are there lots of trees?
This has lots of advantages:
1. Traversable area in this game sadly kinda sucks, so pulling your decorative objects behind or in front makes the habitat look just as good while not hurting the traversable area, making smaller habitats possible for your animals.
2. It streamlines decoration. If you only decorate the fence in the back it will allready look very nice while being very easy, as you just put down a few plants and maybe rocks along the habitat outline, but it will still do the heavy lifting.
3. Decorating the outsides of the habitat while you build will not leave this area undecorated. Sounds obvious but i noticed myself that i tend to do one habitat and then move on to something else, meaning that often if i dont decorate the surroundings during my build i propaply wont do that for a long time, which is a shame as as we have established here, decorating the surroudnings of your habitat is more important than the habitat itself.
The same reasoning applies to the layering structure from above, where the bits between the height layers can be easily decorated while leaving the pathways open, making the habitat appear very lush and spaceous while streamlining the decorating process.
But now that we want to decorate it, how exactly do we do that?
Well first of look at this.
Now look at this
Quite the difference id say, but what did actually change?
Allmost nothing, no elevation, no brushes, not even new rocks. I only added large buffallo grass and some white flowers for contrast.
This is super usefull and was one of the main eye openers to me.
Does it up your piece count by alot? Yes
Is it worth it? Absolutly Yes
For grassy habitats, this is literally all you need. Add a few rocks, trees and bushes for contrast at a few places, add some enrtichment items as points of interests, add a few places for the animals as implied trails with some earthy ground brushes and less vegitation, add faux rocks and periwinkle leafs inbetween to either give a contrast or to strenghten the ground coverages and your good for the most part.
But thats not the only place where literally one plant and faux rocks makes it look much better.
For your wet moats, use waterthyme and faux rocks, maybe a log here and there and suddenly they will look much more lively. Maybe add some more Lilly pads, reeds and cattails and your moats and ponds will look better then ever.
So lets summarize!
1. Elevation is important and the Nr. 1 Thing that differentiates a boring looking zoo from a more interesting one just from the basic layout.
2. Whats before and behind the habitat is more important then in the habitat itself
3. Having a hill structure in the center of your habitat adds visual interests, makes for better views for the visitors, creates stress free zones for the animals and streamlines the decoration process
4. Enritchment items should be used as point of interests for both the animals and visitors as guranteed places where the animals will go, making them great as key points for your habitats
5. Buffallo Grass, the conservation flowers, faux rocks and water thyme make for great general ground coverage and make everything look better
Hope that was helpfull and understandable, happy building ^^
So first of the number 1 flaw that i see in most peoples build is terraforming.
To be frank, the flatter your map the more boring your zoo. Using your terrain tools alot before starting to build even your first anything is a big help to get a more interesting layout.
For a small example of that with a habitat, heres one view for my lion habitat.
First of, you directly see the hill for my african savannah and elephant habitat in the back on the left, while you can see both the viewing gallery and the house for the gorillas on the right.
For the lions themself, there are instantly five different levels of elevation at play. In the habitat, youve got 3 layers + the water moat, with the edge of the water where the first 2 lions are, the second layer with 2 enritchment items and the third lioness and another layer at top of the hill, with foliage between each layer.
This creates a far more dynamic view that makes the habitat appear bigger then it actually is as more of it is activly visible, aswell as obstruct the view on the area behind the hill, giving the lions a low stress zone to retreat to for all you non sandbox players.
This central hill structure also has another big strenght, as it helps contain the animals through moats, while the visitors can have rather unresricted viewing opportunitys.
The path here is around the same height as the second layer of the hill, making the visitors both being able to look at the animals at eye level, aswell as the animals not being able to break out.
Its a rather easy pattern of walkway/pathway for the animals, a layer of foliage, next layer of pathway, more foliage etc, with a few eye catcher and break ups inbetween with rocks, tree, bushes and enritchment items.
This also helps to effortleslly seperate habitats for a nice panorama view, as moats can be placed between the habitats, in this case between my meerkats and the lions again. This moat is practically invisible for the visitors, giving another zone to retreat to for your animals, but also means that for them if they look from across the meerkats, which we can quickly check.
And even if this is an older screenshot, it really shows the benefit doesnt it? The lion is standing aproximatly where the tree is in the upper picture and it creates a nice view on not just the meerkats but also the lions and elephants, which activly benefits the meerkat habitat.
This pic also shows an important aspect of a good zoo, dont build isolated habitats.
If a habitat is isolated it needs to stand on its own, which is possible and i also have some of this kind that im very happy with in my current zoo, but if your not working on the border of your zoo, its allways good to think of your habitats as a part of a bigger picture.
And dont just take my word for it.
This is zoo hagenbecks african panorama, looks good doesnt it? Well its infact the first of its kind.
Opend in 1907, Zoo hagenbeck was the worlds first zoo without cages completly seperating the visiors and animals by using different kinds of moats and the entire zoo had a focus on panorama views, with this being the african panorama with flamingos in front, zebras and antelopes in the middle, lions behind them and barbary sheep on the rocks in the back.
Its a rather simple technik but it revolutionised the way real world zoos were build, so i can highly recommend adding them into your build.
But now that you made the layout of your habitat, used moats and custom fences, how do you actually fill it?
First of, should you fill it?
This is the tortoise habitat in my tropical house, looks great doesnt it?
Well this is what the inside looks like
When creating a habitat, ironically whats in it is the least important compared to whats in front and whats behind it. The front is ofcourse your main view for the visitors, giving extra importance to your hopefully custom fences, aswell as the distance between the visitor and the habitat and how you filled it. No distance? A little bit with dirt rocks and grass? Vividly planted like here? And the same goes for the back. Whats your fence? Is there another habitat visible behind it? Are there lots of trees?
This has lots of advantages:
1. Traversable area in this game sadly kinda sucks, so pulling your decorative objects behind or in front makes the habitat look just as good while not hurting the traversable area, making smaller habitats possible for your animals.
2. It streamlines decoration. If you only decorate the fence in the back it will allready look very nice while being very easy, as you just put down a few plants and maybe rocks along the habitat outline, but it will still do the heavy lifting.
3. Decorating the outsides of the habitat while you build will not leave this area undecorated. Sounds obvious but i noticed myself that i tend to do one habitat and then move on to something else, meaning that often if i dont decorate the surroundings during my build i propaply wont do that for a long time, which is a shame as as we have established here, decorating the surroudnings of your habitat is more important than the habitat itself.
The same reasoning applies to the layering structure from above, where the bits between the height layers can be easily decorated while leaving the pathways open, making the habitat appear very lush and spaceous while streamlining the decorating process.
But now that we want to decorate it, how exactly do we do that?
Well first of look at this.
Quite the difference id say, but what did actually change?
Allmost nothing, no elevation, no brushes, not even new rocks. I only added large buffallo grass and some white flowers for contrast.
This is super usefull and was one of the main eye openers to me.
Does it up your piece count by alot? Yes
Is it worth it? Absolutly Yes
For grassy habitats, this is literally all you need. Add a few rocks, trees and bushes for contrast at a few places, add some enrtichment items as points of interests, add a few places for the animals as implied trails with some earthy ground brushes and less vegitation, add faux rocks and periwinkle leafs inbetween to either give a contrast or to strenghten the ground coverages and your good for the most part.
But thats not the only place where literally one plant and faux rocks makes it look much better.
For your wet moats, use waterthyme and faux rocks, maybe a log here and there and suddenly they will look much more lively. Maybe add some more Lilly pads, reeds and cattails and your moats and ponds will look better then ever.
So lets summarize!
1. Elevation is important and the Nr. 1 Thing that differentiates a boring looking zoo from a more interesting one just from the basic layout.
2. Whats before and behind the habitat is more important then in the habitat itself
3. Having a hill structure in the center of your habitat adds visual interests, makes for better views for the visitors, creates stress free zones for the animals and streamlines the decoration process
4. Enritchment items should be used as point of interests for both the animals and visitors as guranteed places where the animals will go, making them great as key points for your habitats
5. Buffallo Grass, the conservation flowers, faux rocks and water thyme make for great general ground coverage and make everything look better
Hope that was helpfull and understandable, happy building ^^
Honestly detailing just comes down to patience more than anything else. If you haven't got patience you don't have much. Which is exactly why I stick to bare-bones stuff - I prefer consistency over flashiness and if I try to make things flashy then it will be inconsistent (because I'll get sick of spending ages on every little thing). Like the little path barriers people make with individual sticks and planks and such; no thank you! They look great, no doubt, but good god does it take time.
Id honestly disagree.
While its not wrong that detailing takes time, its not about the patiences but about the mindset.
Ofcourse somethings like custom path barriers just take ages and arnt very fun, but atleast for me detailing with foliage and rocks stopped being a chore and became fun the moment that i found some consistent ways to start it.
Looking at a blank habitat is a dreadfull feeling, but since i made it a routine of messing around a bit with elevation, put in a few enritchment items as key points and then start with the backwall, foliage layers or open grasses it isnt dreadfull anymore but very fun.
Instead of being clueless what to do at everyturn and making something meh after a lot of trial and error i make something beautiful in under an hour.
The two pics where i put in grass and flowers for the lions where under 5 minutes apart, yet id say its a drastic difference in appeal.
Ofcourse detailing isnt for everyone, but the most frustrating part is the cluelessness of what to do and once your actually over that hill and just know how to efficenty fill a habitat it becomes just as fun as the rest of the building if not more
Patience is a mindset.
I wouldnt call having fun being patient though
Amen to this. I notice that even some of the best builders around often seem to end up with some very flat maps, where most of their terrain work is within the habitats themselves.
Terrain in guest areas and empty zones and even just in the far back of the map can do a lot for the overall feel of the zoo.
What do you think 'patience' means? Patience is a mindset which allows you to spend a lot of time doing the same thing. That thing can be anything - something you enjoy or something you hate. Data entry is boring but takes patience. Building a model railroad is fun and still requires patience.
I'd say it's both patience but also the mindset Konig mentioned. I can have a plan, but then I don't have patience to do squat. Then it gets unfun for me. Or I follow a plan, but it's not so much needing patience but that it's not entertaining and it's more a chore.
Not to take over the thread with a tip, Mr. King, but I'd say that, above all, have fun. Experiment. Make mistakes. Fix those mistakes. Or, if you can't fix them, adapt. I have the most fun trying to figure out how to repair some stupid thing I did, and even if the process itself isn't the most glamorous or fun, at the end of the day, if I look at my creation and I'm satisfied, I'm happy (this is assuming I actually like the end result and didn't make it worse
)
Not to take over the thread with a tip, Mr. King, but I'd say that, above all, have fun. Experiment. Make mistakes. Fix those mistakes. Or, if you can't fix them, adapt. I have the most fun trying to figure out how to repair some stupid thing I did, and even if the process itself isn't the most glamorous or fun, at the end of the day, if I look at my creation and I'm satisfied, I'm happy (this is assuming I actually like the end result and didn't make it worse
)I'd say they're the same thing. The mindset to spend time creating something using lots of different pieces is patience. In any case, the point was that if you lack patience, then it's going to be hard to do high-detailed builds. You can still do some detailing without spending hours on it, but as a personal example I never bother to make building interiors look very interesting, because I'm never going to see them anyway.
Today i wanna talk about something abit more indirect.
Do you know the feeling that you want to play planet zoo? That you planned something but it didnt work out? Or even worse your staring at the blank canvis and dont know how to start?
This one is hopefully gonna be for you.
So more concrete i wanna talk about organic zoo building, which is a fancy way to say go with the flow.
To make this more clear im gonna go through an example of my own current zoo an elaborate on things along the way.
Starting of, you need an idear, the first stone must be put and id say it should allways be a habitat, even more so it should be a main habitat as its gonna be the heart of your project now. But what do i mean?
This first habitat should be in some way important to your zoo, be it size, theme, height, whatever as with this first habitat you should put out a strong identity for your zoo to follow and no habitat is better for that then the first.
Now for example mine was this bison habitat. I wanted to build a large bison habitat in the river that the zoo should circle around with the habitat being able to be seen from many places, so what does this tell me about my zoo?
1. There will be a river running through my zoo and i will have to adapt my future pathing and habitats around it, aswell as add bridges
2. My Zoo should have alot of elevation to make for many easy sightlines back down to the flat bison habitat aka im gonna use lots of terraforming to build up hills on the other side of this river so that you can look down from there across atleast one habitat on that side, the river and then see the bison in the background
These 2 themes of the river and elevation will define this zoo and be the main thing that make it stand apart from others even before i was good at decorating as i now have a strong theme on my hand.
Some other examples for this heart habitat could be an animal house with its style determening the style of atleast a section of your zoo or an entry habitat to a themed section or even better the main habitat that makes you want to make the section so that you can organically build around it.
Now you got your main habitat, whats the next step?
First of, build another habitat that follows the first theme. In my case i used american bison, so a prariedog habitat fits perfectly next to them, aswell as the staff path needed to intersect with those habitats, so it goes behind the bisons, lowerd to not ruin the view. Then that their would be another habitat next to it was a no brainer, but for the layout i used the viewing point seen in the picture above to look across and allign the walls and elevation in a way to make the habitat visible from the other side of the river. At first i wanted moose in there, but because of the staff path i had a rather low barrier so it needed something small which is currently filled by red foxes, but also could be skunks or badgers and fit well with the vibe of the 2 habitats before it.
But now we established the viewpoint from the other side to look across the bison into....empty hills. How exciting.
So the answer to that is building the next habitats on the other side of the river to actually have something to look on.
As the habitat i build so far were filled with temperate north american animals, i used the opportunity to start a new themed area for asia, fueled by my hype for the release of the red crowned crane and later prez wildhorse. This gives us now a long sight line complete, two thematic areas and 5 habitats just from literally building around our heart and using its main aspect to our advantage.
On the other side it was hard to see whats behind it anyways because of the bunch of trees so i used that to my advantage and blocked this thematic part of with another row of trees and started a second defining heart habitat, this time for lions with the idear of a layerd habitat where you see lions in the foreground, hyenahs in the middle and an african savannah habitat in the back.
This means for an time easier and a stronger effect, that strongly rising the elevation into a hill would be the play, firmly defining this zoo as very hilly.
With the lions in the foreground and the africa savannah in the back i struggled to integrate the hyenas, so they were cut while the elephant hill now anchors this area as another main view point.
Following the path both our new and old theme meet as we got the elephants on the right and the river on the left as we ascend the hill to the new south america area fuled by my hype for the peccary.
Along the way there was some room, so gemsbock and aardvarks joined into this african area, adding another 2 effortless habitats that were cradled between the allready established river and the path, giving them allready a bunch of identity.
So now we made it from the right to the left in this build and build what id call a thematically consistend and logical zoo with lots of good and impressive sidelines that strenghten the whole with every addition made. Each space left around can now easily be filled by rather low effort habitats that will fill special due to factors allready implemented by the basic design. For example not shown here was a meerkat habitat on another view for the lions, from where you could see both the lions and the savannah, making for a great view even if the habitat is extremly basic. Ofcourse some idears and creativity here and there that branch of are allways nice but with this basic working around a few central idears its very easy to allways have something to do as you can just walk around, take a look, see an empty space adjacent to one of your habitats and continue from there.
Might not be mindblowing for most of you, but this problem of having so many options but not knowing what to do is something you hear so often and its just sad to see cause i know how that feels. This solution works for me and maybe for others strict planning works better, but atleast i allways go back on plans i made unless i activly incorporate them in my zoo.
I could go on and on for the rest of my zoo, but i think i made my point, so unless you guys wanna hear more next time i will think up some other tips.
Do you know the feeling that you want to play planet zoo? That you planned something but it didnt work out? Or even worse your staring at the blank canvis and dont know how to start?
This one is hopefully gonna be for you.
So more concrete i wanna talk about organic zoo building, which is a fancy way to say go with the flow.
To make this more clear im gonna go through an example of my own current zoo an elaborate on things along the way.
Starting of, you need an idear, the first stone must be put and id say it should allways be a habitat, even more so it should be a main habitat as its gonna be the heart of your project now. But what do i mean?
This first habitat should be in some way important to your zoo, be it size, theme, height, whatever as with this first habitat you should put out a strong identity for your zoo to follow and no habitat is better for that then the first.
Now for example mine was this bison habitat. I wanted to build a large bison habitat in the river that the zoo should circle around with the habitat being able to be seen from many places, so what does this tell me about my zoo?
1. There will be a river running through my zoo and i will have to adapt my future pathing and habitats around it, aswell as add bridges
2. My Zoo should have alot of elevation to make for many easy sightlines back down to the flat bison habitat aka im gonna use lots of terraforming to build up hills on the other side of this river so that you can look down from there across atleast one habitat on that side, the river and then see the bison in the background
These 2 themes of the river and elevation will define this zoo and be the main thing that make it stand apart from others even before i was good at decorating as i now have a strong theme on my hand.
Some other examples for this heart habitat could be an animal house with its style determening the style of atleast a section of your zoo or an entry habitat to a themed section or even better the main habitat that makes you want to make the section so that you can organically build around it.
Now you got your main habitat, whats the next step?
First of, build another habitat that follows the first theme. In my case i used american bison, so a prariedog habitat fits perfectly next to them, aswell as the staff path needed to intersect with those habitats, so it goes behind the bisons, lowerd to not ruin the view. Then that their would be another habitat next to it was a no brainer, but for the layout i used the viewing point seen in the picture above to look across and allign the walls and elevation in a way to make the habitat visible from the other side of the river. At first i wanted moose in there, but because of the staff path i had a rather low barrier so it needed something small which is currently filled by red foxes, but also could be skunks or badgers and fit well with the vibe of the 2 habitats before it.
But now we established the viewpoint from the other side to look across the bison into....empty hills. How exciting.
So the answer to that is building the next habitats on the other side of the river to actually have something to look on.
As the habitat i build so far were filled with temperate north american animals, i used the opportunity to start a new themed area for asia, fueled by my hype for the release of the red crowned crane and later prez wildhorse. This gives us now a long sight line complete, two thematic areas and 5 habitats just from literally building around our heart and using its main aspect to our advantage.
On the other side it was hard to see whats behind it anyways because of the bunch of trees so i used that to my advantage and blocked this thematic part of with another row of trees and started a second defining heart habitat, this time for lions with the idear of a layerd habitat where you see lions in the foreground, hyenahs in the middle and an african savannah habitat in the back.
This means for an time easier and a stronger effect, that strongly rising the elevation into a hill would be the play, firmly defining this zoo as very hilly.
With the lions in the foreground and the africa savannah in the back i struggled to integrate the hyenas, so they were cut while the elephant hill now anchors this area as another main view point.
Following the path both our new and old theme meet as we got the elephants on the right and the river on the left as we ascend the hill to the new south america area fuled by my hype for the peccary.
Along the way there was some room, so gemsbock and aardvarks joined into this african area, adding another 2 effortless habitats that were cradled between the allready established river and the path, giving them allready a bunch of identity.
So now we made it from the right to the left in this build and build what id call a thematically consistend and logical zoo with lots of good and impressive sidelines that strenghten the whole with every addition made. Each space left around can now easily be filled by rather low effort habitats that will fill special due to factors allready implemented by the basic design. For example not shown here was a meerkat habitat on another view for the lions, from where you could see both the lions and the savannah, making for a great view even if the habitat is extremly basic. Ofcourse some idears and creativity here and there that branch of are allways nice but with this basic working around a few central idears its very easy to allways have something to do as you can just walk around, take a look, see an empty space adjacent to one of your habitats and continue from there.
Might not be mindblowing for most of you, but this problem of having so many options but not knowing what to do is something you hear so often and its just sad to see cause i know how that feels. This solution works for me and maybe for others strict planning works better, but atleast i allways go back on plans i made unless i activly incorporate them in my zoo.
I could go on and on for the rest of my zoo, but i think i made my point, so unless you guys wanna hear more next time i will think up some other tips.
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Another post another try.
Have you ever asked yourself how some people manage to build so quick and effortless when it often can feel like whatever you do you dont make progress?
Ofcourse things like patience and experience play a role here, but just as importantly is having an artists eye, looking at your build and allready seeing what you "should" do before you have done that, be it on a large scale like imagining an entire area or zoo before putting it to work or just in the small stuff of how to decorate something neatly.
This might sound daunting, but really what a large part of that boils down to is a mix of inspiration and how comfortable you are with the pieces, both being things you can learn to get closer to your desired result.
Inspiration is in this case the easy one, to get the idear why not find something that inspires you?
The easiest thing would be to search whatever you want to build on zoochat and scroll through the images there, or maybe a real zoo you know got some parts youd like to borrow from, but also looking at general nature scenes or architectural styles can work to give you that idear, that starting point, but how do you actually set it into motion?
The best way to do that is by getting comfortable with the pieces and the quickest way to do that is through limitation.
Lets face it, the piece list is long and daunting so cutting down on them is basically a requirement especally at the start to keep the focus so what id recommend is to choose one theme at a time and explore it, with the two best starting points being imo the arctic and the conservation themes for opposite reasons.
The arctic themes wood pieces have the distinct advantage to flow into each other very well and rather effortlessly.
You place the walls, use Beams for the edges and seperation points, some of the other framings and decorative pieces to fill the space between.
For a very simple example this is my stable for my lamas, which i threw together very quickly just to have one with the only non arctic pieces being the european rock wall.
This is a great baseline to not only learn how to build better looking buildings in general, but gets you comfortable with the arctic wood pieces, especally the beams and how to use them, making it "obvious" when they would improve a build, while the stuff you build with the arctic is great for lowkey builds like stables.
For a direct example how that works to then swap up the theme but keep the style, this is another building that took aspects of the first building, the european walls and the arctic wood beams, and used them in a different context.
The arctic theme makes a good base in that way, as its pieces, especally the beams (mostly the beams) can be used in the same way in many differnt builds and look great, meanwhile the conservation pack does it by being a very logical and easy to understand how to use pack.
With all the backstage props they pretty much make it obvious what your suppoused to do with them and help increase the detail of areas, so atleast being aware of them really helps. The pack also has banger wood pieces in its planks that can come in handy many times, including in the build above.
Once you got the hang of those two, its the question what kind of style youd like to build in, with most having a corresponding theme that can help. Trying to go slow here really helps and while working on a themed area or maybe just some exercise builds you can find ways to use the pieces in buildings, fences and other miscellaneous things, while being aware of those pieces you have used before and hopefully having your artist eye awoken to them to see when they would be beneficial.
Overtime this should result in you developing a style with your favorite pieces, thats very much your own and you are comfortable in using.
The same goes for foliage, but with a second note about limitiation, it does not only breed creativity, it also promotes cohesion.
Having a consistent foliage template across your zoo makes it feel more like a real and natural plays and also takes away lots of the thinking and guessing.
I personally only use european + asian plants with the tundra, taiga, temperate and aquatic tags, aswell as the bison grass and faux rox for the outdoor part of the zoo and even in there only a select few, which gives me a varried selection but still keeps the choices down.
If i want a bush, 9/10 times it will be a mix of beech saps, oak saps, brumble bushes and dog rose bushes, just enough to be varried but as im using just 4 kinds of bushes i dont need to think what i will use if that makes sense.
Same for decorative plants, i mostly use the eagle fern, lady fern, pea shrub, nettles and arrista plants.
Mix that with some rocks (getting adjusted to the rock shapes happens quickly and faux rocks are yk) and some trees i actually put some thought to and voila you got a nice foliage pallete.
So now you got a palette and style and are building quicker and more efficently thanks to it, but now this enables the strongest tool of a consistent builder, breaking that consistency.
Think about it, when you got an established "normal" of your zoo that automaticly enhances any theming you use no many how small it is.
If you establish clear "rules" breaking them even slightly brings a great effect.
This australian house in my zoo is the only outdoor space where i broke away from my foliage pallate, using oceanian plants and tree as my only "theming" but thas allready enough to qualify as light theming. Same goes for example for deliberate use of bamboo.
Deliberate breaking of the norm makes for easy theming and thats propaply its biggest strenght
Have you ever asked yourself how some people manage to build so quick and effortless when it often can feel like whatever you do you dont make progress?
Ofcourse things like patience and experience play a role here, but just as importantly is having an artists eye, looking at your build and allready seeing what you "should" do before you have done that, be it on a large scale like imagining an entire area or zoo before putting it to work or just in the small stuff of how to decorate something neatly.
This might sound daunting, but really what a large part of that boils down to is a mix of inspiration and how comfortable you are with the pieces, both being things you can learn to get closer to your desired result.
Inspiration is in this case the easy one, to get the idear why not find something that inspires you?
The easiest thing would be to search whatever you want to build on zoochat and scroll through the images there, or maybe a real zoo you know got some parts youd like to borrow from, but also looking at general nature scenes or architectural styles can work to give you that idear, that starting point, but how do you actually set it into motion?
The best way to do that is by getting comfortable with the pieces and the quickest way to do that is through limitation.
Lets face it, the piece list is long and daunting so cutting down on them is basically a requirement especally at the start to keep the focus so what id recommend is to choose one theme at a time and explore it, with the two best starting points being imo the arctic and the conservation themes for opposite reasons.
The arctic themes wood pieces have the distinct advantage to flow into each other very well and rather effortlessly.
You place the walls, use Beams for the edges and seperation points, some of the other framings and decorative pieces to fill the space between.
For a very simple example this is my stable for my lamas, which i threw together very quickly just to have one with the only non arctic pieces being the european rock wall.
This is a great baseline to not only learn how to build better looking buildings in general, but gets you comfortable with the arctic wood pieces, especally the beams and how to use them, making it "obvious" when they would improve a build, while the stuff you build with the arctic is great for lowkey builds like stables.
For a direct example how that works to then swap up the theme but keep the style, this is another building that took aspects of the first building, the european walls and the arctic wood beams, and used them in a different context.
The arctic theme makes a good base in that way, as its pieces, especally the beams (mostly the beams) can be used in the same way in many differnt builds and look great, meanwhile the conservation pack does it by being a very logical and easy to understand how to use pack.
With all the backstage props they pretty much make it obvious what your suppoused to do with them and help increase the detail of areas, so atleast being aware of them really helps. The pack also has banger wood pieces in its planks that can come in handy many times, including in the build above.
Once you got the hang of those two, its the question what kind of style youd like to build in, with most having a corresponding theme that can help. Trying to go slow here really helps and while working on a themed area or maybe just some exercise builds you can find ways to use the pieces in buildings, fences and other miscellaneous things, while being aware of those pieces you have used before and hopefully having your artist eye awoken to them to see when they would be beneficial.
Overtime this should result in you developing a style with your favorite pieces, thats very much your own and you are comfortable in using.
The same goes for foliage, but with a second note about limitiation, it does not only breed creativity, it also promotes cohesion.
Having a consistent foliage template across your zoo makes it feel more like a real and natural plays and also takes away lots of the thinking and guessing.
I personally only use european + asian plants with the tundra, taiga, temperate and aquatic tags, aswell as the bison grass and faux rox for the outdoor part of the zoo and even in there only a select few, which gives me a varried selection but still keeps the choices down.
If i want a bush, 9/10 times it will be a mix of beech saps, oak saps, brumble bushes and dog rose bushes, just enough to be varried but as im using just 4 kinds of bushes i dont need to think what i will use if that makes sense.
Same for decorative plants, i mostly use the eagle fern, lady fern, pea shrub, nettles and arrista plants.
Mix that with some rocks (getting adjusted to the rock shapes happens quickly and faux rocks are yk) and some trees i actually put some thought to and voila you got a nice foliage pallete.
So now you got a palette and style and are building quicker and more efficently thanks to it, but now this enables the strongest tool of a consistent builder, breaking that consistency.
Think about it, when you got an established "normal" of your zoo that automaticly enhances any theming you use no many how small it is.
If you establish clear "rules" breaking them even slightly brings a great effect.
This australian house in my zoo is the only outdoor space where i broke away from my foliage pallate, using oceanian plants and tree as my only "theming" but thas allready enough to qualify as light theming. Same goes for example for deliberate use of bamboo.
Deliberate breaking of the norm makes for easy theming and thats propaply its biggest strenght