Moving rivers and descending water

[Sir Artix]

We need improved and new water mechanics in Planet Zoo. I have seen this question for Jurassic World, but it is so necessary for planet zoo too. I am not sure what obstacles Frontier faces with their water mechanics, but to have moving rivers and actual waterfalls that create themselves when a pool has an opening would be amazing and would allow so much more in this game. I know I am not the only one who feels this way, it would be exciting to see other thoughts on this and what can be done to help us move towards implementing these mechanics.

 

[Frobacca]

I would love to be able to having running waterfalls without putting in the waterfall feature

 

[Sir Artix]

I would love to be able to having running waterfalls without putting in the waterfall feature

I am pretty sure this too was a feature in zoo tycoon 2. What is different between the mechanics of planet zoo and zoo tycoon 2 that doesn’t allow us to have these desired features?

 

[coatifan]

I am pretty sure this too was a feature in zoo tycoon 2. What is different between the mechanics of planet zoo and zoo tycoon 2 that doesn’t allow us to have these desired features?

They are not the same game? This question is as silly to me as asking why any two games in one genre are different. Why does Minecraft have differences from terraria even though they’re both sandbox crafting games? Because they’re different games.

 

[ElectricMonk]

Running water, as per (for example, cities skylines) is very RAM intensive. Since the game is already RAM hungry, I don’t think it’s a great idea. Not that it wouldn’t be cool - it would. It’s just impractical.

 

[Sir Artix]

They are not the same game? This question is as silly to me as asking why any two games in one genre are different. Why does Minecraft have differences from terraria even though they’re both sandbox crafting games? Because they’re different games.

I ask because planet zoo was inspired by zoo tycoon, so the people who made it us to have looked into all of these things and made a decision. I am just trying to figure out why they came to that decision, and when I mentioned how the games are different, what I meant was by the way it was coded. I am unfamiliar with the differences between what methods planet zoo used to code the game and the way zoo tycoon 2 used to code the game. Was it an issue with the engine? Was it lack of dedication? Was it poor game architecture? Was it because they were piggy backing off of planet coaster?

 

[Sir Artix]

Running water, as per (for example, cities skylines) is very RAM intensive. Since the game is already RAM hungry, I don’t think it’s a great idea. Not that it wouldn’t be cool - it would. It’s just impractical.

That makes a lot of sense, the consistent animation would slow the game down.

 

[NZFanatic]

I ask because planet zoo was inspired by zoo tycoon

Says who?

 

[Frobacca]

it could be limitations, or just them trying to keep processing power down. if they add in every feature that everyone wants we all would need $30k rigs to run it

 

[Roxxsmom]

Running rivers would be a cool mechanic, though getting them to interact with the shore properly would be a challenge. There is the "rapids" animation, but it never looks quite right. I'd like a more slowly flowing stream or river.

But the water animations are already kind of hard. When I make a fountain, I find that even the small splash animation escapes the edges of the container, so I have to hide it with plants.

There are also issues with memory, as others have pointed out. I tried making a realistic, large waterfall for one of my zoos once, and it bogged down my game something fierce. And my computer is a gaming desktop that is still pretty far above their recommended specs. That's the price we pay for such gorgeousness and complexity.

 

[DrStephenMeyer]

Would like the water to be fixed so there are real waterfall not fake ones so things can swim between these areas cause right not you cant do that.

 

[shirandhak]

Although it seems to be a shiny idea at first glance, I doubt that it would be a very much needed feature, because we are talking about a game simulating zoos. How many zoos might be there out in the world, which have real waterfalls (not only one, but many) in their habitats? Waterfalls in zoos are always fake. And you can fake them very well ingame (nearly to perfection), if you put in some work.

 

[DrStephenMeyer]

Although it seems to be a shiny idea at first glance, I doubt that it would be a very much needed feature, because we are talking about a game simulating zoos. How many zoos might be there out in the world, which have real waterfalls (not only one, but many) in their habitats? Waterfalls in zoos are always fake. And you can fake them very well ingame (nearly to perfection), if you put in some work.

Cities skyline has it and look at the amount of design ideas generated by the streamers, Many looked down on my idea of animal behaviours when it first release and look what happen???

The water is there for the animals and for the realism you can always turn it off if you dont want it or not build it but its important to have it instead of faking it. The streamer complain of this and want realistic water.

 

[Kolikokoli]

I ask because planet zoo was inspired by zoo tycoon, so the people who made it us to have looked into all of these things and made a decision. I am just trying to figure out why they came to that decision, and when I mentioned how the games are different, what I meant was by the way it was coded. I am unfamiliar with the differences between what methods planet zoo used to code the game and the way zoo tycoon 2 used to code the game. Was it an issue with the engine? Was it lack of dedication? Was it poor game architecture? Was it because they were piggy backing off of planet coaster?

Guys, it's a diffrent game, different studio. Stop comparing the two. Or are you complaining that something is not DOTA because it was in LoL?
It's the same genre but completely different engine. You cannot create a new physics for old engine just like that. Especially only "because the other game has it".

 

[MicHaeL MonStaR]

Running water, as per (for example, cities skylines) is very RAM intensive. Since the game is already RAM hungry, I don’t think it’s a great idea. Not that it wouldn’t be cool - it would. It’s just impractical.

It takes memory?... I don't quite understand how that would take up more memory.
But even if it does that... I'm sorry, but how little memory do people have these days?... Because I have 16GB, which is pretty much the norm at this time, and I really do not see it use all of that when running this game. Not easily anyway. - Heck, I can even open Chrome with 3700 tabs alongside the game and it doesn't really matter.
If only all it took was using more RAM to use more features, that would be an easy upgrade. - But the reality is that it will just bog down the engine, no matter the computer.

it could be limitations, or just them trying to keep processing power down. if they add in every feature that everyone wants we all would need $30k rigs to run it

That's the thing, it's not really up to our computers. - This engine is rather poorly optimized and will start chugging when you throw too much at it, regardless of how powerful the computer it runs on is. - It's comparable to other games or engines that weren't well-optimized, such as the original 'Crysis' and its version of CryEngine: It still can't be run properly today because of engine-limitations/issues. - Surely the more powerful a computer is the more it might be able to avoid poor performance, but that won't just fix the parts of the game or engine that just aren't coded well. - So it could very well be that they don't add things like water-physics or something along that line to prevent the performance from crumbling.

That said, I think they can definitely implement something that could form the illusion of running water and creating waterfalls and pools and such.
It would just be more like visual effects than actual calculated physics. - That's mostly how this engine works, with a lot of static objects to make believe there's more to it. - If you really look at it, there are very few items with physics. I think the most you'll see are some of the toys, like those that will move when hit by the animals. I can't even really think of anything more than that. - I mean, we'd probably never see much more in terms of interactive physics, such as water or cloth. It will all have to depend on animations.

 

[ElectricMonk]

It takes memory?... I don't quite understand how that would take up more memory.

Because RAM is used for calculations and calculating Fluid dynamics is HARD and takes lots and lots and lots of simultaneous and interacting calculations.

But even if it does that... I'm sorry, but how little memory do people have these days?... Because I have 16GB, which is pretty much the norm at this time, and I really do not see it use all of that when running this game. Not easily anyway. - Heck, I can even open Chrome with 3700 tabs alongside the game and it doesn't really matter.

…and calculating decent resolution fluid dynamics is many, many, many orders of magnitude more intensive to calculate than keeping some tabs open.

That said, I think they can definitely implement something that could form the illusion of running water and creating waterfalls and pools and such.
It would just be more like visual effects than actual calculated physics. -

They certainly could,.. in fact. They did! That’s how water effects in the game work.

Can you give an example of a game that produces editable (not just predetermined), flowing water that looks realistic? Cities skylines does a pretty good job but the waterfall effects etc. don’t end up looking as good as the particle effects used by PZ.

 

[MicHaeL MonStaR]

Because RAM is used for calculations and calculating Fluid dynamics is HARD and takes lots and lots and lots of simultaneous and interacting calculations.

…and calculating decent resolution fluid dynamics is many, many, many orders of magnitude more intensive to calculate than keeping some tabs open.

They certainly could,.. in fact. They did! That’s how water effects in the game work.

Can you give an example of a game that produces editable (not just predetermined), flowing water that looks realistic? Cities skylines does a pretty good job but the waterfall effects etc. don’t end up looking as good as the particle effects used by PZ.

It might be "hard", but I still disagree that it needs to eat that much RAM on a common computer or that we as consumers do not have that amount of RAM available.
Also, I didn't say some tabs, I meant THOUSANDS in the LITERAL sense, and we all know that Chromium eats a lot of memory. - But that aside...

My point was that it's not so much about memory as it is about other processing-power, such as what's demanded from the CPU or GPU.
And, again, this would also just be a load on the engine itself, which isn't that optimized with what's already there to begin with.
I mean, whenever you have the pathing-tool open or select a somewhat large habitat or most views on the heatmap, it will start chugging.
So I'm not arguing that it takes a lot of processing-power to calculate water-physics, I'm saying that it doesn't necessarily take a lot of memory to do so.
It's also going to depend a lot on the engine and how it's used and so on.

And yea, I've seen games that have physical water that was pretty realistic, but I'm blanking on it right now.
It was years ago (literal years), but I can't recall right now. - And I'm sure the water might have been a little floaty, cause games suck at gravity, but still.
I feel like it was another managing/simulation-game or perhaps some kind of action-game with an editor that I messed around with myself.

 

[MicHaeL MonStaR]

Can you give an example of a game that produces editable (not just predetermined), flowing water that looks realistic? Cities skylines does a pretty good job but the waterfall effects etc. don’t end up looking as good as the particle effects used by PZ.

Actually, funny thing: This very same day I just watched a Let's Play on the game 'Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator 2' and it turns out the game simulates liquid.

Spoiler: (Timestamped to the right point in the video.)

What's more is that Markiplier there also mentions another game called 'From Dust', which is definitely one of those that slipped my mind.
I think that had way "flotier" physics, if I recall correctly, but it was in there. - As for "UEBS2" its water and physics, it looks pretty good. Perhaps not that realistic, still, but it runs and flows and pools up and surely could be made to look better. Surely good enough for "PZ" its rather stylized visuals. And it does it alongside calculating hundreds of thousands of AI-units, as cloned as they are, while not breaking a sweat.

And yes, Merkiplur might have a monster rig, but even he expected worse results, as that just tends to be the nature of these simulation-games.
Also, on the Steam-page they recommend 8 to 16 GBs of RAM, with a not even that serious a CPU, so it should be doable.
It's just, again, is it doable on FD's engine, and that alongside everything else already chugging it...

 

[Frobacca]

Because I have 16GB, which is pretty much the norm at this time,

I mean 16GB is starting to be on the lower end of things. heck PZ recommends 16 and some games now have minimum of 16gb. As someone who has a medium-high end rig I tend to only have a lot of the more "common" issues on my REALLY packed maps which is what leads me ot believe that, although the engine might have its flaws, it is also a system thing. that with the fact that, whether the engine can run it or not, adding in more physics, features and such will put more strain on the systems running it

 

[jcp011c]

I mean 16GB is starting to be on the lower end of things. heck PZ recommends 16 and some games now have minimum of 16gb. As someone who has a medium-high end rig I tend to only have a lot of the more "common" issues on my REALLY packed maps which is what leads me ot believe that, although the engine might have its flaws, it is also a system thing. that with the fact that, whether the engine can run it or not, adding in more physics, features and such will put more strain on the systems running it

Agreed, and I do think that having features like this would make the game lag much more often, as nice as the features sound in passing. I'm in pretty much the same computer situation as you - I got this computer in 2016 and it was a high end rig at that point. It lags at times with Planet Zoo and there's been a few games I've had to refund because I thought they would run on my computer but did not (though I learned quickly how to figure that out before I purchased things).

I don't see my computer handling things like running water very well at all. And I'd think many people are in the same or lesser situation. I was actually really happy that PZ played at all and it does handles the maps thus far. My three big zoos can lag at times though.