Thanks! To make indoor jungle feel natural, the examples seen in these posts would be a good reference to use. The lied jungle uses a natural theme for the entire building using tropical rocks, lots of tropical foliage and ivy aswell to make certain areas feel overgrown like a real jungle. Using either a wooden elevated path or a null path painted in a sand or soil paint is a good start, cover any artificial looking barriers and areas with rocks/trees/bushes to create a dense jungle feel. For realism itself, I have also used the limestone pillars as a water barrier which is something real zoos often do and hide the keeper gate from path areas like creating a rock wall over the gate as staff can still walk through them. Basically use as much natural materials as you can while keeping artificial materials to a minimum or out of view from guests.
Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo
- Thread starter Captain Callum
- Start date
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- Tags
- omaha zoo recreation
Lied Jungle - African Jungle
The asian jungle portion of the lied jungle is complete, just under half of the lied jungle is dedicated to asia so lets move onto the next jungle. The next jungle is africa with 3 habitats and 1 exhibit, no way where as extensive as the asian habitats but still a good central habitat of the lied jungle. The focus in the african jungle is the mixed species habitat with pygmy hippos being the highlight, while the other habitats are really just small filler habitats on the wall side of the interior which does mean again no natural light in these filler habitats.
Animals in this area:
From asia, the canopy trail leads into the transition cave into the african jungle, as mentioned before, these caves offer a break between each jungle rather than having a sudden jump from malayan tapirs to pygmy hippos. There is also new vines placed at various locations to improve the jungle atmosphere throughout the lied jungle.
Inside the cave we see the africa sign which signs are now colored to orange instead of the asian red theme. To the right, there is a window into the lemur / guenon habitat which provides good views down the narrow habitat but most of the habitat is visible from the path ahead anyway but through mesh.
The habitat for the lemurs here is good enough, its nice the hitboxes on the climbing frame do cooperate with the lemurs in a smaller habitat.
To the left of the canopy trail, overhead views into the pygmy hippo offer many chances to see the hippos or monkeys exploring their habitat.
For the unmodded version, sadly the mandrills do not climb nearly as much as the de brazza monkeys. Maybe once every 3 or so minutes will a single mandrill climb up the tree. Since I don't use the mandrill much, I would assume the mandrills don't have the same climbing needs as other primates like the lemurs, capuchins or gibbons.
Instead the mandrills often just explore the land portion of the habitat, these 3 climbing trees do offer similar views like the lar gibbons when there is a primate species who likes climbing.Also we can find one of the static birds, the hadada ibis, on top of one of the trees.
There is also the jungle trail which offers underwater views into the habitat, the windows for these can be seen in the above picture. African cichlids are present in the water and add so much to the habitat even if they dont move.
Moving on from the hippo habitat, the second filler habitat is an aviary with some elephant shrews in the modded version. I don't really do aviary roofs anymore, they never look good unless it is part of an impressive structure.
The last stop in the african jungle is a veiled chameleon exhibit, I do love making these tropical exhibit boxes now that I have the experience from the houston zoo.
The asian jungle portion of the lied jungle is complete, just under half of the lied jungle is dedicated to asia so lets move onto the next jungle. The next jungle is africa with 3 habitats and 1 exhibit, no way where as extensive as the asian habitats but still a good central habitat of the lied jungle. The focus in the african jungle is the mixed species habitat with pygmy hippos being the highlight, while the other habitats are really just small filler habitats on the wall side of the interior which does mean again no natural light in these filler habitats.
Animals in this area:
- Pygmy Hippo, Mandrill (The modded version is much more lively with de brazza monkeys instead of mandrill and white faced whistling ducks)
- Red Ruffed Lemur (Wolf's Guenon modded)
- Violet turaco, african pygmy goose aviary (black and rufous elephant shrew aswell in the modded version)
- Veiled Chameleon Exhibit
- Static african free flight birds - Hadada Ibis, Hamerkop, Black Crake
From asia, the canopy trail leads into the transition cave into the african jungle, as mentioned before, these caves offer a break between each jungle rather than having a sudden jump from malayan tapirs to pygmy hippos. There is also new vines placed at various locations to improve the jungle atmosphere throughout the lied jungle.
Inside the cave we see the africa sign which signs are now colored to orange instead of the asian red theme. To the right, there is a window into the lemur / guenon habitat which provides good views down the narrow habitat but most of the habitat is visible from the path ahead anyway but through mesh.
The habitat for the lemurs here is good enough, its nice the hitboxes on the climbing frame do cooperate with the lemurs in a smaller habitat.
To the left of the canopy trail, overhead views into the pygmy hippo offer many chances to see the hippos or monkeys exploring their habitat.
For the unmodded version, sadly the mandrills do not climb nearly as much as the de brazza monkeys. Maybe once every 3 or so minutes will a single mandrill climb up the tree. Since I don't use the mandrill much, I would assume the mandrills don't have the same climbing needs as other primates like the lemurs, capuchins or gibbons.
Instead the mandrills often just explore the land portion of the habitat, these 3 climbing trees do offer similar views like the lar gibbons when there is a primate species who likes climbing.Also we can find one of the static birds, the hadada ibis, on top of one of the trees.
There is also the jungle trail which offers underwater views into the habitat, the windows for these can be seen in the above picture. African cichlids are present in the water and add so much to the habitat even if they dont move.
Moving on from the hippo habitat, the second filler habitat is an aviary with some elephant shrews in the modded version. I don't really do aviary roofs anymore, they never look good unless it is part of an impressive structure.
The last stop in the african jungle is a veiled chameleon exhibit, I do love making these tropical exhibit boxes now that I have the experience from the houston zoo.
Lied Jungle - South American Jungle
The last part of the lied jungle is the south american jungle, we find 2 habitats, an exhibit cave and a freshwater stingray pool spread across the canopy and jungle trails completing the exciting tropical loop around the lied jungle. While the modded version is exciting with ducks and 3 species of monkeys, the unmodded version of course is just capuchin monkeys.
The species list for the south american jungle is:
We start off the tour of the south american jungle at the black howler habitat, a decent sized habitat with several viewing areas, a large waterfall and the usual lied jungle climbing trees for enrichment for the monkeys. We also get a nice view of the central lied jungle with the roof tree supports dominating the view behind the habitat.
I also changed the canopy trail metal & mesh fences to the older lied jungle fences which are a nicer looking glass and wooden slat fence which blends in far better than the modern metal ones. Obviously not true to the real zoo as it currently is but it's nice to get creative now and again. Signage has also been decreased in size to the smallest screen for a more realistic approach to the signs around the lied jungle. The brightness from the small tv screens was getting a little annoying when trying to tour the lied jungle.
Moving into the south american cave to the right of the howler habitat, we can find 5 exhibits inside. I didn't decrease the viewing area of the exhibit box too much as these exhibits in real life are pretty big. It features a mix of offical exhibit boxes and custom made exhibits.
Once we exit the cave, we reach the final habitat of the lied jungle, the spider monkey habitat. Unlike the howler monkey habitat, the monkeys use the climbing trees a lot which does help with the immersion of exploring the jungle. It's hard to tell whether a primate will use the climbing frame or not even in a large habitat. The howler monkey, and francois langur habitats don't really like their climbing trees but the lar gibbons, de brazza monkeys and spider monkeys do.
Heading down to the jungle trail, on the other side of the spider monkey habitat, there is a freshwater stingray pool.
There are also views into the spider monkey habitat from the jungle trail, we see some static fish with underwater views and possibly see monkeys up above in their climbing trees.
The final part of the south american jungle is another viewing area into the howler monkey habitat, we can often see the tapirs in the water here and on a good day, monkeys on the climbing trees.
So while the lied jungle is complete, there is still the treetops restaurant to build. Those large windows seen by the lar gibbon habitat will offer some nice views into the lied jungle which will complete the tropical experience at the henry doorly zoo.
The last part of the lied jungle is the south american jungle, we find 2 habitats, an exhibit cave and a freshwater stingray pool spread across the canopy and jungle trails completing the exciting tropical loop around the lied jungle. While the modded version is exciting with ducks and 3 species of monkeys, the unmodded version of course is just capuchin monkeys.
The species list for the south american jungle is:
- Baird's Tapir, Black Howler Monkey, White Faced Whistling Duck (Remove duck, replace howler with capuchin for unmodded)
- Spider Monkey, Squirrel Monkey, Arapaima, Red Bellied Pacu, Red Tail Catfish (Replace monkeys with capuchin for unmodded)
- Ocellate River Stingray, South American Lungfish
- Amazonian Palm Viper
- Golden Poison Frog
- Red Eyed Tree Frog
- Plumed Basilisk
- Yellow Anaconda
- Blue and Yellow Macaw (static birds rather than the modded one due to space limits)
We start off the tour of the south american jungle at the black howler habitat, a decent sized habitat with several viewing areas, a large waterfall and the usual lied jungle climbing trees for enrichment for the monkeys. We also get a nice view of the central lied jungle with the roof tree supports dominating the view behind the habitat.
I also changed the canopy trail metal & mesh fences to the older lied jungle fences which are a nicer looking glass and wooden slat fence which blends in far better than the modern metal ones. Obviously not true to the real zoo as it currently is but it's nice to get creative now and again. Signage has also been decreased in size to the smallest screen for a more realistic approach to the signs around the lied jungle. The brightness from the small tv screens was getting a little annoying when trying to tour the lied jungle.
Moving into the south american cave to the right of the howler habitat, we can find 5 exhibits inside. I didn't decrease the viewing area of the exhibit box too much as these exhibits in real life are pretty big. It features a mix of offical exhibit boxes and custom made exhibits.
Once we exit the cave, we reach the final habitat of the lied jungle, the spider monkey habitat. Unlike the howler monkey habitat, the monkeys use the climbing trees a lot which does help with the immersion of exploring the jungle. It's hard to tell whether a primate will use the climbing frame or not even in a large habitat. The howler monkey, and francois langur habitats don't really like their climbing trees but the lar gibbons, de brazza monkeys and spider monkeys do.
Heading down to the jungle trail, on the other side of the spider monkey habitat, there is a freshwater stingray pool.
There are also views into the spider monkey habitat from the jungle trail, we see some static fish with underwater views and possibly see monkeys up above in their climbing trees.
The final part of the south american jungle is another viewing area into the howler monkey habitat, we can often see the tapirs in the water here and on a good day, monkeys on the climbing trees.
So while the lied jungle is complete, there is still the treetops restaurant to build. Those large windows seen by the lar gibbon habitat will offer some nice views into the lied jungle which will complete the tropical experience at the henry doorly zoo.
Lied Jungle - Durham Treetops Restaurant
The Durham Treetops Restaurant is a unique restaurant when it comes to the view, the dining area overlooks the asian animal portion of the lied jungle offering some great views of the lar gibbon habitat and the tropical jungle scenery. This is one of those times all that careful planning with terrain heights and viewing areas above the asian exhibit cave worked out in the end with a near replica of the real restaurant even with scaling issues where I had to merge the 2 gibbon habitats into 1.
Connected to the entrance building, the treetops restaurant is accessed by the main path before it descends down to the lied jungle. Lots of windows provides lots of natural light and makes the building realistic for a zoo restaurant. The slight downside here is the restaurant sign is about twice the size of the real sign but it still works.
Inside, guests enter the food ordering area with a central ordering counter, with deli and grill areas behind. Lots of steam blueprints have been used to add all the realistic items one might find in a zoo restaurant. The restaurant is completely custom built with no functioning parts so the usual food stands I add to my builds are not present in the treetops restaurant because of the open plan layout.
Past the food ordering area, is the dining area. This is where most of the creative effort was focused with an impressive roof and lied jungle viewing windows. The dining area is slightly raised so stairs and a ramp (behind the wall to the left) lead into the dining area.
Inside the dining area we can see lots of restaurant tables (40 to be exact), a large skylight roof and large windows looking into the lied jungle. Treetop themed wall art also lines the dining area walls using the tree branch and cloud signs.
At the windows of the dining area, lar gibbons swinging in their climbing trees can be seen. There are also views of the flying foxes and the de brazza monkeys if one is patient on the right side of the dining room however those are much further than the gibbon habitat so not as impressive.
The Durham Treetops Restaurant is a unique restaurant when it comes to the view, the dining area overlooks the asian animal portion of the lied jungle offering some great views of the lar gibbon habitat and the tropical jungle scenery. This is one of those times all that careful planning with terrain heights and viewing areas above the asian exhibit cave worked out in the end with a near replica of the real restaurant even with scaling issues where I had to merge the 2 gibbon habitats into 1.
Connected to the entrance building, the treetops restaurant is accessed by the main path before it descends down to the lied jungle. Lots of windows provides lots of natural light and makes the building realistic for a zoo restaurant. The slight downside here is the restaurant sign is about twice the size of the real sign but it still works.
Inside, guests enter the food ordering area with a central ordering counter, with deli and grill areas behind. Lots of steam blueprints have been used to add all the realistic items one might find in a zoo restaurant. The restaurant is completely custom built with no functioning parts so the usual food stands I add to my builds are not present in the treetops restaurant because of the open plan layout.
Past the food ordering area, is the dining area. This is where most of the creative effort was focused with an impressive roof and lied jungle viewing windows. The dining area is slightly raised so stairs and a ramp (behind the wall to the left) lead into the dining area.
Inside the dining area we can see lots of restaurant tables (40 to be exact), a large skylight roof and large windows looking into the lied jungle. Treetop themed wall art also lines the dining area walls using the tree branch and cloud signs.
At the windows of the dining area, lar gibbons swinging in their climbing trees can be seen. There are also views of the flying foxes and the de brazza monkeys if one is patient on the right side of the dining room however those are much further than the gibbon habitat so not as impressive.
Gob, one of the best zoos I've been to. I have family there so I have the excuse to go haha. So much to like there from the Desert Dome, to the Lied Jungle, to the Kingdoms of the Night exhibit. I just went there last month, and had the privilege to see some baby elephants. Didn't get to go to the Lied Jungle since it was already closed, before the zoo officially closed and I still couldn't see the sloth bear. I have seen one in Philadelphia, but still. Just need a proper viewing of a sun bear and spectacled bear.
Wild Kingdom Pavillion & Workshop Upload
First things first, the zoo has been uploaded to the workshop for the first update to the zoo! Everyone can explore the lied jungle and the main entrance area of the zoo themselves. This update includes the main zoo entrance, the gift shop, treetops restaurant, wild kingdom pavillion building, and the lied jungle. Both unmodded and modded versions are available to choose from.
steamcommunity.com
steamcommunity.com
The new area we have not seen yet is the wild kingdom pavillion. This is a fairly large education building directly in front of the entrance and offers a look at various small animals in exhibits and a tall aviary with small forest birds. I did consider making this an empty building with blocked out windows but the obvious location and amount of windows all around the building made that a really bad idea. Not often I get to make a large educational building so why not?
At the main entrance, we orginally saw a pair of lion statues all alone at the end of the plaza, now they sit in front of the wild kingdom pavillion offering a nice guest photo-op.
Heading down the path to the lied jungle, the entrance to the pavillion is found under the roof canopy.
Through these glass doors is the wild kingdom pavillion. We can see a large zoo map inside which help guests locate areas through the windijng entrance paths. An african thatch roof structure holds a variety of educational exhibits in an area called the exploration station.
The exploration station's main feature is a collection of animal skeletons in glass display boxes. These are life sized skeletons with well known animals such as the blue wildebeest, nile crocodile and the skull of an african elephant. Of course I didn't make these, the fantastic workshop fossil blueprints allow me to make displays like these.
To the right of the exploration station is the learning zone, educational demonstrations and videos are found in this area along with a snake exhibit featuring a gaboon viper.
In the middle of the wild kingdom pavillion, the tall aviary is called the discovery tree. A large tree and tropical foliage holds a variety of small tropical birds. Small reptile exhibit boxes to the right also feature a variety of species, these are kind of basic display boxes with a couple plants inside. The 2 exhibits here hold boyd's forest dragon, and western ratsnake.
On the left side of the building is a collection of reptiles and amphibians (snakes and frogs really). A nice looking combination of thatch and bamboo make the exhibit boxes look fairly realistic sized. We can find boa constrictor, diamondback rattlesnake, puff adder, american bullfrog, red eyed tree frog, and lehmann's poison frog.
The gift shop for the entrance has also been built. A bright and colorful setup made completely with the ingame gift shop items and no custom props allowed me to make a nice gift shop while minimising the piece count. I didn't want to repeat houston's 30k piece gift shop with all those lovely custom plushies
First things first, the zoo has been uploaded to the workshop for the first update to the zoo! Everyone can explore the lied jungle and the main entrance area of the zoo themselves. This update includes the main zoo entrance, the gift shop, treetops restaurant, wild kingdom pavillion building, and the lied jungle. Both unmodded and modded versions are available to choose from.
Steam Workshop::Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo Recreation
Steam Workshop::Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo Recreation - Mod Version
The new area we have not seen yet is the wild kingdom pavillion. This is a fairly large education building directly in front of the entrance and offers a look at various small animals in exhibits and a tall aviary with small forest birds. I did consider making this an empty building with blocked out windows but the obvious location and amount of windows all around the building made that a really bad idea. Not often I get to make a large educational building so why not?
At the main entrance, we orginally saw a pair of lion statues all alone at the end of the plaza, now they sit in front of the wild kingdom pavillion offering a nice guest photo-op.
Heading down the path to the lied jungle, the entrance to the pavillion is found under the roof canopy.
Through these glass doors is the wild kingdom pavillion. We can see a large zoo map inside which help guests locate areas through the windijng entrance paths. An african thatch roof structure holds a variety of educational exhibits in an area called the exploration station.
The exploration station's main feature is a collection of animal skeletons in glass display boxes. These are life sized skeletons with well known animals such as the blue wildebeest, nile crocodile and the skull of an african elephant. Of course I didn't make these, the fantastic workshop fossil blueprints allow me to make displays like these.
To the right of the exploration station is the learning zone, educational demonstrations and videos are found in this area along with a snake exhibit featuring a gaboon viper.
In the middle of the wild kingdom pavillion, the tall aviary is called the discovery tree. A large tree and tropical foliage holds a variety of small tropical birds. Small reptile exhibit boxes to the right also feature a variety of species, these are kind of basic display boxes with a couple plants inside. The 2 exhibits here hold boyd's forest dragon, and western ratsnake.
On the left side of the building is a collection of reptiles and amphibians (snakes and frogs really). A nice looking combination of thatch and bamboo make the exhibit boxes look fairly realistic sized. We can find boa constrictor, diamondback rattlesnake, puff adder, american bullfrog, red eyed tree frog, and lehmann's poison frog.
The gift shop for the entrance has also been built. A bright and colorful setup made completely with the ingame gift shop items and no custom props allowed me to make a nice gift shop while minimising the piece count. I didn't want to repeat houston's 30k piece gift shop with all those lovely custom plushies
Real Zoo Overview - The Desert Dome
It's time for the next building complex for the henry doorly zoo, the desert dome has to be one of the most unique and well known zoo buildings in North America. As mentioned on the zoo introduction, the desert dome is a 2 tiered building, desert animals above and a nocturnal house below. Instead of looking at this building in it's entirety, I have split the desert dome and kingdoms of the night into their own project as both are large complicated interior animal areas.
The layout of the desert dome is very difficult to easily explain so my map should help us understand the route and layout of the indoor desert. There are 3 desert areas inside the desert dome, we start anti-clockwise going through the namib desert in africa first, through australia's red centre desert, and finally through the sonoran desert in north america before returning back to the entrance gallery.
Animal List:
Exterior:
The desert dome is a very large geodesic dome building, the endless amounts of triangular bubble glass wraps around the 100 metre wide building offering a iconic skyline in the zoo that can be seen from almost all corners of the zoo. The exterior of the building is topped with ventilation and matainance access, the lower parts of the building slope down from the main path and of course glass surrounds the building so careful planning is required for everything to look good.
Entrance Gallery:
The entrance gallery showcases the deserts of the desert dome and has educational signs about the 4 types of deserts. Plenty of seating, toilets, and large pathways into the desert dome and a staircase/elevator to the kingdoms of the night below can all be found in this gallery.
Namib Desert:
As we head anti-clockwise (or going right out the entrance gallery), we enter the african desert, the namib desert. We are first greeted with a large sand dune on the right side of the path and a large rock formation to the left of the path. This large desert mountain will feature animal habitats at sections, fennec fox and the 2 african aviaries can be found in cut-outs in the rock. As we enter a rocky canyon, klipspringer, sand cat and dwarf mongoose are found before we enter the desert cave.
Desert Cave:
The desert cave is a cave full of reptile exhibits, shared with the africa and australia desert sections. A variety of desert snakes, lizards and monitor lizards can be found in decent sized exhibits while desert rockwork surrounds them.
Australia's Red Centre:
Australia's red centre is the smallest animal area inside the desert dome as it features a single walkthrough rock wallaby habitat. Inside this walktrhouh we can find some australian birds and looking around we are surrounded by red rock formations. The rock wallabies will have some higher ground to climb up to, to escape any crowds and also show them hiding amongst the rocks.
Sonoran Desert:
The final desert area we enter is North America's Sonoran desert, I believe this is the largest desert of the desert dome and features a wide range of animals, which makes sense since it's a north american zoo. We leave the wallaby habitat and see peccaries and ocelots in a open desert area, burrowing owls and roadrunners are in rock cut-out aviaries as we travel past the peccary habitat. We pass lots of cacti and find some bobcats, turkey vultures, ringtail and coati.
Rattlesnake Canyon:
Passing through the north america desert, there is also a small canyon loop where we can find... rattlesnakes (shocker). There are several rattlesnake species held in this canyon and a unique mine entrance exhibit which will be pretty fun to build.
It's time for the next building complex for the henry doorly zoo, the desert dome has to be one of the most unique and well known zoo buildings in North America. As mentioned on the zoo introduction, the desert dome is a 2 tiered building, desert animals above and a nocturnal house below. Instead of looking at this building in it's entirety, I have split the desert dome and kingdoms of the night into their own project as both are large complicated interior animal areas.
The layout of the desert dome is very difficult to easily explain so my map should help us understand the route and layout of the indoor desert. There are 3 desert areas inside the desert dome, we start anti-clockwise going through the namib desert in africa first, through australia's red centre desert, and finally through the sonoran desert in north america before returning back to the entrance gallery.
Animal List:
- Namib Desert
- Fennec Fox
- White-headed buffalo weaver aviary (static animal)
- Blacksmith plover aviary (static animal)
- Klipspringer (dik dik unmodded)
- Sand Cat
- Dwarf Mongoose (meerkat unmodded)
- Various reptile exhibits inside the desert cave
- Red Centre Desert
- Various Reptile exhibits inside the desert cave
- Kookaburra, masked lapwing, tawny frogmouth aviary (static animals)
- Rock Wallaby (red necked wallaby unmodded)
- Sonoran Desert
- Collared Peccary
- Ocelot
- Burrowing Owl Aviary (static animal)
- Roadrunner Aviary (static animal)
- Bobcat (eurasian lynx unmodded)
- Various Snake exhibits inside rattlesnake canyon
- Ringtail (raccoon or empty unmodded)
- Turkey Vulture Aviary (static animal)
- Various reptile exhibits inside Sonoran Desert Cave
- White-nosed Coati (raccoon unmodded)
Exterior:
The desert dome is a very large geodesic dome building, the endless amounts of triangular bubble glass wraps around the 100 metre wide building offering a iconic skyline in the zoo that can be seen from almost all corners of the zoo. The exterior of the building is topped with ventilation and matainance access, the lower parts of the building slope down from the main path and of course glass surrounds the building so careful planning is required for everything to look good.
Entrance Gallery:
The entrance gallery showcases the deserts of the desert dome and has educational signs about the 4 types of deserts. Plenty of seating, toilets, and large pathways into the desert dome and a staircase/elevator to the kingdoms of the night below can all be found in this gallery.
Namib Desert:
As we head anti-clockwise (or going right out the entrance gallery), we enter the african desert, the namib desert. We are first greeted with a large sand dune on the right side of the path and a large rock formation to the left of the path. This large desert mountain will feature animal habitats at sections, fennec fox and the 2 african aviaries can be found in cut-outs in the rock. As we enter a rocky canyon, klipspringer, sand cat and dwarf mongoose are found before we enter the desert cave.
Desert Cave:
The desert cave is a cave full of reptile exhibits, shared with the africa and australia desert sections. A variety of desert snakes, lizards and monitor lizards can be found in decent sized exhibits while desert rockwork surrounds them.
Australia's Red Centre:
Australia's red centre is the smallest animal area inside the desert dome as it features a single walkthrough rock wallaby habitat. Inside this walktrhouh we can find some australian birds and looking around we are surrounded by red rock formations. The rock wallabies will have some higher ground to climb up to, to escape any crowds and also show them hiding amongst the rocks.
Sonoran Desert:
The final desert area we enter is North America's Sonoran desert, I believe this is the largest desert of the desert dome and features a wide range of animals, which makes sense since it's a north american zoo. We leave the wallaby habitat and see peccaries and ocelots in a open desert area, burrowing owls and roadrunners are in rock cut-out aviaries as we travel past the peccary habitat. We pass lots of cacti and find some bobcats, turkey vultures, ringtail and coati.
Rattlesnake Canyon:
Passing through the north america desert, there is also a small canyon loop where we can find... rattlesnakes (shocker). There are several rattlesnake species held in this canyon and a unique mine entrance exhibit which will be pretty fun to build.
Desert Dome - Exterior & Entrance Gallery
Started on Tuesday, the desert dome exterior was one of the most noticeable challenges upon starting this zoo recreation, the 100 metre wide geodesic dome was no easy task as the huge amount of glass would be noticeable from all over the zoo so It had to look good and not like most of the domes found on the workshop. I looked at various methods of building domes on youtube and all seemed to not care much about glass pieces overlapping resulting in a poor result. So I had to come up with my own method to ensure the dome was the best there was.
The result of careful planning was very large dome that looks "clean" , there is minimal overlapping pieces for 2 thirds of the dome with only the upper dome have overlaps due to the nature of curved copy-pasting ingame.
If we zoom out and head to the zoo entrance, we can see the importance why the dome needed this minimal overlaps - even several hundred metres away the glass lines are very visible and would likely ruin the rest of the zoo maintaining a high degree of realism.
Heading to the other side of the dome, this is where the backstage is located. On the ground we have several large backup equipment - a generator, an air handler unit and a chiller unit (both are used for heavy duty air conditioning). We also have a curved maintainance ladder/catwalk leading up to the rooftop ventilation, this is a key part of the dome allowing me to use this as a reference to ensure the interior is in the correct location.
Back on the ground, we are at the Desert Dome plaza, this plaza serves as a guest seating area, the main path to the left of the zoo and a food area with the plaza cafe attached to the desert dome (seen in the first image). From here we can see there are 2 entrances into the desert dome, both leading into the entrance gallery.
In the real zoo, only the right doors is the entrance, the left is the exit. We head through the double doors into the desert dome.
Once inside, we enter the entrance gallery which features several educational signs about deserts. In the middle of the gallery, curved overhead signs introduce guests to the 3 deserts found in the desert dome. On the wall, we can find signs about the 4 types of deserts found around the world - subtropical, cold winter, coastal, and polar.
On the floor, we can see a large map, this map shows the deserts of the world highlighted in yellow. Like the real zoo, adding this map to the floor adds a unique space to an otherwise boring floor.
On the right side of the gallery, the entrance to the desert dome is found through some reddish rocks, the same kind of rocks we will see found around the desert dome interior. Once the namib desert is complete, we will head through this way to start our journey around the desert dome.
Started on Tuesday, the desert dome exterior was one of the most noticeable challenges upon starting this zoo recreation, the 100 metre wide geodesic dome was no easy task as the huge amount of glass would be noticeable from all over the zoo so It had to look good and not like most of the domes found on the workshop. I looked at various methods of building domes on youtube and all seemed to not care much about glass pieces overlapping resulting in a poor result. So I had to come up with my own method to ensure the dome was the best there was.
The result of careful planning was very large dome that looks "clean" , there is minimal overlapping pieces for 2 thirds of the dome with only the upper dome have overlaps due to the nature of curved copy-pasting ingame.
If we zoom out and head to the zoo entrance, we can see the importance why the dome needed this minimal overlaps - even several hundred metres away the glass lines are very visible and would likely ruin the rest of the zoo maintaining a high degree of realism.
Heading to the other side of the dome, this is where the backstage is located. On the ground we have several large backup equipment - a generator, an air handler unit and a chiller unit (both are used for heavy duty air conditioning). We also have a curved maintainance ladder/catwalk leading up to the rooftop ventilation, this is a key part of the dome allowing me to use this as a reference to ensure the interior is in the correct location.
Back on the ground, we are at the Desert Dome plaza, this plaza serves as a guest seating area, the main path to the left of the zoo and a food area with the plaza cafe attached to the desert dome (seen in the first image). From here we can see there are 2 entrances into the desert dome, both leading into the entrance gallery.
In the real zoo, only the right doors is the entrance, the left is the exit. We head through the double doors into the desert dome.
Once inside, we enter the entrance gallery which features several educational signs about deserts. In the middle of the gallery, curved overhead signs introduce guests to the 3 deserts found in the desert dome. On the wall, we can find signs about the 4 types of deserts found around the world - subtropical, cold winter, coastal, and polar.
On the floor, we can see a large map, this map shows the deserts of the world highlighted in yellow. Like the real zoo, adding this map to the floor adds a unique space to an otherwise boring floor.
On the right side of the gallery, the entrance to the desert dome is found through some reddish rocks, the same kind of rocks we will see found around the desert dome interior. Once the namib desert is complete, we will head through this way to start our journey around the desert dome.
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