You're looking at it far too simplistically.
Look at an aviary in a real zoo. What's in it? Huge amounts of foliage, infinite places for the birds to land, areas where more than bird will land next to one another, perches, feeder boxes, water features, rockwork, and so on. It's not a simple matter of "Roof Above Head, Don't Fly Past It." Frontier would have to do multiple things to make what you're proposing possible, and it doesn't just involve the AI of the animals either. How do you propose we build custom aviaries? Building pieces are not habitat fences and only exist on a right-angled grid. So they'd need to implement some insane new way to not only place a habitat barrier, but add a roof that corresponds to that barrier, with literally infinite amounts of variation.
Then they'd have to programme the birds to behave naturally. Flight occurs quickly, birds zoom from place to place, so they need to programme some way to prevent midair collisions without clipping through solid objects, because the latter takes away the immersion. Then they have to look at literally every scenery item in the game (and all future scenery items as they create them) and decide what parts what birds can land on, how many can land there, and how to stop two of the exact same bird landing on the exact same spot (another collision issue). Then they also have to decide how two birds on the same branch interact with regards to that branch, or whatever else they've landed on.
Thanks, but as a professional developer, I'm perfectly aware of what I'm talking about and that I made a simplification to the solution, because well yeah, it would have taken me way too far if I went into detail. But again, literally the majority of what you've been talking about right now
already exists in this game.
If an animal has a roof above its head, the game calculates if the animal is able to move underneath it. Animals already have a sense of height when it comes to their exhibits, so I still do not understand how you think this is not the basis to build custom aviaries? I might be missing something here; but if you look at it like you would code swimming this pretty much is the same way of working. Perhaps it's because I've already coded similar things before that I don't see the limitations or the "insanenness" you've implied here.
And about the second paragraph. Literally everything you just mentioned is already ingame today when it comes to climbing. Objects can be surfaces, objects can be climable, animals don't climb items simultaneously so that they're clipping into each other. Frontier already has the base for this in its game. I feel like you're ignoring that part here. From a programming standpoint, the difference is only in how the animal gets to the point, but other than that it is the same context. The limitations you seem to think are there, simply are not there.
Really, again, the climbing feature is much more complex than you seem to realize. It is one of the most amazing features I've ever seen in a game so far, and I will congratulate Frontier on this massive achievement every single time I get the chance to do that. It is a marvelous feat of programming and engineering, especially if you look at what the community has been doing in terms of climbing structures. It is insane how Frontier has done it so smoothely and in a environment where there are, and I'm quoting you here "with literally infinite amounts of variation".
So Frontier devs, if you're reading this; the achievements you made on the climbing mechanism are breathtaking, and me and my fellow colleagues are still in awe of how you've done this.
Nobody's saying it's impossible, and in fact, nobody's saying making aviaries glorified exhibits is the 'best way'. People just seem ready to accept that it's a practical way of doing it, and to be honest, for a lot of people, myself included, it's the preferred way purely from a zoo management perspective (and all those loaded bird animations will eat up the framerate considerably, but definitely less-so if the birds are on a looped animation). Aviaries are important to zoos, but not necessarily to a zoo game. I'd be a lot more content with them as big decorative set pieces than being forced into constructing some convoluted aviary every time I want to add birds, that I then have to manage with keepers, food and enrichment placement, breeding management, and so on.
I read a few comments here that it was the "only way" and the "best way" though.
The comments are literally above mine.
Now to your point, I understand your point of view though. But the same argument could have been made when it comes to the climbing structures no? You can make convoluted structures yourself, or use blueprints provided by the game itself. Frontier has catered to both types of users in the past, I'm sure that they can do it again when it comes to aviaries.
Anywho, I've given my two cents in this discussion. I'm going to leave it for what it is now. Feel free to quote this but don't expect an answer from me