Hayo Zookeepers!
Welcome to the December Monthly Catch Up! We hope you've had a fantastic December; we will use this post to recap everything we got up to with you throughout the last month.
First things first: we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! Thanks for all of your support throughout 2020, and we're excited about what 2021 will bring!
News:
We released Update 1.4 and the Aquatic Pack on the 8 December! We've thoroughly enjoyed reading through all your feedback since you got your hands on Update 1.4 and the Aquatic Pack - we are still dedicated to working on bug fixes you have shared on the Issue Tracker and the forums, but we hope you have had an enjoyable experience playing this new content in Planet Zoo. In Update 1.4, the team added in the highly-requested Animal Talks, which also required a new type of Staff: Educators! You were also able to get your hands on the Underwater Box Feeder, the Water Temperature Regulator, the new Challenge Scenario, and more, including fonts, decals, paths and foliage. If you wanted to have a look at everything 1.4 added into the game, you can read the forum post dedicated to it here!
With the Aquatic Pack, which introduced deep-swimming animals into Planet Zoo, we introduced you to five animals: the wonderful Diamondback Terrapin, charming Giant Otter, beautiful Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman, brilliant Grey Seal and adventurous King Penguin. The Diamondback Terrapin, our new exhibit animal, arrived with a new exhibit landscape, and our four deep-swimming habitat animals. We've been grateful to see all the builds the PlanZo Fam have shared with their new semi-aquatic habitats in! It's been a lot of fun for us to see how the community has taken on the challenges of this pack and had fun with them! The Aquatic Pack also includes 170+ scenery, building and foliage assets, and a new Scenario; read all about the Aquatic Pack here.
If you wanted to read more from the developers on how they added deep-swimming into Planet Zoo, check out our Aquatic Pack Developer Journal! We spoke to Artist Berni Pardue, Senior Programmer Eoghan O'Neill and Lead Animator Phillip Williams to hear about how the team researched the animals and designed a system to allow the animals to deep-swim in the game. Have a read of this quote from Eoghan:
"Since animals can dart around underwater, making sharp or gradual turns in any direction, we added some new techniques that can alter animations at run-time, including “Spine-Flex” and “Tilt-Body”. Spine-Flex allows us to modify an animal’s pose to have them “turn-in” to corners and bend around for tight turns. This is fully dynamic and responds to whatever motion the animal is doing. Tilt-body takes into account the degree to which an animal is turning as well as the speed of motion to make animals lean into turns. For example, you may see a King Penguin roll left and right as they flit around underwater. By combining these systems with our locomotion plan, we can anticipate when to turn, stop or speed up, allowing animals to more naturally move around in the water."
Make sure to check out the Developer Journal if you wanted to read some more! You can find the Aquatic Pack Developer Journal here.
Did you catch our Aquatic Pack showcase livestream, with Community Manager Chanté and Programmer Megan Brown? If you'd like to see the animals in motion and what else the Aquatic Pack contains, we recommend giving it a watch!
With the release of the Aquatic Pack, we thought the holidays would be the perfect time to run a competition: Aquatic Haven! If you'd like to get your hands on one of our amazing goodie bags, all you need to do is design a semi-aquatic habitat - you can either use one of the Aquatic Pack animals or the Saltwater Crocodile for this. Once you're happy with your habitat, save it as a blueprint, and email it to us at community@frontier.co.uk. The email must include the blueprint link to Steam, what animal(s) the habitat was designed for, and an image you think showcases your habitat best. All entries must be submitted by Friday,15 January 2021. Read what the goodie bag includes, and the terms and conditions, here.
We also celebrated two special days in December, Monkey Day and Visit the Zoo Day! We understand that due to the current global crisis, many zoos are struggling to stay open. Please look into how you can support your local zoo, and how you can help keep the animals in their care safe!
Community Creations:
Look at this stunning Indian Temple by TonyTorch. This enormous build is a fantastic centrepiece for an eastern themed zoo.
It's a cold time of the year, so make sure your wonderful Keepers are kept warm with this Arctic Staff Room by Kingdom!
With things so cold this time of year, consider warming up your guests with this beautiful Oasis Temple by MRvanderPants. This multi-tier build provides room for a nice café and viewing platform too!
Look at this incredible Viking Restaurant by minachat. After a long and courageous walk through any zoo, even Vikings need a rest in the Longhall for a bite to eat!
Creator Spotlight:
Zekin has started a new series on YouTube, using the Aquatic Pack! Check out the Aquatic Centre Cinematic Short in the video above.
As always, let's finish the Monthly Catch Up by reading the Zoopedia Facts shared throughout the month:
Welcome to the December Monthly Catch Up! We hope you've had a fantastic December; we will use this post to recap everything we got up to with you throughout the last month.
First things first: we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! Thanks for all of your support throughout 2020, and we're excited about what 2021 will bring!
News:
We released Update 1.4 and the Aquatic Pack on the 8 December! We've thoroughly enjoyed reading through all your feedback since you got your hands on Update 1.4 and the Aquatic Pack - we are still dedicated to working on bug fixes you have shared on the Issue Tracker and the forums, but we hope you have had an enjoyable experience playing this new content in Planet Zoo. In Update 1.4, the team added in the highly-requested Animal Talks, which also required a new type of Staff: Educators! You were also able to get your hands on the Underwater Box Feeder, the Water Temperature Regulator, the new Challenge Scenario, and more, including fonts, decals, paths and foliage. If you wanted to have a look at everything 1.4 added into the game, you can read the forum post dedicated to it here!
With the Aquatic Pack, which introduced deep-swimming animals into Planet Zoo, we introduced you to five animals: the wonderful Diamondback Terrapin, charming Giant Otter, beautiful Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman, brilliant Grey Seal and adventurous King Penguin. The Diamondback Terrapin, our new exhibit animal, arrived with a new exhibit landscape, and our four deep-swimming habitat animals. We've been grateful to see all the builds the PlanZo Fam have shared with their new semi-aquatic habitats in! It's been a lot of fun for us to see how the community has taken on the challenges of this pack and had fun with them! The Aquatic Pack also includes 170+ scenery, building and foliage assets, and a new Scenario; read all about the Aquatic Pack here.
If you wanted to read more from the developers on how they added deep-swimming into Planet Zoo, check out our Aquatic Pack Developer Journal! We spoke to Artist Berni Pardue, Senior Programmer Eoghan O'Neill and Lead Animator Phillip Williams to hear about how the team researched the animals and designed a system to allow the animals to deep-swim in the game. Have a read of this quote from Eoghan:
"Since animals can dart around underwater, making sharp or gradual turns in any direction, we added some new techniques that can alter animations at run-time, including “Spine-Flex” and “Tilt-Body”. Spine-Flex allows us to modify an animal’s pose to have them “turn-in” to corners and bend around for tight turns. This is fully dynamic and responds to whatever motion the animal is doing. Tilt-body takes into account the degree to which an animal is turning as well as the speed of motion to make animals lean into turns. For example, you may see a King Penguin roll left and right as they flit around underwater. By combining these systems with our locomotion plan, we can anticipate when to turn, stop or speed up, allowing animals to more naturally move around in the water."
Make sure to check out the Developer Journal if you wanted to read some more! You can find the Aquatic Pack Developer Journal here.
Did you catch our Aquatic Pack showcase livestream, with Community Manager Chanté and Programmer Megan Brown? If you'd like to see the animals in motion and what else the Aquatic Pack contains, we recommend giving it a watch!
With the release of the Aquatic Pack, we thought the holidays would be the perfect time to run a competition: Aquatic Haven! If you'd like to get your hands on one of our amazing goodie bags, all you need to do is design a semi-aquatic habitat - you can either use one of the Aquatic Pack animals or the Saltwater Crocodile for this. Once you're happy with your habitat, save it as a blueprint, and email it to us at community@frontier.co.uk. The email must include the blueprint link to Steam, what animal(s) the habitat was designed for, and an image you think showcases your habitat best. All entries must be submitted by Friday,15 January 2021. Read what the goodie bag includes, and the terms and conditions, here.
We also celebrated two special days in December, Monkey Day and Visit the Zoo Day! We understand that due to the current global crisis, many zoos are struggling to stay open. Please look into how you can support your local zoo, and how you can help keep the animals in their care safe!
Community Creations:
Look at this stunning Indian Temple by TonyTorch. This enormous build is a fantastic centrepiece for an eastern themed zoo.
It's a cold time of the year, so make sure your wonderful Keepers are kept warm with this Arctic Staff Room by Kingdom!
With things so cold this time of year, consider warming up your guests with this beautiful Oasis Temple by MRvanderPants. This multi-tier build provides room for a nice café and viewing platform too!
Look at this incredible Viking Restaurant by minachat. After a long and courageous walk through any zoo, even Vikings need a rest in the Longhall for a bite to eat!
Creator Spotlight:
Zekin has started a new series on YouTube, using the Aquatic Pack! Check out the Aquatic Centre Cinematic Short in the video above.
As always, let's finish the Monthly Catch Up by reading the Zoopedia Facts shared throughout the month:
- Grey Seals do not need to drink water; they get all the water they need through metabolizing the fish they eat.
- The deepest recorded dive of a King Penguin is 343m and the longest recorded time underwater is 9 minutes and 12 seconds.
- Giant Otters have 9 different vocalizations that they use to communicate with their group members.
- The concentric rings within the plates of the Northern Diamondback Terrapin’s shell are growth rings that form as the Terrapin gets larger.
- Cuvier's Dwarf Caimans are ‘crocodilians’, but not crocodiles or alligators; they belong to their own distinct group.
- There is a King Penguin at Edinburgh Zoo that is called Sir Nils Olav III and is the colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King’s Guard!
- Grey Seals have been known to dive to depths of 300m; their average dive depth is 70m!
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