This was more a proof of concept but a forum poster wanted to see more.
I stacked a series of spheres on top of each other (not a cylinder) from the Terrain Stamp Tool menu, largest size it would allow, the idea being to carve an animal route all the way through and have different environments in each ball with windows for guests to see inside. It would be a mixed species habitat as well.
The tunneling bit was fun but tricky, I chose a literal mining method, ie start at the top, turn on "standard look mode" and drilled down with the light on, using the Terrain push and 'flatten to surface' tool to make a spiralling ramp down, when I thought I was in the centre of the ball I used the flatten to foundation to expand out, creating "windows" in the process, then drill down to the next ball. Typically I would lose my way and miss the ball altogether. In hind sight would have been easier just to drill into each ball, create the habitat then link with a ramp after.
The correct ramp surface/gradiant/width/ceiling height to link the levels was the hardest bit, I didnt realise there was a navigable terrain heatmap to start with which would have sped up the process (instead of watching the animals!) but even the slightest extra chisel or smoothing a ramp would result in some species (weirdly at times only one member of a species could and the most bouncy of all animals, the Nyala, too) and staff not being able to climb it, combined with the small space of the sphere it would usually end up outside, so a lot of trial and error. Of course a larger area to work with would have made it much more simple but I stuck to the size of the largest sphere. The result was a largely deformed series of balls that no longer looked like balls but was fully navigable by staff and all animals. The glass barrier wrapped around the full height of the structure but didnt touch the ground (used the barrier editable bottom option to adjust that) to accentuate the impossible nature, and the bottom sphere also contained the staff gate and a deep pool of water for the animals. I created a cold snow area (desert environment) on one level and spread feeding, bedding and enrichment items throughout the rest with a large garden on the top.
All the animals explore all areas, which caused a problem as I was hoping the Japanese monkey animals would hang around in the snow area while say the pigmy hippos would stay in the warm parts, but they seemed to move about each area quite evenly and complain the temperature wasnt right. The other problem was the huge centre piece tree at the top was climbable and as it was far higher than the barrier then the climbing animals would register as escaped if they climbed it and then end up in a box.
I stacked a series of spheres on top of each other (not a cylinder) from the Terrain Stamp Tool menu, largest size it would allow, the idea being to carve an animal route all the way through and have different environments in each ball with windows for guests to see inside. It would be a mixed species habitat as well.
The tunneling bit was fun but tricky, I chose a literal mining method, ie start at the top, turn on "standard look mode" and drilled down with the light on, using the Terrain push and 'flatten to surface' tool to make a spiralling ramp down, when I thought I was in the centre of the ball I used the flatten to foundation to expand out, creating "windows" in the process, then drill down to the next ball. Typically I would lose my way and miss the ball altogether. In hind sight would have been easier just to drill into each ball, create the habitat then link with a ramp after.
The correct ramp surface/gradiant/width/ceiling height to link the levels was the hardest bit, I didnt realise there was a navigable terrain heatmap to start with which would have sped up the process (instead of watching the animals!) but even the slightest extra chisel or smoothing a ramp would result in some species (weirdly at times only one member of a species could and the most bouncy of all animals, the Nyala, too) and staff not being able to climb it, combined with the small space of the sphere it would usually end up outside, so a lot of trial and error. Of course a larger area to work with would have made it much more simple but I stuck to the size of the largest sphere. The result was a largely deformed series of balls that no longer looked like balls but was fully navigable by staff and all animals. The glass barrier wrapped around the full height of the structure but didnt touch the ground (used the barrier editable bottom option to adjust that) to accentuate the impossible nature, and the bottom sphere also contained the staff gate and a deep pool of water for the animals. I created a cold snow area (desert environment) on one level and spread feeding, bedding and enrichment items throughout the rest with a large garden on the top.
All the animals explore all areas, which caused a problem as I was hoping the Japanese monkey animals would hang around in the snow area while say the pigmy hippos would stay in the warm parts, but they seemed to move about each area quite evenly and complain the temperature wasnt right. The other problem was the huge centre piece tree at the top was climbable and as it was far higher than the barrier then the climbing animals would register as escaped if they climbed it and then end up in a box.
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