Leaderboard

Thanks for the tip! Had to look up the falloff tool and it looks like it could have saved me a lot of work haha. And yes, so true about the topology, it's rough. I did it by hand using the shrink wrap tool but man, it took me hours and when it came to connecting the limbs, I just had to get creative when things didn't exactly line up. I'm going model it from the beginning one more time and I'll try to get the snout, ears, and topology right this time. I don't have to, but I think it's fun seeing it get better. I'd like to release my models as a resource in case anyone wanted to use them for anything, so got to make them presentable! Going to drive back home this week so I'll probably update again some time in June.

Yeah they've been a problem (the eyes). I think that handwaving them was a mistake early on as they've sort of exacerbated the problems with the rest of the snout. Good call, I'll smooth over the shoulder, thank you. Have you seen that Simpson's meme where Homer says he lost weight but he's clipped it all in the back? That's how I feel about the rest of the topology I've neglected to share 😂: Not a single triangle (got loooots of funky quads though), so there's that lol...retopologizing is soooo tedious... But as you said, any problems with the animation because of bad topology shouldn't be too noticeable in ZT1. Yeah I agree that the game should be forgiving thankfully. I'll see if I'm able to pull off some fixes on the ears and eyes/snout by tonight. Honestly I just want to get the face right for the plaque 😂. Thank you @pukkie, @HENDRIX, and @Vondell for the awesome feedback!

^ Seconding that. I remember working on the Aldabra Tortoise and the Red Panda and making anatomy adjustments to the model that I thought were going to be huge and consequential, and then when I rendered them out again it changed about two pixels, lol. In that sense I've always appreciated how forgiving modeling for ZT1 is rather than modeling for a game where players are directly viewing and interacting with the models. I've cheated in ways I'd never be able to modeling for ZT2 ... Looking good though!

I hope it's okay to keep a separate topic for my normal ZT1 projects. I'm still working on my API, but my last final was yesterday so I am taking a small break from coding while I mentally recover lol. (here is a visual aid to help you understand what I looked like yesterday). I've been sharing the latest updates with Jay and Fern so I've made a bit of progress since my last public post (I got the game loop and an in-game command console kinda working!...woo! Anyone?) Now that I'm on break, I want to learn how to make proper mods because it will help make my API better knowing more about the game files. I used to design scenery objects for a ZT2 design team named Artifex, but that was 15 years ago so I am wayyyy out-of-practice with Blender. Let's hope this goes well. This is my first try at an animal in either game. Can anyone guess what animal I am trying to make? :) (I just realized that the legs aren't level with the ground...ahhh)

@Goosifer any reference to "Marwan Jubran" ?

You sure put a lot of efforts in this Project Goosifer I hope you will be pleased with the final results

Thanks, and yeah I'm glad too. @finnethen is the best! I've been on a break from coding ever since finals had taken up all of my available time. I am on vacation right now and will be driving back home for the coming week. Once I get back in June I'll have more frequent updates--I still think it would be great to have a version of the API that modders can start using by the end of summer. We'll see. A few updates on the project. First, I've decided on a final name for the project. It will be called EMU (Extensible Modding Utility). I just thought it would be a cool nod to the three-letter animal acronym APE made popular. I meant it when I said that I wanted to honor Zootek in some way, and I have a few ideas after the name change. Second, I've got a command console working. If you don't know what a command console is: some games let you open a terminal with a shortcut. It's a black window where you type commands that manipulate the game as you play. It's a good tool for an API because it lets me and modders debug API functions, and it's a fun tool for people to use in general because why not. Jay had a great idea where a possible application of this command console could be letting users modify .ini values while you're in the game (without actually changing the .ini file, if that makes sense). Here's a 50 second clip of it in action. In this example, I continue to use the addToBudget function as I have before. I type the command in the console and you'll see the budget update in the game.: Right now the console opens up automatically when Zoo Tycoon launches. Eventually I want it to only open up when hitting a shortcut. I've also got a super primitive game loop working. If you don't know what a game loop is, it's usually where all of the game events and graphics refresh on a neverending loop. It's like an engine that makes sure a flip book is always flipping. This is important because it's where mods using the API will run when loaded. This game loop is actually how the console is working above. One of the challenges is that I had to create a new thread to make it work until I find a way to hook onto the real loop, so there is some performance loss at the moment that I hope I can patch later on. Finally, thanks to Jay and Fern's help, I got a lot of the budget-related function calls figure out. As a reminder, here's how to read this chart: Bold just means they are the last two I've found. Leftmost is the number of the function. The first hexadecimal address is actually a mystery function I haven't defined yet, and the rightmost hex address is the location within that mystery function that the addToBudget() function is called. On the right I have a small note describing the context behind when that function call is made. That context will help me figure out what the mystery functions are actually doing when I have the time to figure those out, but we get a decent idea here. For example, this is how I learned that the parent function to number 5 is the easter egg cheat function that controls how all of the easter eggs are programmed. If there's no comment it's because I haven't figured out how to trigger that function call yet. Some ideas are when you win a scenario and get money, certain event-related cash prizes, etc. If anyone has ideas, I would love to hear them! See you guys again in about two weeks!

With Fern and Jay's help, I found the function that Blue Fang created that controls all of the easter eggs in the game. It's just one giant switch board where if a guest is named X or Y then it does whatever the game needs to do to make it happen. Sadly no new easter eggs that aren't already found but I also wasn't trying to find new ones. I can post the code if anyone wanted to find out for sure. I found it by accident because I was looking to identify one of the functions that messed with the game's budget. It turns out that Blue Fang created one function specifically for one man named Jonathan Gilmour, where if you were to name a zookeeper by that name you got $10000 added to your zoo budget. Jonathan Gilmour was winner of Microsoft's 2001 Ultimate Zookeeper contest and was put in the game as an easter egg as part of the prize. Sadly he's since passed, but it seems he lived an awesome life. Here's more information about his legacy at the zoo he worked for: https://www.zoonewengland.org/act/ways-to-give/jonathan-gilmour-memorial-scholarship-fund/. Credit to Jay for the story, I had no idea. I just think it's really cool that he gets his own easter egg not just in the game, but in the code as well.

They are Kermode bears

Me, too. A few tries to spell it right. Zwarto did terrific job on those Central American foliage and animals. I should also say that I usually limited myself 130 dlupdate because I was afraid of crashing the game. This zoo I used 250 ztds as the limit as I learned the game could handle more. And I'm collecting a folder of individual files to combine.

You can use the falloff tool to easiyl enlarge the eyes without breaking the surrounding topology. In my experience, better have some well chosen tris than lots of badly stretched quads. I strive for topology that has close to quadratic quads instead of long, thin quads, because it just unwraps, rigs and deforms better. Eg on the chin, I would collapse those thin quads at the 'cost' of having a tri or two.

Thanks, Pukkie! I forgot to show the dogs that I put in the old bison exhibit next to the nursery. Xoloitzcintli dogs.

Yeah the snout is definitely better on Post 5. It's my first time modeling an animal so I think when I made the eyes everything must have gone wrong on the face not long after lol. I'm going to animate it a little and see if it at least looks okay in-game. If not, I'll try stencil-texturing it again and see if it hides a lot of the mistakes. Topology is what makes up the shape of the model: all of the dots and lines. How clean the construction of the topology looks is important because the cleaner it is the easier it is to animate and texture. Post#5 I was having a lot of trouble texturing because it was just so messy, so I retopologized it twice. (A beginner’s) Retopology attempt:

What a stunning and pretty entrance Professor Paul Your guests will have no doubt the thought This area is quite lovely written all over them Nice choice on the grand hotel building too This is a great start ps congrats on the new computer oops I for got to ask the question for your last screenshot in your older zoo concerning those white bears What bears are those They can't be polar bears but I can't recall any other white bears I do like those bears

I just need to fix the ears and I think I can begin animating. I think that without the distinctive pointy look then it just looks like a shiba inu with rabbit ears lol. Did I go too far in the other direction with the stylized look? I'm not sure that it will matter zoomed out. Zoomed out: Zoomed in:

Completely redone the model. Wasn't happy with the topology on the old one...plus old one was missing eye sockets, visible mouth, and nose. New one still needs some work though. Kind of learning as I go.

That looks cool!

Woahh, that fox looks SO cool! 🤩 I had zero idea others similar to the Fennec existed. Absolutely, if this first one turns out alright I will 100% make that one next. Yeah the shape of it looks slightly different. larger hind legs and the body arches a bit more. I think it would be fun to model, thank you pukkie!

Perhaps when you finised it you could consider a bat eared fox The ears are quite similar but the size of the fox itself looks larger to me

Yeahh, a fennec fox! Look at their adowable ears. Here's my awful attempt at painting it with a photo stencil: I'm going to try handpainting it instead so that it blends with the game artstyle better.

is that a bat eared fox? Or a fennex?

*angrily reaches for the star button* Well done. 😂

But don't foxes? dig holes so you are just giving it a head start.

I can live with orange after all I am Dutch but I will say red any given time

They can be orange like those hazard waste baskets hospitals have because children are little infection spreaders lol.

Yayy! I was being a little cheeky but I genuinely think this mod is hilarious. Would love to see an updated version!

It was originally released at ztu (Zoo Tycoon Unlimited (Belgium)) I have an updated version of this somewhere. Being a ztu file it will come to Tek eventually.

I was scouring the Youtubes and found a channel that showcases Zoo Tycoon stuff. I'm bringing this thread back from the grave to encourage everyone to download the Walking Trashcan mod yesterday: The description says it's a Zoo Admin download made by a user "Jonathan": https://zooadmin.org/ZT1/index.php?topic=1014.msg1229. If this man still chats among us, well gosh, I salute you good sir. The perfect mod and will forever be in every one of my zoos, probably sharing an exhibit with canadian geese if I can find a mod for those. Edit: Kidding about the geese. I have a personal vendetta against the canadian geese and at this venture, will not be inviting them to my zoos.

Here they are: http://www.ztcdd.org/DD/index.php?topic=10285.0

So will we be getting this pack at some point? I'm actually interested in the scenery items.