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Thank you! I think I'm going to scrap the remaining two items. I just can't think of an interesting direction to take the water cooler or the zookeeper rest area. If I can come up with new ideas, I'll likely revisit this pack and expand on it. Will be working on configurations and graphics updates on everything for release. Also: big surprises coming soon! Two fun collaborations I can't wait to share with y'all.

A screenshot tour of one of my newest zoos — VERY much a work in progress and much will change as time goes on! Some of what you see in this post will have changed by the time I get back to the game. Let's get a few overhead shots in: And some obligatory close-ups, guest attractions and animals. ^ Entrance with a bridge overlooking the water, flanked by shops, a farmer's market, winter-themed emergency medical service (guest-only, but there is an animal hospital nearby), and snow forest resting area for recovering patients. The road (which I will not pretend looks 100% accurate to real life lmao) can take more seriously injured guests to the hospital complex for advanced treatment. Behind the farmer's market we can see Zarawatto's Gigantoraptors enjoying themselves. ^ Close-up of said Gigantoraptors, still in 'baby' stage, not fully developed. ^ alternate view of the EMS, road, and 'sauna.' Located behind the EMS we can see the 'Wild Arctic' where guests can learn about various arctic wildlife. ^ Beside the road we have Borsato's Red-Crowned Cranes and Hawkkeye's Snow Geese! They get along famously together. ^ Here's a closeup of a mixed smorgasbord of ungulates: Hawkkeye's Highland Cattle, North County Mule Sheep, Balkan Donkeys, and Exmoor Ponies. They were quite the challenge to make happy but worth it! (because I started them off with an entirely snowy exhibit and wrongfully assumed they would be okay with scenery objects that weren't programmed for animals. lol.) ^ another angle ^ Close-up of the guest 'picnic' area, with nearby Nanuqsaurus exhibit and back view of the crane/snow goose viewing area (I borrowed the design from user Reuben but tweaked it to my own liking). ^ Zarawatto's Nanuqsaurusup close, still in 'baby' stage, not fully developed. ^ Close-up of one of my personal favorites - the 'Pleistocene Ungulate Exhibit.' In here are Hawkkeye's Steppe Bison, Tarpan, and Borsato's Irish Elk. I have no idea if these animals would have roamed Scandinavian countries while they were alive but I couldn't resist putting one of RDingFT's ported AOE2 buildings as a scenery backdrop. It's called the 'Viking Borgund Stave Church' and looks absolutely breathtaking in amongst the snowy pines, chopped wood and dead foliage. ^ enclosed within the exhibit guests are welcome to explore the various hatcheries: bird, fish, and dinosaur located in one area. ^ the 'Martian Crash Site' area, which I designed to make it appear as though a ship crash landed into the zoo, and afterwards the higher zoo management decided to profit off of the derelict parts. This area needs serious revamping and I honestly cannot wait to trash it because I hate looking at it lol. ^ Hot dogs and nachos in between the hot air balloon thrill rides, because I'm a terrible compassionless person ^ Close-up of the Crane/snow goose viewing area. Reuben is one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to utilizing set pieces and I only just now realized there's a zookeeper walking up on the wall. ^ Close-up of the veterinary hospital, memorial maze, and church garden/animal cemetary. Behind the churches and memorial pavilion, Hawkkye's Regaliceratops and Borsato's Pachycephalosaurs can be seen ^ Close-up of the cemetery ^ Close-up of the -baby- Regaliceratops and Pachycephalosaurs. According to Hawkkeye's compatibility guide, the Blue Fang in-game Styracosaurus is supposed to go along with them, but mine does not - I'm guessing this has something to do with the Combined Realism Hack by VNDragon that overhauls biomes, foliage, and dinosaur textures among other things. For the time being, I cannot add it into the exhibit with the others. ^ Close-up of the farmer's market, with the greenhouse peeking alongside ^ This area, also inspired by Reuben and connected to the Highland Ungulate Exhibit, was perhaps the most challenging that I was trying to recreate. I didn't want to outright copy him, and I wanted to challenge myself by not only experimenting with elevation but use more snow/arctic/tundra-themed pieces. This worked out for the most part, but the upper section still looks too bland and condensed in my eyes and one day I'd like to substitute the brown brick pieces with something more blue in color. It is well past time for me to learn how to use photoshop and make my own mods, and I look forward to experimenting. I will most likely be transforming this area to look as much like a ski lift as the game engine allows me to make it. Until then, thanks for taking the time to view this thread! I still have so, so much more space to fill and I hope you're as excited to see the results as I am! My wrist is killing me and I need to go to bed lol. Edit: I started this zoo on September 7th. I've been chipping away at it since then, just to clarify. None of this was created in one single sitting I promise lol.

Beautiful building, YPL! And gentle hugs!

Bravo YPL, your zoo is stunning! Each area is so intricately detailed, so natural and lush. Excellent work.

Yes. I had 5 weeks in the US. He lives in Orlando so took me to a park every second day. We would arrive at one at opening time and leave at closing. Those parks are huge. I needed the next day to recover. Other than them I mostly did driving tours through lots of National Monuments and Parks. We did Vegas to Vegas via Arizona, tip of New Mexico, back Arizona (Carlsbad Caverns) into Utah (Zion Park). Drove from Vegas to San Diego where I went to the wildlife park and the zoo.

Please thank Jay for that story. I most enjoyed the personal touch about himself at the end. He has the heart of an Imagineer.

I do like your well-tended grounds area.

Wow, a whole year without playing. A lot occurred between the last time I posted and now. Some good, much of it bad, and very private. There is a lot I do not think I will share publicly for reasons related to PTSD, but the important thing is I am here now and ready to share my love of Zoo Tycoon with everyone again. I built the entrance around the idea of fresh garden greenery, staff services and a bustling market. Many of you will recognize rdingft's AOE pieces right off the bat, and I personally don't think they get the credit they deserve for how beautiful these scenery pieces are. They are non-functional but help to create the illusion that the zoo market is more active than it really is. To the left of the Staff and Service building, we can see a farm where much of the produce is grown. I had great fun with this section in particular. I wanted it to look as though the land were being diligently tended to and I think I achieved that. Moving on to animals, I want to first zoom in on @Serpyderpy's Sinoceratops. One of the reasons I always sink my dinosaur exhibits into the ground is because I'm paranoid of them bursting out once the fences get weak. It gives me peace of mind and helps me focus on decorating. (As a side note, I need to download some neutral-marked rock mods...) The sinoceratops are very laid-back and easy to take care of. I had virtually no issue providing them with what they needed. The babies are adorable and the adults are intimidating and magnificent. I'm excited to see more from them. I'd highly recommend them to anyone who doesn't want a fussy species to look after. If you're easily overwhelmed, they won't give you any trouble. As these are herd dinosaurs, make sure you give them plenty of space. They like company. When I learned that this was a Chinese-discovered species, I knew I had to put a rdingft scenery building in their exhibit. This building is called the "Temple of Heaven" and is probably my favorite of his mods as far as reconstructed temples go. I think the screenshot speaks for itself. It is to die for. Total # of Sinoceratops: 4 (3 adults, 1 extra adopted baby. No births yet.) Moving on, I want to showcase my favorite animal mod right now: @Buffzoo's Dinocrocuta. Hyenas are among my most favorite living animals, and I was ecstatic to discover that they made an extinct hyena - and a giant one, no doubt. Their exhibit, like the Sinoceratops above, was a labor of love. I cherished making this. I especially want to zoom in on the dead gazelle statue, which I believe came from an AOE2 statue pack. The reason for this statue's placement is that I wanted to create a more realistic setting for my carnivorous animals, which I have neglected in the past. Perhaps this "animal" was a fresh kill, a demonstration from the keepers to show interested zoo guests how the animal hunts and feeds. I hid the "carcass" in tall grass, to simulate how many extant predatory species will hide their kills to prevent other predators in the area from stealing. (Some grass was deleted for better viewing) I love these hyenas, and I'm very proud of this exhibit. There is more, but I MUST go to bed. It is after 1 in the morning and I can't stay up any longer. For any interested, these hyenas were extremely easy to take care of. They gave me no issues whatsoever. Great animal for beginner players who want well-behaved, laid-back animals. Total # of Dinocrocuta: 4 (2 adults, 1 adopted cub with the 'allow purchasing young hack.' 1 given birth naturally. Slow birth rate..) That is all for now. Enjoy!

I have also just released the Celestial Buildings by Dr Rick. They were started in 2008 and were shelved due to Rick's ill health and the info threads here vanishing as well. From Jay: Yes, it is Disney's Haunted Mansion. The building itself represents the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland in California. A number of years ago, a number of designers in the RCT2 user community created a lot of Disneyland objects. That included objects for a Disney Haunted Mansion ride. They also used lots of tiny pieces to create the exterior of the building itself, as seen in the earlier image. So I do not take credit for that. I did not create it myself because they did a fantastic job at reproducing the actual Disneyland Haunted Mansion building. Here is a picture in Wikipedia of the actual building: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haunted_Mansion_July_4.jpg I did the layout of things around the building from lots of things made for RCT2. When guests use this building in ZT, most of the top of the building will disappear so that the inside of it can be seen. It contains an animated haunted mansion ride, with the entire layout done by me from lots of things made for RCT2. Some of those things are based on Disney's Haunted Mansion rides; some are based on other Disney rides, some are based on Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings; the rest are other things that fit into a haunted mansion theme. The default price for guests to use the building is 13, since the "ghostfather clock" at Disney's Haunted Mansions strikes 13. Like Disney's Haunted Mansions, this is meant to be a playful haunt rather than a scary haunt. Disneyland has train tracks going around the park. When they designed the Haunted Mansion for the park, they didn't have room inside the train tracks for the ride. So what people see as the Haunted Mansion is a facade. It has a couple elevators disguised as stretching rooms to get people below ground. People then walk down a corridor that appears to have windows, but they are actually underground. That corridor gets the people to the other side of the railroad tracks where the building containing the actual ride exists. But in this version for ZT, the ride is inside the Haunted Mansion building. Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was created when I was a boy. It was made before portable computers and cell phones existed. Computers back then had to be in their own air conditioned computer rooms. Those computers were expensive. So companies used computers for payroll, financial, and scheduling purposes. But Disney used a minicomputer in one of those air conditioned computer rooms to control everything in the Haunted Mansion. That showed me that computers can be used to bring enjoyment to others. So it inspired me to become a computer software engineer, making programs that control machines. As it turned out, I did this work for manufacturing companies rather than for entertainment companies. But that desire to use computers to try to bring enjoyment to others is what eventually led me to helping in the ZT user community.

Yep you got it. His father worked for Disney for a while. He also took me to this one when I was there. He took me to 3 Disney Parks of 4 in Orlando, the 2 Universal ones and Seaworld. And then to the Disneyland in LA the day before I came home.

Coming sometime to DG from Jay. Now what could it be? Anyone care to guess?

I spent the better part of this evening working on this exhibit and I'm proud to finally show it off: This is an African ungulate exhibit featuring Hawkkeye's Angolan Giraffe, his Common Eland, and Khaydar's White Rhinoceros. Ignoring the fact that the Genghis Khan Mongol hut from RDingFT would ideally be in an Asian exhibit, I'm extremely happy with how this came out. When I remembered that Catfish and Coeur de lion made those shelter annexes, I knew I had to use them for one of Hawkkeye's giraffes. At the time of posting this, guests have not traversed into the area yet and used the annex but I know they'll be heading over there soon. Using a variety of neutral RDingFT and Genki statue and foliage, pieces, I created a lush sanctuary for the ungulates to live in and they're very content. They get along with each other famously and gave me no issues whatsoever.

Today, we have some shots of the marine show area. Following Z.Z.'s Marine Show Complex Tutorial, I have created an area right next to the 'Meteor Crash Site' where guests can watch the (vanilla) Orcas, Great White Sharks, Sea Lions, Sea Otters, and Bottlenose Dolphins perform in shows. The Shows themselves are set to "Frequent" and will cycle through each animal, one after the other. I have placed various restaurants around the grandstands as well as food cart stands so guests can grab a snack for the performances. Behind the grandstands are various marine-centric giftshops, bathroom stalls, and carnival games for added fun. There is also a circus. Here's the link to Z.Z.'s post: ^ Here, in front of the Meteor Crash Site we have Hawkkeye's Barbary Lions. They behave well and are steadily building a pride to rival the zoo's ungulate herds. At the time of writing this, there are 25. ^ Another angle of the circus, with indoor swim clubs on both sides.