Particle's Projects

[(Designer)Particle]

25 minutes ago, Z.Z. said:

Wow, the stone bench looks fantastic in game!

 

We can call them whatever you like ZZ, I don't really need credit, but I'm honored to be one half of the PZ that is for sure.  Can we call it ZZP instead since it is your artwork?

 

That is amazing that you did all that in "the little paint program" as you call it.  If I could I'd buy you a copy of Photoshop and get it to you.  Gimp is pretty much a free version of photoshop though, if you haven't ever tried it, it can be a little confusing for sure, but... there is the power there to do any graphic task you can imagine, it is a very good program that I have used many times over the years.  Corel Draw is ok, but Gimp is better.  :)

 

But all that aside you obviously have a feel for the dimensions of zoo tycoon objects.  That is something that is sort of hard to teach.   Anytime you feel like making something nice that I can help with, you just let me know.

 

I think it is probably helpful to understand that I have had years of training working with photoshop.  Way back in college I was an art major, so I have lots of training working with colors and mediums, and then I build websites professionally for many years, first for a internet provider, and later for a company that made websites for magazines, including good housekeeping, outdoor magazine, oprah magazine, and even maxim.  My job was to do everything from creating the backend database, to designing the frontend site, and so for about 8 years I was paid to work with photoshop every day.  These days I don't do any of that, I mostly do light construction type jobs like tiling, painting, and landscaping now.  I find those to be less stressful and better for my mental health, and also enjoyable, compared to sitting in an office all day.  But all that experience I had working on websites was perfect training for making zoo tycoon mods, in fact, I find it to be easy and fun, a great hobby for me now.  I don't really desire credit, I just am having fun being a part of making zoo tycoon a better game, if I can help with that, I will be happy.  Also I llike to talk about it, if you couldn't tell,  so this thread is sort of becoming like a blog now, but I hope it provides Zoo Tekkies with a little entertainment, that would also make me happy.

 

I really think JBL should get credit for all these colorswapping things.  But he has moved on to other things for now, and I have just begun to mod for zoo tycoon, so I will take up his banner, and charge into battle!

[HeatherL]

Neither bench is working in my game.  They are grey with a bright green seat, no color options & I can't click on them after placing them.  Do I need an additional program?

Going by your image, I like both versions.  The left looks like stone & the right looks like concrete.

[(Designer)Particle]

13 minutes ago, HeatherL said:

Neither bench is working in my game.  They are grey with a bright green seat, no color options & I can't click on them after placing them.  Do I need an additional program?

So just from the sound of it, it sounds to me like the graphic file is being used, but not the ai file.  So that is why you see the green seat, that is my version of the graphic for sure.  That is what the bench would look like if the sbench.ai file that comes with it is not being used.  So my guess is you have some other download that is overriding that sbench.ai file also.  Do you have any other mods that alter the stone bench?  Try for example taking everything out of your dlupdate folder except the stone bench hack, and then see if it still does not work right?  That's the best guess I can give you at this point.

 

13 minutes ago, HeatherL said:

The left looks like stone & the right looks like concrete.

Yep that explains it.

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

Oh I like calling it the Concrete Bench!

 

ZP is fine, I use ZC when making things with Cricket :)

 

Yeah, I tried GIMP, it was just too confusing.

It absolutely amazes me how many paint programs are out there, but none of them have the simplicity of use that Super Paint had.

 

Ok, thanks, and anytime you need help with graphics for ZT just ask, its my favorite part of making stuff for ZT.
 

So cool that you have all that experience with computer graphics.

I was a graphic artist back when we actually cut and pasted stuff by hand with exacto knives and hot wax, and had to clean nibs in our rapidograph pens.

 

Have you looked at my stuff in the downloads section?

[(Admin)Cricket]

I really like both versions!!

[(Designer)Particle]

1 hour ago, Z.Z. said:

I was a graphic artist back when we actually cut and pasted stuff by hand with exacto knives and hot wax, and had to clean nibs in our rapidograph pens.

Nibs!  I used to have a set of rapidograph pens lol.

 

1 hour ago, Z.Z. said:

Have you looked at my stuff in the downloads section?

Oh yes I have.  :)

 

53 minutes ago, Cricket said:

I really like both versions!

Me too.  ;)

 

 

[HeatherL]

I found the problem:

https://zootekphoenix.com/forums/files/file/4640-fill-em-up-by-dj_pluffs/

I completely forgot that this hack includes altering the bench files.  I really like this, too. It makes those pesky guests a little easier.  But, one the other hand, the benches look great! So much fun to play with the colors. Decisions, decisions...

 

[(Designer)Particle]

15 minutes ago, HeatherL said:

I found the problem:

https://zootekphoenix.com/forums/files/file/4640-fill-em-up-by-dj_pluffs/

I completely forgot that this hack includes altering the bench files.  I really like this, too. It makes those pesky guests a little easier.  But, one the other hand, the benches look great! So much fun to play with the colors. Decisions, decisions...

 

Well you just highlighted exactly why we try to make things as separate items instead of "hacks".  Hacks can have conflicts, while a properly coded addon will have none.  The only problem is, if you do any bench as a separate item, then the guests just look at it instead of sitting in it.  Bluefang made it almost impossible for us to mod benches, which are some of the most used objects in the game.  That was bad planning.  I have heard that there might be something coming down the pipe to  help with this, but for now, it is indeed a choice you have to make.  Sorry about that.  :(

 

Thanks for letting me know you figured it out though.  :)

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

"Nibs!  I used to have a set of rapidograph pens lol."

 

I still have mine somewhere, but they are probably unusable now.

I still have my waxer and light table too.

[(Designer)Particle]

NIBS!

 

I think we should take out the old waxer and the light table and really get to work.  So let's talk about Trams.  Can we?

 

I'm sure everyone out there has a list of the zoo tycoon mods they would most love to see.  I certainly do and at the top of that list has always been a nice little tram that would take the guests on a journey around the zoo, and give the zoo an overall connected feel.  Bluefang might have been thinking about that too because in the original dlls we can find these strings:

 

6082, "Zoo Gondolas"

6083, "Zoo Trains"

 

These strings were around before DD or MM came out, and yet, they never gave us a gondola or a train.  I'm pretty sure that decision makes all the pandas very sad to this day.  So I'd like to fix that.  I think a train would be nice but most zoos don't have trains really, they have trams.  I thought wildlife park 3 they had a very nice one, here is a picture:

 

 

Now how do you go about doing this in zoo tycoon?  Good question.  I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I think I have an idea.  But first let's talk about how I got there.

 

The first thing you'd want to do, if you were able to just do whatever you want, is to try to attach the guests to this gondola/tram in some way, so they actually move around the zoo from place to place.  I'm just going to tell you right now that is probably not going to be possible.  We'd be best off just leaving that part of the dream out of it for now.  There are tricks for moving guests around zoos, but we won't get anywhere if we start with that as the goal, I promise.

 

So instead what we're really hoping for is something that provides the illusion of the guests getting a sweet ride around the zoo.  A lot of people would tell you the best way to do this is to have it be one giant animation, like the Virginia Wheel Coaster or the log flume ride from rct2.  But for me the problem with that idea is: they are so big they take up a huge amount of your zoo space, and also, the animations that it would take to pull off a smooth ride around the entire track is huge, so usually you get a squashed down version of the animation, that has fewer frames, and looks jumpy.  I think everyone would prefer a smooth animation that looked like it was done right. 

 

So I could always try it that way, but I wanted to try to come up with something a little more fun to build with.  Something modular would be awesome, with the ability to make it grow as your zoo got bigger, and maybe some control over where it went.  When I discussed this with people everyone told me that would be too much for the game to handle, it wasn't built to have something like that, and I usually agreed with that assessment.  It seemed like a Tram would be impossible.

 

But as time has gone on I've seen some pretty amazing tricks by designers that make things look like they are real when they are not.  And in the back of my head the whole time has been this lingering desire for some sort of tram.  This would be sad if it was the end of the story, wouldn't it?  Poor particle never got his tram. 

 

Ok so I've been brainstorming this out for a year now.  Here is what I have come up with.  If this works, then you will be able to build a huge awesome tram system with animations of moving vehicles using only 2 pieces.  Yes I said only 2 pieces.  The key to the whole thing is this main piece, which I will need to create 4 different views of it.  Now you can laugh at my pictures if you want, just remember I did these with an exacto knife and waxpaper so just try to use your imagination a little bit if you can:

 

 

Those are the 2 of the 4 views I need.  Each one of these pieces is a single straight piece that will have a vehicle moving in one direction along it every so often. Also important here is that these things will float above ground, and hopefully guests can walk right under them.  Hopefully.  For this I have a lot of ideas but I haven't really tried anything yet, so I won't get into it, but let's just say there are examples in the game of things like this that guests walk under, like observation areas, and arches... and also there are other tricks I can use that designers have used over the years.

 

Now to complete the illusion of the whole thing you really only need one other thing, a tower that connects these pieces.  And that could really look like anything, but in this case I made mine look like observation towers.  So now we have this:

 

 

Again, you can laugh if you want, but those badboys took me 12 seconds to copy paste in there and they do the job I think. 

 

Here is how that would play out in larger versions of this: in the first one, the straight line style ride, you have an extra piece (red arrow 1) that would be to get on and another one for the get off piece (red arrow 2), so that one would be 4 total pieces.  But the bottom one is only 2 pieces linked together a bunch of times, you see how this could go all over your zoo, or around it or wherever you want really.

 

And as time went on you could add more pieces, like maybe curves in the track, or other types of towers, maybe a building where the guests get on and off, etc.  Also this could work for sky tram rides like this:

 

 

So first of all let me ask my friendly tekkies, do you think this would work?  Would you like to see this in your zoo?

 

Second of all, I'd love to hear what everyone's ultimate wish list most wanted zoo tycoon 1 mod would be.  If you could have anything in the game, no matter how crazy that idea might sound, you must tell me right now what it is.  I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS!  or else how can I do them? lololol.  You don't want to make me sad do you?