You've placed your barriers, added some viewing areas, added a shelter, met your animals needs, but your habitat still isn't looking the way you want it. What are you missing? The answer is rocks and foliage. Rocks and foliage are the bread and butter of your habitats. They are what will turn your zoo from drab to fab. Thinking outside the box in their uses is key.
Foliage
There are foliage options for each of the different biomes within Planet Zoo. Within each biome there are different “levels” of plants to give you varying heights. There are trees of
different sizes, medium bushes, and some low lying flowers. Most of the options have different variations as well so creating natural looking foliage is easier than you think.
Animals have a preferred biome or biomes and continent that they will like foliage from. If your goal is animal happiness, you will want to stick with those recommendations. You can filter foliage by continent and biome so that you are only getting the options that will meet the animals needs. If your goal is purely aesthetics, using foliage that is not preferred by your animals will not have a great affect on your animals' welfare.
They also have a preferred amount of coverage. Think of coverage like the shadow the plant leaves on the ground. Plants like Elephant Grass or Common Reeds are low to the ground and don't leave a big shadow so you can place a lot of them without adding much coverage percentage. Taller trees or trees with wider leaf spans such as the Umbrella Acacia tree will provide a large amount of coverage. You can find the animals foliage requirements under the environment tab. If an animals coverage bar is gray, you can add as much foliage as your heart desires.
Grouping, layering, and rotating are the keys for interesting foliage.
Grouping- Placing your foliage in groups will look much better than just a tree here or a tree there. A tree or two, with a couple bushes, and some ferns or flowers will make your trees look much more natural,
Layering – much like grouping as above, placing different foliage close to each other at
different levels will be more interesting than plants spaced far apart. Unfortunately, there are
not a ton of bush/low tree options. The fix for this is to take your trees and sink them into the ground so only the leaves are out, creating your own bushes. This also works well for adding some greenery to your rocks.
Rotating – Each foliage option has 3 or 4 different options, but when using lots of foliage they can still start to look repetitive. When placing a lot of the same tree, hit z in between to rotate the tree. This will give variety even when using the same tree. Another option is placing the trees at different heights. You can press x and use the arrows to move the tree up or down. If you want to get more complicated with it you can use x (advanced move) to rotate trees to horizontal or leaning for fallen/falling trees.
Foliage is not just for habitats. Placing trees, bushes, and flowerbeds around your zoo will change your zoo dramatically and will be very pleasing to your guests. For realistic flowerbeds and forests, we have even been given a large selection of mulch. You can add foliage to the sides of buildings, place them in the water for a more natural pond bottom, place a potted plant inside your visitor center. Strange gaps in your path? Add some plants. You will see your zoo transformed before your eyes.
Rocks
Just like plants, rocks and make your zoo and habitats look totally different. Also just like plants, grouping, layering, and rotating are important for rocks as well. One thing that is not important for rocks, at least in regards to animal welfare, is biome. Animals do not care what
type or how many rocks are in their habitat. Using the rocks for the biome your zoo is in will blend in better to your terrain whereas using the animals natives rocks will make their habitats more natural. One thing to be careful with in placing rocks is to check the traversable area heat map. If you are using rocks as a barrier, you will want to be sure animals can't climb over them.
There are a ton of different ways to use rocks. I mentioned barriers already, you can use them for “anti-climb” units for moats, build a shelter, make a rock wall,
climbing structures or rest platforms for your animals, the list goes one. One of my favorite uses for rocks to to sink some (usually cladding rocks) into the ground so only a little bit shows, adding some depth to the terrain. There are 28 different rocks for each biome, don't be afraid to use them all.
Hopefully you've gotten some ideas on how to use your rocks and foliage to improve your zoos. As always, please feel free to put any questions in the comments and don't forget to follow @MamaZooana on twitter for blog updates.
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