...and then the rain started.

Guests in this underground viewing bubble will get an interesting view.

Ha! Mandrill bottoms, up close and personal! (And in Technicolor!) Actually, this bubble is a great feature.

And....the rains have returned.

Do the animals react to the rain (or snow)? Some might like it, some may go indoors, etc..

not really. They just follow their normal animations...at least that I'm aware of.

More

And then the snows came...

More snow....

 

 

The sun setting on this area. After a video recap we will be moving onto the next area of the zoo.

Beautiful! Looks like a scene from "The Lion king".

Here is a video recap of this area.

 

It's neat to be surrounded my mandrills, to the left, to the right. I'm wondering how you managed that seasonal shift (from snow to thaw to summer) with the mandrills keeping their stride.

In game, when the seasons switch, its done in real time as the background elements continue to function in real time. That video just happened to be captured as the final snow 'melted' and it went back to a non-snow weather pattern. So summed up. I didn't do anything special except capture video at the right moment.

And...I'm surprised you didn't ask about the gigantic grave site dug in a few of these shots.

^ Oh, I'm wondering all right. I just figured you'd tell us when the time was right. 

No big secret. In the real zoo that I'm reconfiguring here, that is for an area called Tropic World. Its a huge primates, apes, and other tropical animals gathering of habitats and exhibits. The building is huge, but more importantly, its also half under ground. This allowed them to have a massive indoor space, but to only build a vertical structure for part of it. The guest walkways are about ground level, or a bit higher. the habitats go down and above the walkways. So, that the footprint for the Tropic world structure.

Here are a couple shots of the real inside. Each of these only represents about a third of the actual building. there are three sections. South America, Asia, Africa. This shows part of Africa and one of the others (not sure which one). Note the bridge that shows the level the walkway is. 

 

And here is the outside. one is a real picture, but the other is a concept art of a revamp that might be planned. It kind of still follows the master plan I'm working from, but not exactly. The main thing to note is the part of the building circled in white is what currently exists.

 

This is just a beautiful zoo and almost unreal how detailed you are making it.

Moving onto the next section of the zoo. This will be the African ungulate area, which will also have a jeep ride and large animal barn. The barn will be the old pachyderm building currenly in the zoo. Again this is somewhat following the master plan I have been working from.

-The white area will be the barn and the large ungulate habitat. 

-The pink line within the white is the estimate track of the jeep ride.

-Orange will be the rhinos

-Yellow will be the hippos

-Blue will be African water birds

-Purple will be the future African savanna

 

Here is it overlaid onto the master plan using the same colors for reference.  My biggest revision is that the ungulate area is really expanded in size and the addition of the tracked ride.

The start of the build for the barn (old pachyderm house) and the habitat fences.

Here is a first draft of the jeep ride path going through this habitat.

Here is a view of the habitat before any scenery has been added.

Still in progress, this is the beginning of the station and queue line for the jeep ride.