Miscellany

Removes most of the user interface from the camera mode. This mod was created specifically with filming Zoo Tycoon 2 machinimas (particularly with cinematic black bars at the top and bottom of the screen added during editing) in mind.

The vanilla game only has one sort of "large" guest (that's what he's called internally). This download adds a three new ones; two of those three use an asset that was made for Folksy Facelift, so in that regard this is a port; in the interest of a little bit more zoogoer body variety. Yes, I see that their gifts' backpack straps are clipping into their armpits, this is an issue with the single "large" guest in present in the base game as well.

The crazy-rare Bengal tiger variants in the release build of Folksy Facelift were originally designed as their own thing, which they shared alongside a more common orange variant that didn't make it to that larger project. Feel lucky enough to score yourself a Maltese tiger in Challenge Mode?

Spice up your Savannah exhibits, or let your lions and cheetahs taste the rainbow, with these eye-popping Thomson's gazelle variants! A word of warning: this isn't intentional, but this pack makes it so you can't adopt normal, orange gazelles. Who knows why the variant system works like this?

This mildly disturbing, not-particularly-plausible redesign for the giant ground sloth was scrapped from Folksy Facelift after some feedback. For better or worse, now it's being hosted here. Happy Halloween!

Modifies the model and texture of the giant ground sloth. The first screenshot shows the download after having been installed in the normal game, and the second shows it after having been installed alongside a development build of Zoo Tycoon 2: Folksy Facelift. 

The images below are from the development of the Biome Update and do not fully reflect the package provided in the download.

Very early on, while the update was being developed, new biomes were seriously being considered for Folksy Facelift's Biome Update. They were dropped because, as I've explained elsewhere, I don't think there's a satisfying way to integrate new biomes into the game while respecting things like balancing and game modes outside of Freeform Mode. But, if anyone sees things differently and would like to work their own magic with the files for these biomes, I'd be remiss not to at least provide a head start. (but don't expect a helping hand from me!)

This package contains files for the four biomes that I was considering for Folksy Facelift, plus some reskins for vanilla biomes from before these new biomes were folded back into them:

• Dry Forest: This is a very popular biome that serves as a sort of bridge between the Savannah and Tropical Rainforest biomes, but I struggle to see its function when so much of what it holds overlaps with those other two biomes, especially in animals.

• Mediterranean: If there's one thing working on Folksy Facelift; especially the Biome Update; taught me, it's that I have some serious guff with the concept of clean-cut biomes and that "scrub" specifically might be my arch-nemesis. I won't go into detail here, but the idea behind this biome was to give Mediterranean scrubland flora and fauna a new biome with the old Scrub biome being reimagined as semi-desert (like Radical Remake). The big change in plans led to the Scrub biome proper being made all-Mediterranean, with plants and animals from tropical and xeric scrublands being dispersed into the Savannah and Desert biomes respectively and the terrain textures for this biome being folded into Scrub.

• Speaking of Scrub: a reskin for that biome, respecting its status in the vanilla game as a sort of dumping ground for semi-desert and tropical shrubland animals, is included here as a bonus.

• Montane Forest: Here's a biome with a real legacy; a different imagining of this biome was the centerpiece of the classic Biome Shell and was meant to be part of Artifex's Island Excursions! A major problem with the one I was working on for the Biome Update is that it stole a lot of thunder from the Tropical Rainforest and Temperate Forest biomes, and that its contents could (and eventually would, as in the final release) very easily be spread across those two. The terrain textures for this biome wound up being used for Alpine's FF reskin.

• Temperate Rainforest: Even compared to the three above, I've always seen this biome as supremely superfluous. It's the least developed of the ones included in this package. Some other biomes are referenced in text strings, but these were never actually made.

This is more just a basis for other modders to work off of than anything. All of the textures here are fair game to be included in your own Zoo Tycoon projects. Extra notes, like what animals and plants I was planning to put in the biomes, are included in the .z2f file.

This is not a finished mod. It does not come with any new animals or landscaping objects, nor does it move any existing animals or plants to the biomes it adds to the game. This is a resource for other modders to use for their own endeavors. Credit would be appreciated for those who use its materials for their own downloads, but is not required. I believe that some of the biome modification spreads used a template provided by Okeanos.

(also, if anyone is reading this, please don't give any of these biomes entries on the ZT2 Download Library, I feel that'd give the false impression of them being ready for casual use)

Scary lawyer