Canadian North Zoo
an exercise in pain

An exercise in what???

Pain. Lots of pain. Painful waiting and waiting and waiting.

This zoo was made by taking the large Boreal Freeform map, covering it with water, and then filling in some land. I had all my graphic options set to high.

You'll notice a very meandering Sky Tram Tour in this zoo. Well, I sat by the entrance building and put out trams at reasonable intervals. I think there ended up being 30 or so. It took 15 minutes (real time) for tram 1 to get back to the building.

When I went on the tour, it took ... and kind in mind - this is real time ... 3 1/2 hours. It was so painful sometimes when I was lucky if the tram moved a frame in a second.

By the time I was done this tour, I turned my graphic options back to medium and they will stay there until I get a Cray Computer. I will never see this kind of detail or reflection again, I'm sure. And I'm sure there's a lot of people who wouldn't even dare try.

So enjoy the reflections.

a note on the pictures. the pictures on this page are thumbnail links to larger (640x512) images.

Here's the overview map. There's an awful lot of water here! The Frozen North (right hand side) is Tundra Water, the little circle in the upper middle of the map is Wetland Water, and the rest is Boreal Water.

A Sea of Poles
Notice that at this distance, the reflections aren't very good.

Buffalo Island

A bear sneaking into the Staff Center when there's nobody around.

Observation Point

Conservation Center with a Beaver Lodge

The beavers were everywhere

A nice shot through the trees of the Main Guest Area

The best waterfall shot I had. Notice that tundra water reflects.

This shot shows that Wetland Water doesn't reflect!

I included this shot because it's one of the closest I got of the reflections. Notice that even the balloons reflect.

This shot has some fairly close up tree reflections (and a happy wolverine).

This one is really close. Notice the detail on the beaver and spruce (I mean fir) tree reflection. (Also notice that this beaver is way on the other side of the park.)

Beaver ponds are really everywhere (other side of the park) even though I think I only put piles of branches in the Wetland Biome.

Sunset Reflections

Conservation Center in a Foggy Dawn

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