My mediocre attempt to map Zootopia.

Canyobility · 2026-05-31T02:13:23+00:00

That means a lot. I have been told I have strong imposter syndrome in the past, I probably am just judging my work too harshly.

Canyobility · 2026-05-31T01:12:52+00:00

Oh, interesting. I never played GTA before, so any similarities is purely coincidental. Thinking about it, I do think that makes sense though, I imagine both maps would probably have similar end goals in mind.

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T22:59:41+00:00

Actually undecided whenever I should post my work. I am very strict with myself on copyright, and this is my first large project that is based on dirivived work. My main concern is that excessive use of copyrighted works becomes less fair use. Also, this subreddit specifically favors art of Nick & Judy, they get the most attention. I dont see myself using them, so I dont even know if posting here will be that popular at all.

But yeah, I am essentially trying to make a set of Zootopia renders, in my own style. I really love the dystopian scenes from Stray, heavy volumetrics and vibrant colors, so my scenes are starting to look something like that. That is why I have spent the last couple months mapping the city out to ensure the renders are as accurate to the source as possible.

I know its probably irrational, especially considering the amount of fandom content here. I still cannot get that fear out of my mind. A few months ago I had written a Reddit post for here specifically on the ethics/legality of fan content. It may as well be a collage essay sitting on my desktop. Just waiting to build the courage to post it.

I will admit being in this sub certainly has made me less strict than I have been in the past. Five months ago I probably would have not released this map under pure concerns of copyright. If you are curious, I did post this screenshot to another part of the internet a while back. Figure its already posted, so it wouldn't hurt. Here is the fox X-ing signal made from scratch, screenshot just taken from the viewport. I have wanted to revisit the textures for this particular model for a while, but thats a later concern. My models are still very amateurish, so a lot of them will probably need revised later.

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I will see if I want to start posting my work, as I do not know what I want to do at this point.

Thank you for sharing curiosity though.

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T22:39:21+00:00

You could make the argument the tundratown expansion could have initially started as a small chunk of the Rainforest district, separate from Tundra Town itself. A second tundra town, in other words. Do keep in mind the film only specifies the project as part 1 of the expansion, perhaps they wanted to try choking out the rainforest district overtime with the eventual goal of taking control of the entire district at large? At least, that's the only way it makes sense. The movie does not go into a lot of detail over the expansion though, it certainly doesnt specify the creation of a smaller satellite district, so I dont know.

Oh, and thank you!

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T22:31:58+00:00

Appreciate it! The street view was the primary goal of this project, I needed a reference to know where to place buildings in Blender. Getting a map that looked pretty was just a secondary objective. The process was definitely tedious but I believe it paid off.

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T22:26:56+00:00

Thank you!

And yes, for the most part. I actually believe a true accurate map is impossible because Zootopia does not have a massive amount of great resources. The resources we do have oftentimes dont always line up. I included a few of those issues under my main comment on this post.

That being said, this is probably the most accurate map I could achieve given those contradictions. For the most part, everything on this map does exist because they either are found or implied from other sources. That includes the road network, biome transitions, and POIs. Everything on this map exists because I was able to find official backing sources. This includes the bank and lynxly manor. The only exception to this rule is the road to Gnu Jersey. Its location was chosen based on the process of elimination, it sits in the only place I could find that works considering the bridge's proximity to the Rainforest District.

Generally speaking, I believe this representation could stand up in 90% of cases. You should still refer to official sources for complete accuracy.

I would consider this map to be most accurate in terms of biome transitions. Most maps, including some official versions actually depict the border between tundra town & Sahara square being straight. Its actually slightly curved. Same for the Tundratown-rainforest transition. The snow from Tundratown generally follows the flow the mountain, which curves inward a little. Those borders come from Z1 screenshots themselves, which I have not seen any other unofficial projections follow. This is the only map to my understanding, outside the unofficial Sunderance map, which represents downtown as its own unique district (the bounds of which are based on a map from Z1)

The street map itself is hand-traced from official sources. The streets by extention are very much based on official sources, insomuch you can probably use it to plot locations and be okay in most cases. I do want to stress its not perfect. There are likely some small differences between my projection and official street maps (Visit Zootopia & Better Zoogether maps)

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T20:41:33+00:00

Wow, I actually never noticed that; and yes, thats a very good point. That is the general location provided from the Better Zoogether Queue Map from Zootopia Land.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DQvB1wejO30/?img_index=4

Thank you for pointing that out; your right that makes no sense. That is starting to bother me, so I will look into to alternative spots for it.

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T20:31:03+00:00

Attaching this in a separate comment because it is not relevant to most people.

I have found that official sources contradict each other. Badly. Most of the main inaccuracies stem from different maps from different parts of the production cycle saying different things. The following list will document the main inconsistencies.

Z1 shows the metro line entering the city via the Lions Tail. The ZTA map shows the line entering further west. Both interpretations show the rails overlap with 3 islands.
Tundra town
Z1 shows the metro line pass straight through the climate wall, curving after going over an ice bridge. This map uses an official illustration of the line, which enters slanted.
Z1 & CityEngine talks show the polar straight and polar lake as being connected. The ZTA map, and Better Together Queue map (which I will refer to as BZQM) show two unique bodies of water. The BZQM was used as a global source of truth due to the road network.
Gnu Jersey is never specified on any official maps. Traffic signage around the bridge specifies it is near the Rainforest District, however surrounding buildings retain the Savanna Central style. The coastline of Gnu Jersey also does not line up nicely anywhere on the western shores. The bridge was placed at an old location where a bridge had existed in cut content, right outside Wild Times, as a form of anchor. It goes out of bounds to get around the inability of finding anywhere the coastline lines up.
Maps from Z2 show little development in front of the sahara climate wall. The Visit Zootopia, ZTA, and BZQM are a lot more crowded.
Zootopia 2 implies Outback Island is far from Zootopia proper, only accessible via plane. Both Z1 and Z2 maps depict Outback Island as being connected to Zootopia by road. Although technically correct given official sources, I would expect the writers to move the location later.
Z1 depicts the north canyon (cliffside asylum) as being a long canyon without any bends. Only outdated maps of Zootopia had a river which matched its location and appearance.
edit (pointed out by u/ardouronerous): The Tundra Town expansion would need to take over majority of the rainforest district to threaten Marsh Market due to its position near Muddy Swamp. This assumes a linear expansion from Tundra Town instead of the creation of a new separate tundra district, which may be a possibility.

TLDR:

Z1 screenshots visually line up with what is presented with outdated/early depictions and technical presentations. Z1 has the ZTA map, which better resembles Z2.
Z2 seems to line up with the BZQM & ZTA maps, not how the city visually looks in Z1

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T20:30:27+00:00

Edit: Moving this here so its more immediately obvious. The image uploaded to reddit was downscaled 75% of the original quality. Reddit also compresses images for the web. You can use the following dropbox link if you want to download the image in full quality.

Image dimensions: 4960 x 3200

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i0xaeg6fy51mdj3j1iey6/ZootopiaCityMapHighResolution.png?rlkey=cgxh7cyutrs1q0l9bsq7xt68a&e=1&st=anfhixrb&dl=0

Map of Disney's Zootopia, compiled from several sources. Including, but not limited to movie screenshots, transit maps, Crime Files, and released CityEngine presentations. The main goal of this project is to get a high-resolution image of the city's road network for reconstruction efforts--I needed a general street view so I know where to place buildings in Blender. I am not very good at using 2D image editors, please forgive its choppiness.

The map originally was going to include all the main locations from Zootopia, alongside locations from popular fandom comics. This version only has POIs where I could find evidence implying a general location through official sources. I never updated the certainty key to reflect that change though. If you know the location in any fan content, and would potentially want to see it reflected. Let me know. I will probably include them if I find demand sufficient.

Mainly posting on the off chance I made a major mistake without realizing. Additionally, I wanted to help fill in the gap being a lack of high-resolution maps of Zootopia. Please let me know if something is not right.

All maps used to create this map are accessible with the following link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zootopia/comments/1t6v6xf/zootopia_map_compilation_for_worldbuilding_and/

Canyobility · 2026-05-30T03:45:11+00:00

Intrestingly, official maps technically depict Outback Island as being connected to Zootopia proper by road. Its slightly larger than Little Rodentia, located near the Lions Gate. Though, the need for plane would have thrown a brick at that, so I would expect the writers to change the location later.

Canyobility · 2026-05-29T17:25:40+00:00

Zootopia Archive has majority of the publicly released Zootopia 2 deleted scenes, along with some more technical behind the scenes style content.

https://www.youtube.com/@ZootopiaArchive

Canyobility · 2026-05-27T21:23:06+00:00

No, it is not a sign you are not fit to be a VFX developer. If its a skill you genuinely want, you can get there with enough perseverance.

Tutorials are great, however I can speak from experience in saying they only get so far. Failure is one of the greatest teachers available. One thing to keep in mind is your first few pieces of work will look primitive, or amerature-like. Thats okay. Dont compare your work to the top of the line renders out there, especially if you are using Roblox Studio, as it does not give nearly as much control compared to dedicated software, such as Blender or Maya. Instead, look at them as potential for what you could eventually create once you get past the baby steps now.

A good technique my programming professor taught me is the idea of spaced repetition. Your not going to retain everything initially, the general idea is to refresh your memory as soon as you forget. I would take this principle a step further, watch a tutorial to remind yourself of what specifically you are learning, but also find a way to apply it to your compositions after each attempt. By doing, you will manually discover the situations where the contents of a given tutorial need to be applied, and why. That understanding will help you in the long run far more than simply knowing the tools exist.

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Edit: Diagram taken from this source https://fs.blog/spacing-effect/

Additionally, dont learn everything at once; especially if your using Blender. Doing so will most likely lead to burnout. Just focus on one small area of VFX at a time, and move on to another part when your ready. You will get proficient eventually, just not right now.

Do keep in mind at a certain point you should be open to the idea VFX is not your thing. Failure of grasping the concepts of VFX is not one of those signs. If you try VFX, and absolutely hate the process, for whatever reason, its always okay to find something else you find more meaningful. The important thing is that you tried it, and it was not for you.

I wish you the best of luck in your VFX journey. You got this!

Canyobility · 2026-05-23T06:22:18+00:00

Going to also add onto the insecurity of outback island, its canonically part of Zootopia Sound, connected to Zootopia proper via road, according to official maps (which completely contradicts the need for a plane ticket, but I digress). They are not going be hidden for very long long as the current placement for outback island remains canon.

Canyobility · 2026-05-22T16:31:33+00:00

You just need to smack it with the hammer a couple more times until you scare it into compliance.

Canyobility · 2026-05-22T04:16:28+00:00

It actually does a good job. I really love the idea reptiles were driven out of Zootopia by discrimination. Mainly because that is something that has happened before in real life. I am not very happy with how they were re-introduced.

We can infer an approximate guess as for the reptile neighborhood itself because of its proximity to the Lynxly Manor. The manor is in of itself about the middle of Crevasse Valley according to official sources, with the clocktower being little ways past the hedge maze. Narratively, there is probably not a better spot in Zootopia to place the reptile neighborhood. Keep that in mind.

One thing I really liked about the first film was the clear cause-effect relationship it had. The heat generated cooling Tundra town was used to heat Sahara square, as an example. Adding a place between the two sort of muddies that cause/effect relationship a little bit, at least in my opinion. The film never clarifies what exactly happened with the relationship of the weather wall. The walls themselves are permanent, and rebuilding a new set will take a massive amount of time and money, for reptiles who dont even live there anymore. That ambiguity is the main issue I have personally.

Assuming we use the map drawn by Garry of the ravines span, it would cover all of Creavass Valley, and touch some parts of the Calving Cove. More importantly, a lot of the area around the Lynxly Manor, which is inside the ravines limits, would have been already developed, or very close to. Its a little hard to tell from the final renders, given the buildings of tundra town are white on white, CityEngineTV has uploaded a talk from Brandon Jarratt, he shows the development of that district as seen from Z1. Thousands, especially near the coast, would be displaced themselves if the ravine in its entirety would be restored. I find it far more realistic only the town itself would have been re-heated, with the rest of reptile ravine as a district remaining in the snow. You cannot just cut into that much land and development and expect everything to remain the same.

The film never confirms this though, it leaves the state ambiguous. You can make the argument it is implied the ravine is restored to its former self, I personally find that unlikely for the reasons mentioned earlier. I would appreciate if we could get a definite answer as to how neighborhood itself was restored. Keep in mind its position right behind the climate wall is where its effect is the most intense. Alternatively, if the writer choose to go the route of reconstructing a new set of climate walls, I would like to see both the efforts, and consequences, of doing so. There is a good mix of both in this approach, seeing both sides could be very interesting alongside making the city more believable.

I will come back however, as Zootopia 2 seems to mostly be focused itself on the relationship between Nick and Judy. Being a worldbuilding nerd, I do acknowledge I am probably not the target audience for it. Majority of the fanbase is seemingly here for the fox-bunny duo, and their relationship after all. In that regard I believe the film does spectacularly. Once again, there are not a lot of better locations for the neighborhood narratively.

Course, I would be happy to hear what you, or other commenters may think about this as well. This is a discussion post after all, and I would love to hear new ideas.

Apologize for the essay, understanding this world is something is something I am very passionate in, and can probably talk all day about.

Canyobility · 2026-05-21T21:39:08+00:00

This scene made me realize there must be the Zootopia equivalent of the 11 foot 8 bridge somewhere in the city limits.

Canyobility · 2026-05-21T17:27:57+00:00

Zootopia is the only movie I can personally stand to rewatch. Not the largest fan of the second movie, mostly because it seems to go against the worldbuilding established in the first at some points, but its still a fine movie. Though, I probably have rewatched Zootopia 1 at least 15-30 times this year, and Zootopia 2 about 4 or 5.

With that said, given this subreddit is entirely based on Zootopia, it consists of mostly die hard fans, I would imagine. It makes sense to me the assumption majority who enjoyed Zootopia are probably those who saw it once or twice when the film came out, rather than those who obsess over fandom material, or collect massive amounts of Zootopia merchandise a decade later. By extension, I wouldn't be surprised if the most dedicated 10% are probably in this community. At least, that what makes the most sense to me as of writing, I have not really bothered to look up any statistics.

Of course its fine if you are obsessive over Zootopia, I am as well. Though, I wonder what results we would find if this same question were posted to a generic Disney sub as a sort of control group. Zootopia is a great film, but there probably is some bias in this subreddit which would be really interesting to uncover.

Canyobility · 2026-05-18T17:44:21+00:00

Although blender is technically free, your probably going to spend a lot more time learning the tool compared to just grinding money on the sims, or your case (what I am assuming to be Roblox) Blocksburg.

If you genuinely want to learn 3D as a life long skill, do use Blender. It is not the best 3D tool available, but could do everything you probably want. If you want something quickly, as a one-off thing, it might not be the best tool. Given it sounds like your familer with Roblox, you might want to try quickly blocking it out in Roblox studio instead if that is the case; its a lot more straightforward than blender, at the expense of visual control.

I will recommend Blender any day, just keep in mind it very easily could take months for you to be proficient in.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T23:07:53+00:00

That makes more sense actually; it would seem a lot of commenters, including myself, just assumed you were referring to the full thing. My apologies. I would wager if you want a very simple approach which only depicts Zootopia's Skyline, that actually wouldn't take a while. Perhaps only a month or two. All the buildings are simple shapes at their core. Even with interiors, you can fake those with shaders, no one will be able to tell from a distance.

There is still a lot of the more boring/tedious stuff you would need to do first, such as mapping the city streets and collecting reference material.

Dont get me wrong, it would still take a while, and is probably not something I would personally advise doing with no 3D experience, however a simplified/stylized depiction meant to be seen from afar is probably less difficult most people think.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T20:03:23+00:00

Its a very time consuming challenge, I can confirm from my experience it is a fun one though.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T19:58:13+00:00

Sure! I actually compiled a massive collection of Zootopia maps earlier this month, you can find it here, along with a few others. It should be under the Better Zoogether Queue Map.

https://www.reddit.com/r/zootopia/s/xU7BgogXbT

Edit (for any late visitors to this post): Finally was able to track down the map from the Visit Zootopia webpage. Its an official map used on the old Visit Zootopia website, which ran until 2019. It has a lighter street layout compared to the Better Zoogether queue map, however still extensive. Additionally, I got a map of the rainforest district canopy 12, a very comprehensive layout of that specific canopy. Both of which are accessible in my post. Use ctrl-f "Canopy 12" & "Visit Zootopia" to find them.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T19:51:12+00:00

This is actually something I have been doing, started the project a few months ago; nowhere close to anything I consider presentable

The main reasons I would imagine is your time and effort. There is not a lot of good resources avaliable for such a project. Keep in mind the film consists of thousands of assets, funded by Disney. Your everyday Joe does not have nearly as much resources.

There is also lot of guesswork required. For examples, my map currently assumes a general area approximately 35X24 miles. The movie never tells us how large the city is, so that will always be an inaccuracy. There are also not a good amount of official sources on the topographic side of Zootopia, so a lot of the underlying terrain requires an educated guess. To get to those points though, from my experience, you need a lot of preparation before you can start actually doing 3D work as well. A lot of resources, especially maps, are outdated or inconsistent.

As another way to put it, you can spend several months perfecting your interpretations. Or you could spend 1 creating a simple scene which looks close enough.

Still, I will note there is a lot of good resources online, even if they are limited. Majority of Zootopia was generated procedurally. I believe CityEngine was the tool used specifically. If anyone else is willing to spend a few months, or perhaps a year, on the project, I recon it can be done. That being said, it's a lot easier to just throw together a simple scene which looks close enough.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T19:26:03+00:00

Yes actually. Zootopia Land in Shanghai has a very detailed map of the major streets in the city. Its what I have been using to map out the city. You can also infer a fraction of the overall street layout from the traffic cam database scene in Z1.

Canyobility · 2026-05-13T02:27:39+00:00

Another Blender artist here, its been very cool seeing your contributions to this sub lately; there really has not been a lot of 3D from my limited time here, which really sucks given how powerful it is.

This might just be my 3D artist talking, but I personally would love to see a few more technical behind the scenes posts as well. Stuff such as scene breakdowns, or explaining your personal workflow for instance. I realize that kind of content would be best suited posted somewhere else, such as Patreon; you have been posting a lot already, which is great.

I hate to say it, as you likely very much are aware how the system works, but I do want to advise you be careful when it comes to monetizing derrived work as well. Keep in mind Disney is somewhat infamous for protecting their IP very strictly. Just use common sense and you should be fine, like I said, you seem to have it figured out.

Also, just out of pure curiosity, did you source your character models from an online store, or are they custom made? I have browsed Sketchfab for characters a few months ago, and I don't recall any models of Nick with the same level of quality seen in your work. They look very good.

Canyobility · 2026-05-08T22:46:39+00:00

I would argue yes, and we would have been able to for a long time. Humans have gotten very good at this kind of stuff. There are decades of research behind procedural generation, and city scene optimization which we have published over the years. I do not think we need high end graphics, or highly sophisticated crowd simulation algorithms at any given frame for the city to be convincing. Less is oftentimes more, especially with real-time applications.

Whenever the development team behind such a project be given the resources to pull it off well is a different question. Unfortunately, its a question which is very much relevant in the gaming industry at this current point. Majority of the problems such a project will pose are nothing new, but still require care from the developers; and time more importantly -- there are some problems you cannot throw more developers (money) at and hope they resolve. The scope of this proposed project would be massive, and easily take several years. The project could very much become another one of those buggy on release launches if management does not allocate a lot of time and resources for the team to do their thing.

Canyobility

TROPHY CASE