Inside: SereneScreen Fan Forum - Screen Cap's and Features

Inside: SereneScreen Fan Forum (https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums/index.php)

- Marine Aquarium 3 for Windows (https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46)

- - Screen Cap's and Features (https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4393)

Screen Cap's and Features

Hey all!
Great news! But, since I use Mac OS X, I can't see what all of the hard work has created.

Can anyone post screen cap's of the new creation and/or give a list of new features (fish, etc.)?

Thanks so much!
BB

We'll get everything updated on our site once the roll-out of the Beta settles down some.

Screen shots do not do this app justice. Not at all.

Is the background dynamic now (does it have moving "creatures," i.e. sea anemones)?

Thanks!

No, not yet but the realease build of version 3 will ahve a fully animated background. Why don;t you download the beta to give it a whirl?

Oh, I'd love to... but I'm on Mac OS X and Order N' Dev hasn't ported the build yet.

;-)

ah right. I see now. Can't you install bootcamp or parallels to run windows within mac osx and then have a play with the beta?

Heh,
I suppose I could... but that just seems like a bit much. I'm sure that it's worth it ;) but it's just a too many hoops to run through (and I don't have a copy of Windows lying around).

Can't wait for the port!

I think there is a bit of confusion.

The release build will not have a moving background. It will be exactly what is seen here, made as bug free as Jim can make it.

All of the Alpha testers went through many many versions as Jim weeded out problems and bugs, and they all did a great job. But, there are only a finite number of computer systems there and so many ways it can be tested. For the most part Jim felt it was 90 percent stable, if you need to pick a number I guess. This is for the last 10 percent of stability testing and finding any more bugs/problems on a wider range of systems.

Once that's done, and Jim feels it's as stable as it can be, then it will be released for sale to the general public. It will be like it is now as far as features go.

Then Jim will begin making the changes while people can join in as he goes. ie. better fish models/textures, animating the background items, etc etc. After those things will come the special creature packs offered for a small fee if people want to purchase those and add them in, then they can. There will be special fish packs that contain fish that are so different they will need special work from start to finish to get it done. The same goes for invertebrates, they will be created as well the same way and offered.

Exactly where in there the decision will be made to take the product at that time and port it over to MAC code will be anyones guess at this point. The entire thing will have to be rewritten.

Okay,
That's clear... is there a feature list somewhere of what's "new" to Marine Aquarium 3 BETA, that hasn't ever been in any 2.x release?

Thanks

Hey Jav400,
In my last post where I said:

Quote:

No, not yet but the realease build of version 3 will ahve a fully animated background.

I didn;t quite mean it like that. I sort of meant that specific parts such as the anemonea would be animated, not the entire lot.

Sorry if I confused anybody.

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

Right now the "new" part for MA3 is the entire background. For the invertebrates to have somewhere to crawl, and items to be animated, the entire thing had to be redone.

In the old versions the background was due to Jim's "magic" and fooling the eye. The coral and things you see in those are flat, like cardboard cutouts with a picture pasted on. There was no way any creatures could interact with anything without giving away the illusion that created it in the first place, and there was no way to animate anything.

Everything in this new background is now truly 3D. It has a depth to it. That way creatures can interact with their environment. And, items in the background can be animated because they have actual parts and depth. But they have no back to them. That's why nothing in the aquarium can be moved or resized or the camera can't "swim" around throughout. It has to maintain it's strict placement and movement.

That's why it took so long for one man to create it. Every item you see had to be built in 3D from the ground up, and then placed where Jim wanted it relative to what was near it, and then the whole thing had to be tweaked and moved and changed over and over to get everything in there placed properly so it would work and could be animated if it's an item that needs to be. Practically everything you see in the new background Jim already has a reason for.

All that had to be done so invert's could crawl over them, or they could be animated. Plus the new tank is almost 3 screens wide for more room, movement, and scrolling. Now you can have 30 fish at once, plus when the invet's get created they will be in there as well. This sets up the foundation for Jim to be able to add many things that there was just no way to have happen in the old versions. Plus, the new version has the capabilities to play user selected music which the old ones could not.

And don't forget all the months of work to achieve multimonitor support and music.

I upgraded my MA 2.6 to the Clock/Calendar. Safe to assume version three will have this feature either included or as an available upgrade?

Right now its not there, but it will be later.

I have the beta on my flashdrive and I tried it at work on our HP Compaq dc7700 Ultra-slim Desktop

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9227/ma3bt7.th.jpg http://img300.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif

of course there are more fishes, but only captured these.:TU:

That seems to be a pretty weak machine. It's using a software viewport, instead of the full hardware layer. And only 72 fps at a low res of 1024x768.