I'm not exactly sure why it seems like it would be more difficult. Maybe the fact that it's a semi-mobile object with (presumably) clearly defined edges moving in front of a background that would "highlight" those edges more so than a static image with assorted textures on it would (sort of a blending effect). Of course, the fish do both already and they look great (however they have more curves than, say, a large leaved plant would)... I guess since I haven't seen moving plants in front of a cycling gradient background and been impressed by it yet I'm thinking it must be more difficult than moving plants (or anemones, soft coral, etc) in front of a static image.

Another thought, if the plants were standing on their own and their movement didn't require a transition between overlaying the gradient and a background it would probably look better (well, be easier to do). I guess I'm just thinking about how I would do it, I'm not nearly as talented as Jim obviously so I see it as a problem myself.

There will be a gradient background, and it will not be totally covered. I found early on that the fish need some open areas to be silhouetted against, or they get lost in the detail. This is even more true for the poor little drab freshwater fish.

Regarding moving plants: Yes, there is a difficulty in rendering plants against a gradient background, but perhaps it's not the problem you thought. When the plant is photographed against a blue background, then clipped out in a paint program by turning blue to transparent, the object still has an outline of almost-blue pixels that acted as anti-aliasing. If the plant is then pasted back onto a blue background it looks fine, but what if the background is black? If the background is a detailed picture, a lot of this is masked by the detail, but on a smooth ever-changing gradient, they really show up. On a plant with thousands of tiny tendrils, there can be hundreds of hours of removing these fringe pixels by hand.

Great to hear that things are going on :) WORK JIM WORK :D

PS:
- Personally I owuld prefere a totally covered background, that blue or black in the saltwatertank doesn't fit to the rest, maybe you can set a deep see picture as background!?
- Do you work with Photoshop? You can remove those pixels easyly with it...

I know exactly what you mean Jim, and that's why I thought the edges would be hard to smooth against multiple colors at once (even if they were transparent) and still look good.

I just finished making Christmas cards with our Chinchilla on them, the only good picture I had of her was taken while she was in her cage against a black background and you could see the cage bars through the hair on her tail. I had to clip her out of that and then stick her on top of a white background for the card (did I mention she's black with a white belly?), it turned out great but took multiple hours, I even added a cute Santa hat. :)

Sounds interesting, Doc. Why don't you post a pic?

Jim, thanks a bunch for the update. You described everything so well, I could actually picture you working. :) Keep up the good work and keep us posted. These little glimpses into your work studio are awesome and inspiring!

Jim.

Do you use a digi cam or a film camera to do the work on the aquariums?

Canon s20 digital for still shots, and Sony VX1000 for video (currently used for studying bubbles).

Thanks for the update!! Sounds like a LOT of work. I'm really looking forward to seeing this.

Thanks for the interest Jim, I was hoping someone would ask... :) This is what I had to work with, scaled down 50%.

And this is the end result. My sister wipped up the background in just a couple minutes, she's very good with her Wacom Graphire drawing tablet.

Ha, Ha -- Looks great.

Funny :D

*Love* the trees – I was going to ask if they were drawn using a drawing tablet, but then I read the actual text in the post...

/Tiny Oversight

Wonderful Christmas card! I'm gonna try something like that with my dogs!

Yeah, that tablet was the best gift anyone's ever gotten my sister (I told my parents to get it for her) she uses it all the time. If you're into computer art at all it's a REALLY good way to spend $100, in fact it's cheaper than most good software and comes with some great software. The Graphire 2 is out now, nicer looking and more levels of sensitivity. My fiánce used it to write the "Ho. Ho. Ho." and did a pretty good job for never using it before (she wrote "Ho" about 30 times and I took the best one and copied it). :)

Anyway, bringing this thread back to what it's supposed to be about... What kinds of plants are you putting in the tank, Jim? I mentioned amazon swords, one could make a great center piece plant. You mentioned plants with "thousands of tiny tendrils" and I thought of Cabomba, man, that would be a LOT of work. Are you going for more leafy plants or stringy grass like ones?

There, that should get this back on track...

We will see the type of plants in the freshwater aquarium, i suppose.

My all time favourite was probably a Madagascar Lace-Leaf Plant (Aponogeton madagascariensis - I think!), when they get really big, and start to flatten out horizontally, they make a gorgeous centre piece. How about one in the centre of the new tank Jim? ....... though I bet it would be a pig to produce, - all that lattice work !!!

Whoa, that wouldn't be and easy one to clean up either! I'm going to have nightmares of clipping that plant pixel by pixel from a bluescreen... :eek:

I second that. – Looks really cool though.

I found a picture for those of you that don't want to scour the web for one yourself.

Tiny Second