Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Believe it or not folks, we're already 6 months into the product lifecycle of the Aquarium! We're all excited to see what features are added to the Aquarium including new fish, backgrounds, invertebrates, and support for many other things.

However there has been some interest in Jim's next project, and Jim has already told us that it will be a Butterfly Garden screen saver. It will similarly use Direct3D and, in addition to the realism seen in the Aquarium, there will be Direct3D butterflies which Jim hopes to imbue with motion-blurred wings. We can only speculate beyond this. I'd imagine a photographic background or real-time 3D background of some kind. It could be a large caged in area or more of a greenhouse appearance. I'd imagine the camera slowly pans around so we get to see the whole environment and butterflies fly on and off-screen. Considering the relatively low polygon count of the butterflies, I am guessing that the background including flowers and other plants that the interact with will stand out.

Some have asked for a separate Forum to cover the Butterfly Garden screen saver (Already! yeah, it's just now February). I'll add one as soon as traffic to this discussion/topic requires it. In the mean time, I am asking that all questions/comments/suggestions/contributions to the Butterfly Garden SS be posted under this topic. Questions/etc posted in the main Aquarium board will be locked and a pointer placed to this topic.

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Still in the 0.99 version of the aquarium, and ppl already asking for more!

Jim, you should contact with some mad professor to make clones of yourself ;)

Anyway, I think the choice of a butterfly garden is just awesome, and I suppose if Jim want to make even the plants moving when a butterfly lands on it, it has to be a great and impressive all-3d thing....

man, I'm already wanting to buy it, and it's only an idea now!

Jim, I bet you will success with those series of screensavers (better yet, art works) and I'm gonna buy them all! For sure! .... hmmmm.... wonder if Jim though on more themes other than butterflies... (an ant farm?) maybe some quite stunning 3d relaxing views? (waterfalls, rivers...) ;)

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Will Jim be starting the butterflies with caterpillars? Imagine a program that just starts with creepy crawly guys, munching around and then ONE DAY these all turn into amazing butterflies! Cool or what :) Nick

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

It will have both butterflies and caterpillers which turn into butterflies.

--- Jim Sachs

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Jim,
That sounds awesome. The aquarium is already breathtaking on my 22" Diamondscan monitor and GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB, I can only imagine how the garden will look. Keep up the great work.
Bob

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Wow,

I never would have thought of having caterpillars turn into butterflies. That is definitly realistic.

I always see post about how people what more realistic things in the aquarium. I thought maybe people were getting a little overboard with wanting EVERY aspect of the aquarium to be life-like.

I guess I was wrong. It seems a lot of these ideas are possible with Jim's knowlegde and hard work, DX, and todays computers. Though, I think Jim's knowledge and hard work plays the biggest part in all of this.

Take Care,

Frank

terrarium-screensaver
 

A terrarium-screensaver would also be cool.

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

What creatures would you put in it?

A turtle? A tarantula?

Just curious.

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

Just a few ideas:

Reptiles
-> Jackson's Chameleon
-> Iguana (gee wonder where that came from, what a "Brilliant" idea ;)
-> Leopard Gecko
-> King Snake
-> Rosey Boa

Amphibians
-> Poison Arrow Frog
-> Tiger Salamander
-> Firebelly Newt

Misc.
-> Hermit Crabs

And the list goes on and on...

- DL

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

Most of those critters are already on the list for the SereneScreen Terrarium.

--- Jim Sachs

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

SERENESCREEN TERRARIUM ?????

Oh boy, oh boy!!!!
We are amazed by the aquarium, and Jim announces a incredible butterfly garden as next release.... and now a terrarium.... I'm just preparing 40$ for that LOL... 20$ butterflies, 20$ terrarium.... hmmm ;)

I think I'll set my computer to launch screensaver each 1 min. iddle ;)

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

Had a feeling they were, that's great to hear though! :)

- DL

Re: terrarium-screensaver
 

Jim said that he's going to do 4 screensavers based on different life in each one. For those that haven't seen the image yet, check out the "Brilliance" art that Jim did and notice that there are 4 different types of life in it (ok, technically there's more than 4 in it), but it should give you an idea of what he "might" have planned for us. ;)

- DL

Screensaver Randomizer?
 

Would it be possible to have a Sachs screensaver that loads up screensaver data files, then have it randomize them, so u get a different screensaver every time it loads??? (when other screensaver become available)
- David

4.program
 

Is the 4.program something with birds?

Re: Screensaver Randomizer?
 

"Would it be possible to have a Sachs screensaver that loads up screensaver
data files, then have it randomize them, so u get a different screensaver
every time it loads??? (when other screensaver become available)?"
- David


I think that David has a nifty idea for us users and as an incentive to buy additional Jim Sachs' screen savers
-Arnold.

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Well it's taken me some time to do this having next to know experience with forums, bulletin boards or PCs for that matter. But I've finally checked out most everythingon these pages -all informative & educational for a new usern as well as entertaining & friendly atmosphere. My system seems adequate, my componenfs etc have to be compatible with my BeOS Pro 5 partition, I get 60fps, Diamobd Viper V770 Pentium 3 800MHZ, no idea which Direct X, & one day I might findout the other relevant details. And I'll upgrade what I need when I know what is needed.
The Butterfly Garden sounds excellent, Jim must have cloned himself & isn't letting on. I'm looking forward to being an immediate purchaser of anything else he produces. Australian downloads are going to be on the increase soon, people who've seen aquarium here are awestruck This site istops! :D

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

thebard,
You can find out which DirectX version you have easily. Click on the start button, then run, then in the box provided type dxdiag and then click OK. this will open a diagnostic program that applies to DirectX. In the system Information box at the bottom it will tell you what version you are using. Jim's next version of the Aquarium will need DirectX version 8 to run. You will need to upgrade if you have anything lower than this. Feldon has posted a link on his page to help you. Go to this address : www.feldoncentral.com/Sachs/index.html

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Jim it would be great if you could had hummingbirds to your butterfly garden,but that would probably be to difficult to do.

Re: Butterfly Garden Screen Saver
 

Humming birds sounds like a good idea, but I would imagine that Jim is going to save any birds for the aviary screensaver. Then again, he just might do it anyway! Who knows. :)

- DL