LeeC22 - Welcome to the Forum. I guess coding does provide some respite from doing graphics, but I don't enjoy it all that much. I see it a a necessary chore, and it's always on my mind exerting great influence on the graphics I design. I'm sort of an idiot-savant when it comes to programming. Being self-taught, I tend to only learn the very specific routines which will bring my graphics to life, and have had to come up with some pretty bizarre tricks. On the other hand, the most common routines that any C programmer should know are often unknown to me.

Andrew - Again, welcome to the Forum. I have also wondered why more companies have not entered this field. While competitors have come and gone over the years (a couple are still around), they never seem to have any effect on MA sales. The price of these products is low enough that it's not an either/or situation, but a matter of increasing public awareness that these things exist. If someone buys a competing program, they often start searching the Internet for something better. From my point of view, the test for any of these programs is "How many seconds would a first-time viewer be fooled into thinking this is a real aquarium?" My goal has always been to achieve the greatest amount of realism possible, and MA3 will be a major step in that direction. The movement of the fish will be refined and expanded, and the background will be a 3D environment, instead of a 2D backdrop.

So many new Mac pod people have switched this year that I think you can count on way more than the one. At least 3!!! ;)

Oh, and with the recent proliferation solid selling super low end laptops and desktops running Linux (eeePC, gOS, etc), it may be time to do that port as well. Those folks are probably hungry for apps with the choices being kind of limited.

Apple's Macintosh market share is indeed increasing. The switch to Intel and the lowered entry barrier for windows users via Parallels and VMWare fusion is partly the reason. Mac product quality remains high, as does customer satisfaction, while prices are much more competitive. Heck even PC World found the best and Vista laptop is a Macbook Pro.

Tiny Apple has seen a huge rise in market share (note the distinction between % market share and % growth of market share):

http://images.appleinsider.com/gartner-091017.gif

Some of it is attributed to the Halo Effect of iTunes and iPods

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/wp-con...0712101801.jpg

More recently the Halo Effect of stunning iPhone sales should kick in

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/wp-con...0712131928.jpg

Now I'm not a marketing expert but this trend suggests to me that sales of MA2 and MA3 to Macintosh users should increase in direct proportion to Apple's % market share. :TU:

...that would be all us brits buying macbooks. At $2 to the £, they have become very popular with my daughter's peer group (15yr olds)

That's a scarily close prediction cjmaddy... Gorton actually, but not that far away :D

Jim, thank you.

One of the things I have found over the years is that having art as a primary skill and code as secondary, allows you to sometimes consider coding techniques and methods, dedicated programmers may not have considered. It seems a great benefit sometimes to be able to consider a solution from a non-algorithmic approach. I do find coding extremely rewarding though, just in the last 2 years I have taught myself 4 new languages to help me to continue developing games.

On the fish front, are you considering behavioural(sp?) motivation for the movement patterns? I.e. bonding/shoaling in groups of similar fish, gravel/surface searching, for food, lethargy arfter prolonged use without interruption etc...?

We have just bought a pair of Black Moors and I have been astonished by their intelligence and their behaviour patterns. Recognition of lighting changes and their association with food for example. Curiosity around people around their tank, it's been an enlightening couple of months. We put in a broken urn ornament which they use at night as a resting place, because the water movement is less in there. It's incredible just how clever fish are and it would be great to see that reflected in the screen saver.

I could imagine the AI programming for this could be an amazing experience, recreating the habits and traits of specific fish types and then watching them come to life and interacting with each other.

All that is planned

Lee - Yes, those behavioral attributes are planned. As far as a single artist-programmer doing the whole job, you've hit the nail right on the head. When I first came out with the Aquarium, at least two major companies assembled teams to create competing products. They failed because of the usual lack of communication between artists and programmers. It all comes down to who are the "monkeys". The programmers see the artists as monkeys who do the minor job of filling in the blanks of their wonderful algorithms. Artists see programmers as monkeys who are hired to do the mundane tasks necessary to bring their wonderful artwork to life. A general lack of communication and respect usually prevents anything truly wonderful from happening.

If both these creatures reside in the same brain, then a hundred proposals can flash between the two hemispheres in the time it takes for a programmer to say to an artist, "We can't do that, you moron, it would take a million clock cycles and 10 gigs of ram!"

Given that the Blackberry has a greater part of the U.S. smartphone market, wouldn't it be wiser to focus on that one first? Also, please tell me what the share of downloaded TV shows has to do with this except inflating your Apple ego (Apple's share outside the U.S. is exactly 0% in that category, btw)

The topic was about how the Macintosh market for MA3 might improve given current market forces in the United States. The Halo Effect of the iPhone/iPod/ITMS is said to drive Mac sales. That includes ITMS TV downloads. That should be good for MA3 Mac sales, right?

The Blackberry Halo Effect does not shine on Apple or other computer makers as far as I know.

I'll take your word for it that Apple's share of TV downloads outside the U.S. is zero percent. Heck it doesn't even bother me! Don't worry, Tiny Turtle, one day, when Apple clears the legal hurdles, you too will be able to download TV shows! Given the current writer's strike, TV download activity must be hurting though.

After seeing those charts, I'm almost convinced that the Mac versions are a waste of time. The DirectX version covers 92% of the machines being sold, and we need 2 other versions to cover the remaining 8% (Mac Motorola and Mac Intel).

Just kidding, JB. As long as Jim O'Connor is crazy enough to do the conversions, we'll have Mac versions. :)

Jim I appreciate your sense of humor more than I can say. In one quarter Apple sells about a million computers. That is a sizable market you're targeting:

http://blogs.business2.com/apple/ima...picture_57.jpg

Plus you have enthusiastic supporters in both markets, a wonderful asset. :TU:

May I ask when you are ready to send MA3 to the fierce Jim O'Connor? I expect he'll have some archane magix up his sleeve to deal with both PPC and Intel versions of the Mac, perhaps in the form of a universal binary.

Well the clock just chimed, it is now Christmas Day! Merry Christmas Jim, and readers all!

Jim O'Connor has seen the latest Alpha, but not the code yet. I'm a little worried that some of the DirectX tricks I'm using this time won't be easily translatable to OpenGL, but if anyone can do it, he can.

I guess I need to split this off into another topic -- Apple Fanboys or Steve Jobs bootlickers

Hello Jim,
Could you show some pictures on new 3.0?
Best wishes for differs greatly from 2.0.

Happy New Year :)

Shots of 3.0 will not be released. Sorry but you have to wait until the entire project is ready to go.

I really think that screen shots would diminish the impact of MA3 rather than boost interest. With the camera moving back and forth, it's really a totally different animal than MA2.

Please DON'T show us screenshots of V3. Thanks! :D :D

Is that in the hope that because you said DON'T, ... then they probably might? ;);) :D:D

Reverse psychology!

No, I don't to see any either, and please don't make me. Quit twisting my arm!!

Ok, OK, I'll have one look! ;)