Discus

[feldon34]

The Aquarium 99D was the first major release (I don't know how many people got .996) and had 7 fish, with a 3 fish demo.

.99E was the first update on my website, so you can add up the numbers thru the archive (in reverse order) to see exactly which fish were added when.

I'll be doing an update to my website to de-emphasize the Lionfish and 1.1 upgrade now that most people have it (the 1 1/2 pages of 1.1 upgrade info is excessive at this point). Also, I am still working on ideas of how to handle having a saltwater and freshwater website. I'm sure Prolific is going through the same thing.

Every fish in the current Aquarium is a separate, unique model. I think Jim could add another 10 very attractive interesting fish without the day-long effort of modeling other fish shapes.

[hpman77]

Agreed, feldon.
I also suggested the same thing some time ago, and I thing some ppl though it was a requested to add custom skins.

If some fish species have the same body shape (mesh), then just adding a new texture we can have more nice fishies. The mesh modelling, the animation and anything else would be already made, so we can get many many fishes with relatively little effort.

On saltwater fishes I couldn't point any example, as I don't know many of them, but the discus for freshwater is a nice example, or guppies (juest even changing the palette of the tail!) or scalaris (I don't know if that's the english name, but anyway it's the silver-black-striped one with triangle shape on the pic of the top) or mollies... even goldfish-koi are almost the same shape (although I know it won't be included) just with different color.

[feldon34]

The Threadfin Butterfly body would accomodate other similar butterflies like the Facula, Farfalla, and maybe Raccoon.

The Blue Chromis body would accomodate a Green Chromis or Blue Damsel.

The Koran Angel body would accomodate a juvenile Emperor Angel.

The French Angel body would accomodate an Annularis or Asfur Angel.

The Percula Clown (Occularis) would accomodate a true Percula Clown, maybe a Tomato Clown, and possibly a small Sweet Lips Clown.

The Queen Angel could accomodate a Bicolor, Coral Beauty, or Rock Beauty Angel.

The Addis Butterfly could accomodate a Pakistani or Pearlscale Butterfly.

The Purple Tang could accomodate a Chevron Tang and maybe a Red Sea Tang if much of the top fin is ignored.

The Lionfish could accomodate a Panther Grouper if the side and top quills are ignored.

I'm sure there are others. Of course whenever I mention helping Jim with any of the skins, the ground starts quaking and I hear a thunderous voice.

[hpman77]

maybe Jim can tell us if he would consider making skins for his own fishies the way we suggest or not. So, no user can make skins, but Jim himself can, and would make the number of fishes in saltwater tank become double with little effort, and the number of fishes in the freshwater one would be almost 4 times the number of meshes created.

BTW, there could be some kind of agreement form for some ppl able to provide skins so they give all rights to Jim without being paid or anything. Once signed, Jim would provide them the skins already made so they can use them as templates to create those skins, once finished send them back to Jim who would approve them or not and include them in the aquarium.

Once I joined the CVN news of cybertown (the newspaper of that community) making cartoons in flash or jpgs and they sent me a form by email where I gave them all the rights of my cartoons. Once signed I sent them the contract via fax. That way Jim would have solved the copyrights problems and the aquarium could have regular updates of more fishies using the same meshes Jim already has, but providing the users more and more fishies.

If Jim supplies the "original" textures for those ppl they can send the textures already finished so Jim should only create another instance of that fish model, just loading the new texture and changing the fish name, test it to check if it looks fine and it's close to the real fish, and then release the new version with the new fish on it.

It's an idea, of course, but I would like to know Jim's opinion about this.

[feldon34]

As I've mentioned before, Jim talks about copyright concerns and getting sued. I certainly understand in this litigous society. But id Software accepts tons of user-produced worlds and creatures and includes them and sells them. They seem to have the legal situation sorted out quite nicely. Maybe it would be a good model to follow.

*waiting for the gratuitous "spray can", "graffiti", and "Mona Lisa" commentary*

[Jim Sachs]

Several fish skins for the same model -- Possibly with Discus, but there's not really much point. It only takes a few minutes to create a new model. I just load the closest one into Lightwave, morph it a bit, and save a new mesh. It's the texture and UV coordinates that take a whole day.

Having other people do the work -- Just not going to happen. No matter how ironclad a contract seems, people can still tie you up in court for years. Let's say that the most talented and honest person in the world contracts to provide fish textures free of charge with no credits (let's call him, ohhhh.....Morgan). Morgan does the skins, they are wonderful, they get shipped with the product, and it sells a million copies.

80 years later, about the time that Jim Sachs has saved up the $5 million necessary to start his movie, Morgan marries a 25-year-old Playmate and dies that night. The widow finds the old contract and sues Jim for half the money, claiming that Morgan was drunk when he signed it. So much for Jim's movie.

I just don't want any possiblility of legal problems hanging over my head. A friend of mine just finished a legal battle which, though totally groundless, held his company back from making progress for 3 years.

[The_Thrill]

HAHAHA I love it!!

[Tiny Turtle]

Lovely story, Jim. At least our hero died with his boots on...

/Tiny Trust in US Judicial System

[Swede]

- And the Oscar for best directing goes to... Jim Sachs, 133 years old!

(Just peeking into the future here.)

[feldon34]

Grumble Grumble

I smell an underground forum brewing. But I won't have my name or involvement attached to it. I was born at night, but not last night.

Not everybody wants to put those fugly Russian fish you know. Actually, I recognized one today at a sushi place. They have a freshwater tank. So it looks like the Russian bastardizations are exotic freshwater tanks.

Often, when people talk about making new fish, Jim says "go create your own screen saver." The problem is, nobody has come close to recreating the movement, the coral shadows, or any of the other things that make the Aquarium so great. It would take me 3 years to come close to what Jim has accomplished in 1. We love the Aquarium SO MUCH, that we wish we could see more of our favorite fish in it. We wish we could get more mileage out of it.

I don't see myself as a thief, vandal, or hacker, but maybe others see me differently.

Oh, and for anyone just tuning in, we've been going back and forth over this since I got involved in the Aquarium in December 2000. I hope I'm not being more adversarial than I was then.

[Tiny Turtle]

Cheer up! We wub you Morgan... (Michael, "wub"="love" )

[Jav400]

Lol, don't worry Tiny, I won't drop the hammer on you for that. It's just some of the posts that get past the "G" rating that we try to maintain here.

[hpman77]

Although the incredible tale of the widow looks interesting, the contract I signed was for any cartoon I sent them, and it clearly stated that all rights would be given to them. So, once anybody send you a texture, the texture is no longer theirs, but yours, Jim. They can claim nothing at all, and if they signed it being drunk, it's their problem. the contract was signed, and you have it there to prove it.

I think the same as feldon and the id way to do things. And, apart from that, I don't think the people wanting to help the aquarium will create fancy-scifi-horrible fishies, but fishies close to the real ones (that thing can be also stated on the contract) and anyway, there should be something there too stating that any texture must be approved by you, and it can be accepted or denied (and in that case you would keep all rights for it anyway, even if you never use it).

About the mapping and that sort of things, if you have a texture and mesh, and you map it, changing just the texture would make the same mapping as mesh useful, right? Like the discus. You have a mesh, a texture, and you already mapped it. The only thing different is the texture, and all mapping should be the same. The people sending you textures would send them already done, not just pics, but the texture as you need it.

I know I insist too much, but I really would like to see this screensaver (and all of the serenescreen series) at it's best, and I think it would be a great idea.

Maybe you should choose one or two person to "beta testing" the idea. I bet you would like the idea after that.

Ok, who said Mona Lisa and crayons?

[feldon34]

Why do people climb Mt. Everest?

Because it's beautiful and it's there.

Why do people want to contribute to the Aquarium?

Because it's beautiful and it's there (and it's the only game in town).


If texturing fish is not supported officially, what do we do about the rush of people who are figuring out how to do it? Not everyone is making radioactive ugly fish.

[hpman77]

agreed