Updates

[feldon34]

Renting a house instead of an apartment.

[ESHIREY]

Cool. Thanks for the info buddy.

[Schnaaps]

Frank-n-stein:
Here are some repsonses to you questions. If I missed anything please let me know.

Q .I didnt mean to be rude with my comments, Im just a little frustrated since there has been no official updates for "Sharks" since the very beginning.

About my ideas and suggestions, I'll try to explain clearly, since English is not my "Mother Language". (sorry about that)

A. I understand completely. You grasp of the English language is better than mine and English is my native language, so I can’t complain at all.

Updates: There have been several updates since SA began beta testing. Even after V1 went on our site, we have updated a few times to fix minor bugs etc... However, we have not added more sharks of backgrounds to SA since version 1.0 which is what I believe you are really asking for. version 2.0 is the next major update. We have been in beta testing for a few weeks now the great majority of the feedback from our fans is very positive.


Q. First of all, we must understand that there are 3 companies with Shark-Themed screensavers with their own features.

A. I am very good friends with everyone at sharkvisions. This relationship is probably well documented in the forum so I wont continue that talk here. 3Drelax, I haven't personnaly seen this, but it sounds like there big thing is feeding. ok, that is one our list one day.



My suggestions goes as follow.
Q) Improve the Shark models to match/surpass the ones made in SharkVisions (believe me they are worth it).

A. As Morgan stated previously, we have dramatically improved all of the Sharks, in terms of poly counts, movement, and collision.


Q) To implement Eating Sharks and the "Hit camera" features...
A. We are constantly looking at ways to improve our products. We tend not to implement any feature until we can do it well and continue to complete the illusion. Eating behaviour on a shark is much more than swimming close grabbing a fish. Each shark as a stalking pattern as to how it approches it's prey, movement, etc... In fact, most marine biologist only agree that we really don't know how these animals feed in the wild. I don't think anyone considers 1000 gallons of chum as natural.

So, short answer. not yet, but we hope to in the future.


Q) If possible... to make a True 3d enviroment.
We have a 3D environment; however we don’t have an environment in which we spin the camera around. I do believe that you will really appreciate our new backgrounds.


Q.) Remoras..... Please
A. On our list.


Q. I really dont think that a Megalodon is worth for this SS (Since it is already extinct). We should focus on new species like the Whale Shark, Thresher Shark or the Mega-Mouth Shark.
A. we constantly get request for more species, the Thresher and whale shark are on the list.


Q. Can you tell us the date for the Sharks 2.0 release?
A. Very very very soon. let's see three verys, that is just about right.

[Yodelking]

Originally posted by Schnaaps:

2. Another reason is that under most circumstances the air bubbles from the divers and submarine tend to scare sharks off. So, it is common to have the water chummed which is a questionalable practice of the tourist trade.  

There is always "rebreather" systems for divers that doesn't make any bubbles... But then again, I see no reason why scuba divers and submarines should be added...
Wishing for: Sawshark, Eagle Ray, Remoras and maybe a turtle?

By the way, I saw the Eagle Ray in Key Largo last week.
http://yodelking.barbanet.com/photos/Scuba_Diving/
(dive 3 and 5)

[Marian Nichols]

A sea turtle! Now that would be great!

[Surferminn]

Great pictures, Yodelking! Thank you very much for sharing them as unlikely I would dive down there much less with a camera. It's great to be able see real pictures of what the undersea life is like. It's things like this that dispel any 2nd/3rd/4th thoughts I ever had about the economics of upgrading to pro dsl as the pictures are able to appear on my screen so fast. Thank you again for sharing your experience via pictures. A great way to start the day off.

edit - Not through looking, but especially liked the turtles (amazing they have fins for swimming unlike other recent turtles I saw with claws), schools of fish, some of the coral and the shark (you sure brave to get closeup) and manta rays.

[drfish]

Yes, a turtle would be sweet, but had you considered one of these?

[ESHIREY]

hehehehehehe That's cool.

[NaaMar]

Well I've just downloaded, installed and looked at version 2.0!
It is a nice update, but I don’t see a lot of differences compared with the first. Sure the stingray is a nice addition and the sharks are improved, but the background is still missing out on details and is in my humble opinion quite ugly. So much so that I’ve decided to leave the background blank (as I did with version 1). A fun feature is that once in a while a shark will swim towards the screen and snaps its jaws. Unfortunately this also makes you painfully aware of the awful low detail of the texture map on that shark.
The best part is that is a free update (for a limited time only) to registered users of version 1. Question: Am I to receive the keycode by email? Or do I have to do something to obtain it.

[Schnaaps]

The keycodes are being generated with a script as we speak. It takes time to process everything, so generally if takes a few hours. If you requested email updates, you will get your code in email.

If not you will need to contact lifeglobe.com and ask for you a lost keycode. This is sadly very annoying to us, but we have had some customers report us to some of the SPAM RBL lists, which is sad since we are about the most SPAM free company you will see. My opinion on SPAM RBL lists is certainly a thread in and upon itself.

Don't see a lot of differences...? mmm, run them side by side. If you are running in open water tank only, this statement is surely true since your big screen of blue is exactly the same as the new big screen of blue. However, everything as been updated, improved, reworked and polished. I personnally love the migration tanks.

[NaaMar]

Well I guess I was expecting to see a whole new screensaver. On a second look there are in deed a lot of changes. I like the migration tanks as well. But Still the updated tanks with a background look dull and plain compared with the details on the sharks, especialy the one with the wreck. It just seems that the sharks are out of place.
And what is the difference between The Blue Lagoon : Reef tank and Guardians : Sandy Bottom? Maybe its because I'm still stuck with the demo (haven't recieved the keycode jet, but I'm patient), but they look the same.

[feldon34]

You were expecting the "2.0" of a product to be "whole new"?

I'm glad you've gone back and taken another look at what's been added. I agree that the sharks could have much higher resolution textures.

[AKcrab]

Pet peeve.. Posting screenshots as GIF's is not really fair to the product, and will lead viewers to think maybe it's not as good as it is, due to the 256 color limitation. I'm assuming sharks uses more than 256 colors...

JPG is far superior (although still compressed) but still not a 'true' representation. For the best accuracy, PNG is the way to go.

/mini rant

Can't wait for sharks for Mac.

[Schnaaps]

I think your keycode will address many of your "issues". The screens are a bit dull with one shark moving on them.

In my world, this is actually a whole new screensaver. Each of the sharks has been improved. The old reef background has been replace with a much nicer looking background in my opinion, and I believe that most agree. The Shipwreck tank has been added. The migration tanks have been added. The great white swimming in close is new. The motion of the sharks has been tweaked, and the collision improved. The manta ray has been added.

The only thing we didn't change was the sound effects and the open water tank, and actually, now that think about it, we did adjust the camera angle in the open water tank.

That being said, you are still entitled to your impressions, and we are just happy to have you around. So, I guess we won't charge you for your keycode... :-)

[NaaMar]

Thanks for the feedback

No I was not counting on a brand new screensaver, I'm well aware it's an update to version 1. But with all the comments on improvements in the forum, I expected something more.

I agree that JPEG is far superior to GIF. Posting in GIF was a mistake. The standard setting for photoshop's 'saving for the web' is GIF. Actualy the last picture was saved in JPEG.

The fact that I dislike the tanks with a background is now greatly compenstated with the addition of the migration tanks: I love them. They will go in rotation with te Open Water tank.

I'm not saying that I don't like sharks 2.0, I love it, but just want to point out that there is still room for improvement.

[iMark]

demo looks great...very much improved over 1.0...now if I just had the patience to wait for my keycode...great job, mates....pat yourselves on the back...

[Schnaaps]

All of the keycodes have been sent. For SPAM filtering issues, we have a very friendly opt in system for email notification, which means you have to request product updates. If you don't you won't be notified via email. If you didn't get an email with your keycode in it, please follow this link and fill out the form as if you lost your keycode:

http://www.lifeglobe.com/support/regform.php

-Jim