Wishlist for Marine Aquarium 3 and Future

[Shinsa]

I remember someone mentioned this before. Winamp has a feature called AVS. Nothing more than effects that change with the music. The interesting thing about it I like is the ability to send the image to the desktop background. It uses the Video overlay option of the video card. When I discovered this I keep Winamp running all the time now

It would be a great feature to have the Aquarium running the same way, on the desktop background as wallpaper, right there behind everything, icons and all, full size. TOO COOL

Jim, would it be possible to put a Mandarin in the tank ?The tank looks great in both forms (standard or wide screen) . It could use some bottom feeders. Great job so far.Thank you!

I would like to see some more Angels in the tank ( Coral Beauty, Majestic, Imperator Angels) if it is possible. Because they have different colors . Good job Jim, I have been using this program since January . I have been pleased with it since the day I bought it.Thank you for making this great program!

Just wanted to add that this screen saver is the best aquarium I've ever seen!

Thanks!

[feldon34]

Finding a good picture of a Koran angel has been a challenge. The Majestic Angel's sides have so much detail that it would probably break up if Jim tried to put it on a fish. The textures are only 128x128 or 128x64.

Hey Jim ! Would it be possible to add a Naso Tang or a Blue Trigger in the future versions ?

[Jim Sachs]

Maybe.

Hi, could you tell me exactly how to use winamp to display a video or an avi file onto the desktop, I have winamp 2.75, but cannot find the optoin to do this, thanks. If you can email me at chupador69@aol.com THanks

[Shinsa]

Check your email ^_^

I've been keeping up with Sach's screensaver for a while now, and have just now registered. I've got a couple of comments I'd like to share.

First- I'd like to say that the program is incredible, and no change is necessary to make it better. But if I were writing things...

Keep it real- the bubbles are not needed, and would be great to have an option to disable. I strived to keep my personal tank as 'real' as possible, including any bubbles, pipes, and anything else that detracted from the natural environment, including sounds.

While an octopus would be great to look at, it's not a very real contender in a reef aquarium. Of course, neither are triggers, butterflies, angels, lionfish, sharks, rays, and a number of other fish requested here. I guess that depends on what you consider to be a real aquarium. However, I do like the idea of:

- a burrowing horseshoe crab
- a yellow-head jawfish- incredible to watch
- variety of starfish- have a look at the Bali red starfish I had in my own tank (link below)
- shrimp (coral banded, cleaner, peppermint, etc)
- small crabs (mithrax springs to mind)

I think the creatures and their movements make a reef tank every much as the fish do. Ideally, the coral poylps would move with (ideally) varying currents. Clams that would occasionally slam shut, especially if a shrimp went crawling over them. Fish could have different swimming patterns; ever watched a percula just wave up and down for hours? Tangs could pick at algae on rocks. Sand could be kicked up if a fish quickly darted away from the bottom (maybe an algorithm for currents, that allowed any 3D object (sand, coral, fish) to move accordingly?).

The timid/agressive fish would be incredible.

The ULTIMATE program would be an evolving aquarium that would grow over time, so that corals would compete for space, overtake rocks, die off, algae would be eaten/grow back, etc, etc. I realize that this is incredibly difficult, but would be cool. This way, every screen saver would be a little different.

If I could make recommendations on the corals, the list would go on forever...

Oh yes, people asked for links to their own aquariums- here is (was, before I moved) mine: www.chrishorne.com/hobbies/aquarium/

Kudos to a great product- keep up the good work.

-chris

[Jim Sachs]

If you don't like the bubbles, just turn them off in the Settings screen.

If you don't feel certain fish are appropriate for a reef tank, then choose others from the menu.

All the creatures on your wishlist (except the jawfish) are on the list of future additions.

The movement of coral polyps and clams, as well as individaul fish behavior have been discussed here at length many times, and are all coming when feasable.

Good looking aquarium photos!.

Hi Jim, I've heard some talk of moving corals and anemones .Would it be possible to add a school (3) Tomato Clowns to play in them? I also would like to see a Naso Tang if possible.Thank you for making this program. I can't wait to see the Butterfly Garden!

[Jav400]

At this point we don't have a Tomato Clown choice available in the list of current fish. We do have a Percula clown available though, and when the background and moving anemones are added to the aquarium along with personalities and behaviors it will play in the anemones. There are plans to have a "school" of ( 3 ) fish, which will only count as one in the choice selections. I don't think it will be clowns though. Once these things are added you could probably just pick more than 1 Percula clown to fill the choices slots and achieve the same result.

[Shinsa]

"...just pick more than 1 Percula clown to fill the choices slots and achieve the same result. "

Which brings up a question. If I chose 7 of the same fish, would they all school together when all of the A.I. is finished?

[Jav400]

From what Jim has explained about his intentions I don't think 7 different fish, even though they may be the same species will "school" together if chosen. The personalities that he has mentioned are things like a propensity for the Percula Clown to want to be near an anemone, or to play in it. Some others will have territorial attitudes, or a passive attitude, or some short chasing may be involved, ( but there will never be any actual fights or injured fish under any circumstances )things along this line. The actual set of fish that will be the "schooling" set, will remain in close proximity to each other and swim in a tandem fashion so as to remain more in an actual school.

Hey Jim, the Naso Tang that I was asking about earlier, is not the Powder Brown Tang.Theres a picture of each at www.flyingfishexpress.com. Go to marine fish ,tangs they have pictures of both. The Naso is fancier .Thank you!

[Jim Sachs]

It's extremely difficult to get more than 3 fish to school together and not pass through each other.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but many screensavers/ winamp visualizers have preference sliders for effects. Something like this would be neat in the settings area where you can choose your preferences of certain fish to appear during random mode. One side can be "never", the opposite end of the slider would be "always". Actually, this would negate the need for a "random" setting - the program would assume everything is random until a certain fish is set to "always" and would scale the frequency a fish is chosen according to the setting on the slider.

I love this screen saver. For years, I've been wishing that the guys (AnimaTek & Maxis) who did el-Fish in the 90's would update their program - this is as close as I have seen to what that should be.

Thanks Mr. Sachs,
Lindsey

I'd been thinking about this one too, but the only way I could think it could be done was to have a fish "stockroom" where you say how many fish are "in stock" of each type, which the "random" feature could then choose from. I like your idea much better - it's really quite simple and also "visual", with the sliders.

(You would still have to tweak the solution to only allow seven sliders in the "always" position though.)

Now, if you had that and a "refresh fish selection every __ minutes" option, that would be brilliant !

[ajlaban]

Chalk me up in favor of this slider idea or any other that creates the ability to negate certain fish from appearing in the aquarium. Right now I do not use the random setting although I would like to. There are simply some fish I don't care to see in the aquarium yet many others I would like to see occasionally and some all of the time.