Marine Aquarium 3 Rumors and Speculation

[patscarr]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

Whoa, Pat - the box isn't even started yet. I need to do the art now because the box takes several months of lead time to put together.  

I know. I was just being sarcastically optimistic.

[Isabeau]

Well i don't think i got an answer, but i think i have to wait a few more months.

Guus

[Jav400]

Isabeau,

Guessing a time is extremely difficult as you never know what may come-up in the design work and cause a delay. I can tell you that Jim is very close if nothing goes wrong. Once the Beta is ready, then it will go to testing where bugs in the programming will be looked for, which can take several weeks, depending on what is found and how difficult it may be to fix it. Then it will be ready for release to the general public.

I would be supprised if it was released to the public by the end of this year, but its not entirely impossible.

By the way,
Welcome to the Forums.

[Kevin Ar18]

Just wanted to offer one other suggestion:
A new 3D modeller called Modo.
It was made by programmers who worked on Lightwave and is superior to other modellers in some areas (not to mention being much more enjoyable to use ).
http://www.luxology.com/
You can download the program for free to try out till you are ready to buy it (if you decide to).

You could also see if any of these videos hint at what you need:
http://www.luxology.com/training/?mode=Category&id=2

Also, since so many aspects of the program can be automated, maybe the particular problem you have could be automated to some extent using this program.
See this video, if you want to see what I mean:
http://www.luxology.com/training/video.aspx?id=83
Maybe this would allow you to "script" your solution.

[ESHIREY]

WOW. That was cool. Makes me want to try that.

[Jim Sachs]

But the Evaluation Kit is not free, it's $25. If there was even a 10% chance that it would save surface normals in DX format, I'd do it. None of the videos cover the subject.

[cohiba420]

well... I've been watching the development for a few years now & am very excited to hear about your progress, Jim. (welcome to the NW, btw! I live in Beaverton, Or). It must go without saying that this is a labor of love, and one we are very grateful to you for. Like all of the best things in life, it is worth waiting for. :-D Well, since first discovering your wonderful screen-saver (which, to this day is still the only one I have ever purchased... until your first [coming sometime in the future] creature pack, that is!) Enough time has passed that I now have a 4 year old girl (and a baby boy on the way in Feb), but I have not (and will not!) lost hope and still eagerly await 3.0! Im SURE you will get this 1000 more times, but I'd love to help with Beta testing.

Keep up the Great work and Thanks for something beautiful to watch every day @ work & home!

Warm Regards,
Alex

[Jim Sachs]

Welcome to the boards and thanks for your comments, Alex. It's funny that you have a 4-year-old since I've been working on this update - but then children always were easier to create that Aquarium simulations
(My wife might disagree.)

[feldon34]

I will say that we must be closer now than we have ever been before to getting the new background, and I say that as someone who has been waiting since December 12, 2000 for it.

[patscarr]

We are very close to seeing a beta, since Jim just submitted one to Prolific. MA3 Alpha! I love it!

[Derrek]

If I may ask what was included with the alpha version sent to Prolific? Was it just the background or was it the background with the fish? Any ways great news.

[Jim Sachs]

In version Alpha 2.9f, all 28 fish are in, but no starfish. They are all in the tank at once. There is rudimentary fish-to-fish collision avoidance, but no fish-to-background collision avoidance. About 3/4 of the background objects are in, but nothing moves yet. Lightplay is working, bubbles are working, Windowed mode is able to stretch to very wide aspect ratios, screen settings are working, wireframe mode is working.

[ESHIREY]

That is AWESOME.

[Jav400]

That is the word I would use to describe it as well Ed. Jim has given Morgan and I the Alpha at this point to look at. It cannot be given to anyone else, and we cannot post any screenshots or pass it to anyone else, but we are allowed to describe what we are seeing , and awesome is exactly the word I would use.

To start with I currently have 2 versions. One that runs only in full screen mode without any fish, and one that runs only in windowed mode with all the fish turned on at once. The options/settings screens are not currently available, other than changing the resolution, and that cannot be done on the fly yet. It must be changed and then restart for it to take effect. Like Jim says about 3/4 of the background is in the tank, in other places some things are blacked out where they will be, and some items are "placeholders" for Jim to plan with.

Most of the keyboard functions are not working yet, although we can pause the camera movement and dolly it using the left/right arrow keys. I am not sure how this will transpire in the finished version as those keys were used for lighting adjustments in the older versions.

The wireframe function is currently working, and I got a nice supprise there with the fish and it looks fantastic. I think everyone will be pleased with the effects even more now if it can stay like this.

The widescreen of the tank now is wonderful. The fish are limited more towards the front of the tank at this point until collision routines are developed for the coral. With the size of the tank I am hopeing that all the fish will be available at once in the finished version when the routines are worked out and finalized. As for frame rates, I am not totaly sure how that will pan out. Using the widescreen version with all the fish at once I am getting 75fps at 1600 x 1200 x 32 on the office machine using a 7800GS AGP card. Currently none of the background is in motion, and none of the future creatures are there of course yet. In addition I'm not sure if v-sync is hardwired on in the windowed version and my monitor is set to 75 so that could be it. So far its been running for about 3 1/2 hours at the office and I haven't had any crashes or problems.

[cjmaddy]

Excite! ... excite! ..... How does it behave on dual monitors? ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jav400]

Sadly I don't have a DM set-up and haven't tried that yet. But Jim says this version needs DX8-9, mainly for shaders and DM support, so at this point all I can do is assume that it will work like you want it to Cliff.

[feldon34]

The Marine Aquarium 3 ratio right now is 3.3:1. So it's good for 2 1/2 screens. 3 screens if you zoom in slightly (not sure if this will be possible) or have black bars on the left and right of the 2 outside monitors (also not sure if this will be possible).

When the Aquarium launches, it starts out black with a nice logo and Marine Aquarium 3. Then after a few seconds, the Aquarium fades up. The filesize even with all this new high res coral is still smaller than competing Aquarium products.

There are some large sections of the coral that are blank where coral will be going. Also one section of the tank is a 2D placeholder graphic which will be replaced with coral pieces in the future. There are placeholder clams in the front center which will be rebuilt when better photos become available.

That said, what's in the tank, which is about 3/4 complete, is very impressive! A wonderful transformation of the original. It's going to take a bit of time to get used to a new Aquarium background after seven years.

The cave where creatures will hang out is really nice. I cannot emphasize enough how nice the 3D effect looks. When you pan back and forth, all the coral pieces are really 3D looking. The corals that are finished are really fantastic. The brain coral and another 'round' coral really looks rounded now as the camera sweeps past. The Touch Me Not is kick butt! (I did some Google searches but did not find a decent picture)


Realize that Jim had to find much higher resolution pictures of coral for this background, so only 2 pieces of coral from the existing -- the brain coral and the elephant ear -- are coming forward. Everything else is new. I know Jim is still working on it and adding more pieces of coral.

The fish as has been mentioned simply swim at the front of the tank, since they have not been programmed to be aware of the various pieces of coral. I know the fish will have different depths they can swim. With all 28 fish turned on, it's a bit overcrowded, but only because they all swim at the front. Once they can "hide" or school together and use the whole tank, it should look fine.

I imagine a solution rather than having an unwieldy 28 fish slots to pick from, you'll choose the fish you like to see more often or less often and then there will be a slider to control the number of fish from 1 through 28 and it will pick from that pool of fish.

Definitely worth the wait!!


I know some folks will feel left out. This is natural. However if this leaked out, I think there would be a smattering of negative comments about the "blanks" where there is unfinished coral. Also there is no Settings panel except choosing resolution of the main display. Jim came into the chatroom and was talking to us a bit about the preview. The fish right now have lightplay on them which is new in MA3, but the tank has none of the distinctive top and bottom lighting of MA 2.6 -- it's just flat global lighting, so the fish don't look as refined as they did. You can't adjust the foreground and background lights yet. (I miss my dark blue )


It's a nice preview, but waiting until something more finished can be shared will benefit everyone, including Jim.

[Yellow Tang]

This all sounds really great! It will take some more time, but I think it is worth it.
I hope everything fits in the black holes!

[Jav400]

The areas that you are talking about already have wireframe displays in them, just no textures on it. My guess is that Jim already has pretty much mapped out in his head what is going there, he just hasn't had the time to implement it yet. Unless something else catches his eye in the process.

[Wizwad]

That's so great to know. Don't need to see the preview - it's just nice to know what's in it.

So, are these still the close-to-original fish in the preview, or has Jim redone the meshes and/or textures? (I know the behaviour mods will come later - and least I'm assuming that. )