Sharks: Terrors of the Deep Wishlist

[bugsymcd24]

How about, since there is light comming from the surface.. shadows under the sharks might be a wise thing for realism....maybe.

[Fibe]

A few suggestions:

• Increase size of Great White a little to make it more distinctive from the other sharks.
• Make swimming speed vary a bit, sharks tend to swim real "casual" at times. And make the mako do some extremly fast bursts since it's the fastest shark there is. Let him show off some

As you can see here:


Great whites belly is a lot more white then it currently is. (this has already been said).

Second thing is if you look at the Caudal Fin (the big one on the tail hhehe), the tail is real wide --> stick out to the sides, at the spot where the caudal fin starts. This is something unique to great whites, and as far as i can tell from screensaver, you missed that small detail.

As for shark additions: the more the merrier. Whale shark would be on the top of my list though.

Keep up the good work, an amazing screensaver !

[Tiny Turtle]

Good suggestions! I agree completely. Also, How about when increasing the size of the Great White, why not keep the smaller version but fit it with "claspers", making it a male shark (which are smaller than the females). It would seem like a move that would yield more variety and reallism with relatively little work.

/Tiny White

[ibm650]

I find the scene is a little bright.

Also do you have the fish that swim with sharks?

[Tiny Turtle]

When the reef and the sharks are dark, the "god rays" look weird. They are darker than the surrounding water. It's like instead of a dark night it's inversely (is that a word?) light.

/Tiny Negativity

[Reichart]

We call the demon shadows when in shadow mode.

Cool eh?

[Tiny Turtle]

Like a root canal

[Schnaaps]

FIBE:
1. Increase size of Great White a little to make it more distinctive from the other sharks.

Ah, well the problem with that is as a rule I will go for the realism. The great white is already roughly the correct size in relation to the other sharks in the various tanks. I agree that we want to make the Great White and all of our sharks look better. I am sure that some sizes will be adjusted. But I am not sure that any size changes will be significant.

This page was built with screenshots from the Screensavers, and is accurate to their current relative sizes to each other.

http://www.lifeglobe.com/sh-ichthyology/scale.php



2. Make swimming speed vary a bit, sharks tend to swim real "casual" at times. And make the mako do some extremly fast bursts since it's the fastest shark there is. Let him show off some

We are looking into adding some more custom behaviour movement to improve the illusions these are actual animals. It has be mentioned and LOGGED that we want to try to get the Angel Shark to slow and hover along the ground. Burst of Acceleration etc...

Great White Tail. You win the award. No one, and I am sure if I am wrong the other fans will point this out, has pointed out this flaw in the model. Guys and Gals?

I did notice it a few months ago, but at that time we decided it was more important to work out others bugs. Additionally, BTW, the top down view of the model is not quite correct either. When we make a change to the sides of the tail, we will be modifying the top view as well. So yes, we are missing the giant muscles that the shark uses to propel itself through the water.

[Squier]

Hi there people, I'm new to this forum....Ok not actually I've been browsing this forum for nearly a year since I first found the Marine aquarium demo on the web. Just yesterday I finally decided to buy the Sharks screen saver and I must say I am very impressed with it. So here I am, I just registered to the forum and it is nice to be here.

Since this is the wish list I have a couple I would like to add.

1) I’ve noticed this more with the open sea setting than with the fantasy setting. I've read through this thread and don't remember seeing this one. Here goes, sometimes when the sharks get to close to the front of the screen at certain angles it seems like there is a slight bump in their movement like if they are hitting the "glass of the screen" or the "poor camera man" that is looking at them. I don't know if this is only showing up on my Pc.

2) Would like the shark’s mesh to be a bit smoother. Certain areas of their bodies seem very angular. Don't know if it is possible and what effect this will have on the overall performance of the screensaver.

3) Now for some eye candy, I would like to see in some later stages maybe a Pilot fish (don't know if this is really what they are called) or two swimming alongside the sharks.


P.S. Hope my English isn't too bad since it is a second language to me.

[Tiny Turtle]

Goeie Môre! Welcome out of the shadows!

1) This has not been brought up before. Good call.

2) Yup, but Jim, Edgar and the guys will probably optimize it even further. – They aim for perfection!

3) Both pilot fish (striped little guys swimming alongside the shark) and remoras (who hitch a ride with the shark) have been given the "We-like-the-idea-and-will-incorporate-it-when-we-are-able-to" stamp of approval by Prolific.

P.S.) You kidding? Nothing wrong with your English, mate.

/Tiny Skilpad

[Squier]

Thanks for the welcome. Must commend you Tiny Turtle, not many people can speak let alone type in Afrikaans and that goes for many Afrikaans speaking people too

[Fibe]

Schnaaps:

From seeing those screenshots, I fully agree with you on the GW size hehe.

And thanks for the reply ! Actually know that you are being listened to here. I'll try and dig up some more "errors".

[Tiny Turtle]

Squier,
Me neither, – I just get along with Google better than the average Joe.

/Tiny Sköldpadda

[Schnaaps]

Fibe:

I am glad you agree with our sizing. There are perspective issue that we need to deal with the will help improve the appearance of the GW. Additionally, improve textures and models are on the list. This, along with a few other tricks will imprive the "King of Sharks". We, prolific, are on here on a daily if not hourly basis especially during new product role outs.

Squier:
The bump you are seeing is the Shark actually colliding with the camera. We are playing a careful game. We are forcing the sharks close to the cameras for dramatic purpuses. What probably occured is that the shark was avoiding another bigger shark and forced it to collide with the camera.

What frequecy did this occur? once? Once per minute? once per hour?

[Squier]

The bump seems to be fairly random. Iv'e used the open ocean scene populated with 11 of my favourite sharks(hammer heads). I've been watching it for a while now and a few times it ocured once every five minutes spanning over a 20 minute period, then no bump for 20 minutes, then bumps from two different sharks right after I've started the screen saver.


They came directly at the screen and sverved off left and right but there were a slight pause as they hit the screen, moved a bit backwards and then moved past the camera, one to the left and one to the right. I've even reduced graphic detail to get around 55 fps just to make sure it wasn't a glitch caused by my pc that might be having a hard time keeping up refreshing the screen.

[Schnaaps]

Thanks, that is what I expected. it will be a function of frequency. once every five minutes is a bit too often for my taste.

[MadBob]

two words "Feeding Frenzy"

oh and maybe cage bars to make you feel you are really there.

[Digital Lungfish]

A little more of an expanded idea on MadBob's, but how about a cage view with the ability to spin the cage left or right (360 degrees) using the arrow keys so that you can see what's swimming around you or sneeking up on you from behind?

[EVERRET]

I like the movement of the sharks in the open water much more than the reef, I would add a more "realistic" background combined with the movement of the sharks in the open water now. I would try to make colors more realistic on all sharks, more white on great white and more color on the washed out looking leopard shark for starters. More movement in the head/gill/eye area would help alot in making the sharks more realistic. Bursts of speed would also be nice for some of the quicker sharks. I like the screensaver alot I use it every day, Thanks

[Schnaaps]

Cage View: We are planning on adding more views, tanks, etc... I have added cage view to our database of requests, but no promises. I personnaly am not fond of the idea. If I wanted to see and animal behind bars, I would go to some of the older zoos. However, as you fans know, your ideas are always at least considered if not implemented.

Behaviour: I want to add spcific shark behaviour to the sharks themselves. We are still discussing how to delicately deal with sharks feeding. Feeding frenzys.... maybe. I want our sharks to look great, and that means better than they already do. I always worry that adding in that type of behaviour will make them look bad.

EVERRET: You hit my list of improvements almost exactly. The only difference is that the GW doesn't need more white, it needs a darker dorsal texture. This will give the shark better contrast to its markings. Glad you are using our product.