New Aquarium Sounds

[feldon34]

People have asked for new Aquarium sounds

pub41.ezboard.com/fsachsaquariumfrm1.showMessageRange?topicID=3.topi c&start=21&stop=40

but yet nobody has posted or offered any new recordings that they'd like to see in place of the bubbles. I don't have the proper equipment to record these sounds on location, otherwise I'd try to make my own sounds. And I wouldn't let the 60k limitation stop you. Produce a low-res version of the sound and then a high-res version and maybe Jim will let the Aquarium use an external looped WAV file for those willing to download larger sound loops. After all, people put up with 13 MB downloads for a web browser, the Aquarium growing 100k with a bigger sound sample as an *optional* thing wouldn't hurt.

This does not replace the interest in the Aquarium launching a commandline such as Winamp with your favorite playlist upon startup... This would be a relatively easy addition to the Settings window.

[Jim Sachs]

Regarding the 60k limit - I'm willing to consider sound files that are a little bigger, but keep in mind that one of my main goals is that the entire Aquarium program will always fit on a floppy. The Zipped version is almost half a floppy now, and there are a very large number of fish and invertebrates to go.

--- Jim Sachs

[feldon34]

Jim,

Will the Aquarium ever have support for external additions such as sounds in WAV format? If not, then we know what our boundaries are and what the size of the sound canvas is.

If extensability of the sound happens through external WAV file support, then we have many options to extend the sound...

In all cases, the present bubbles (60kb 22 KHz 16 bit?) would continue to be stored internally as the default (or whatever other 60kb sound you might settle on as you receive submissions).

Then externally, we can have external WAV files with a few Serenescreen sponsored loops and then any other sounds people end up creating. This would also allow us to produce high-end sounds including a 44 KHz 16-bit Stereo loop with Dolby Pro Logic surround sound encoding.


If we do not get extensability in the Aquarium for an external WAV, you could still...

Store the present bubbles (60kb 22 KHz 16 bit?) internally as the default sound and also store a longer mp3-encoded WAV file (60-100kb 44 KHz 16-bit) that can be optionally turned on depending on the speed of the user's computer.

We don't need to know the answer to this immediately to start submitting sounds but we'd like to know eventually.


And if you add support for a program being launched externally when the Aquarium launches, then that opens it up to all of the above plus the possibility of Dolby 5.1 recorded sound being triggered without any further effort on your part.


Don't overestimate user's ability to, and interest in, plugins and extensions to software. People find ways to enhance software that was never designed to be enhanced


Next week, I'll ask whether loadable BMP files with an 8-bit alpha map (so you have enough information in the BMP to build a 3D coral shadow mesh with) will be coming

[Dave Snotear]

Jim,
I don't mean to imply that because I purchased your program that the program size is any of my concern,I am just curious as to why a 1.44 meg floppy disk would dictate future content of what is now a truly amazing piece of programming and which I feel will only get better as time goes by.Like I said "I'm just curious."Thanks for all your hard work and patience in dealing with,what appears to be, a very demanding group of enthusiasts.

[Jim Sachs]

I'll answer Dave's question first. There are several reasons I want the program to fit on a floppy.

1. I've got about 10 computers around here, and the only way they all have of sharing data is the floppy drive. Whenever I make the slightest change in the Aquarium, I have to test it on all those different machines.

2. I allow Key holders to use the Aquarium on all their machines. So they can download it at home, put it on a floppy and install it on their machine at work. I can't stand downloading something which won't quite fit on a floppy, then trying to figure out how to transfer it to another machine.

3. Coming from the Amiga community, I am amazed at the bloat that is so rampant in the PC world, so I just feel like leading a charge the other way, toward lean, mean programs. Why does it take 3 minutes instead of 3 seconds for my computer to boot up? The enormous amount of wasted bytes that it has to process can't be helping the situation.

--- Jim Sachs

[hpman77]

Well, I suppose that if the only way to store the data is gonna be floppy disk, it would limit it's contents a lot...

My suggestion is:
Let the aquarium "as is" now, as a "main program", and next fishes, backgrounds, sounds... in separate floppys as "add-ons"...


I suppose an octopus (I know, I know, we still don't know what botton dweller will you add) will take some hundreds Kb, as I suppose it's mesh and animation will be fair more complex than a fish one... and a single floppy will be very limited

Well, that's only a suggestion

[Jim Sachs]

Now I'll tackle Morgan's question. I just don't foresee allowing the user to load his .wav files. It's the same problem as letting them use their own graphics. The potential for abuse is enormous. My goal is to avoid the following conversation 10 years from now:

Man on Street: "Hey dude, didn't you used to be Jim Sachs who made that aquarium where the fish burped?"

Jim: "Well, somebody else added those sounds..."

Man on Street: "Yeah, sure - and you're famous for those exploding mermaids, man."

Jim: "Actually, sombody else...oh, never mind."

[Jim Sachs]

My short-term goal is to keep everything in one file. I get a large amount of e-mails from people who have trouble installing the single file. I assume this would at least double if I had even two files.

I am using very good data compression on the 3D meshes, and would be surprised if even the octopus is over 60k.

--- Jim Sachs

[Dave Snotear]

Jim,
Thanks for the reply.I appreciate your time.

I stand for Jim's aim to make everything small.

Didn't we see that he already done an excellent job to keep many wonderful creatures in such small, single file?

Nowadays, programmer just know how to put garbage into their so-called upgrade program to pay no attention to the file size and system resouces usage.

[hpman77]

Agreed
I'm tired too of those small programs which takes mb and mb, and I can't understand what's that garbage code for. I suppose actually almost nobody clean his code...

I'm really impressed for such a compress method... I would though on octopus animation and textures over 200k, at least, and Jim thinks about 60k... man, that's amazing!

You should think on creating a compressor better than RAR or ACE I would buy it for sure!

Jim, you're right when you say actually you made some things in the aquarium that were supposed to be impossible, but I think the best incredible things are hidden in the process of making all others possible... you're great, man, simply great! I'll have to call you "Mr. Sachs"

[feldon34]

I just hope the file size limitation does not prohibit rich Aquarium sounds, multiple high-resolution 3D modeled backgrounds, and as many fish and invertebrates as Jim can throw at us.

Jim,

I know what you mean. I personally like smaller programs (it's like having a tidy house). Makes linking painless and debugging easyer. But features will probably break the bank someday.

Sounds are tricky. To keep up with the quality of your application it needs to be CD-quality. To make the sound seem continous we need to either make the pattern really long or layer it with additional sounds (just like you do with the bubbles visually).

Can you support multiple layers, more then one wav file playing at once? I assume this is supported in directx.


To solve the size problem, what about creating a "fish" file format. Your program could come with 10 fish built into the executable and the rest could be downloaded. This would also allow others to create there own fish!!!

Just a thought on the fish format:


StingRay.zip // A zip file could contain a fish
-----------------
fish.ini // Describes fish (see below)
image.jpg // Image map of fish
imageMask.jpg // Image to blend with fish image
bumb.jpg // Bump map of fish
bumbMask.jpg // Image to blend with bump image
structure.dfx // 3D structure of the fish


fish.ini
----------------
[info]
name = Sting Ray
desc = A cool looking fish I want to have
diet = little fish?
author = Fish man
image = image.jpg
mask = image.jpg
bumpmap = bumpmap.jpg
structure = structure.dfx
size = 2
speed = 3
randomizeSize = true
randomizeSpeeding = true
digging = 8
RandomizeMaskBlending = 4 ; 0-10
detail = 9
shyness = 7
smart = 7
hungry = 5
yawning = 0
* a lot missing *


Note:
o All numbers are in ranges are between 0-10
o Masks could be blended in randomly to make each instance of a fish look different
o Fish files would allow you to test your program with out recompiling...


I'm veering off the path a bit but this could allow you
to minimize your executable size.

-James

[feldon34]

James,

Well, Jim is pretty adamant about keeping the fish format secret and not allow any Tom, Dick, or Harry to come along and just modify things. Leaving the texture maps and DXF files laying around is exactly what Jim has said several times he does not want to do, for fear that people will make major changes to the Aquarium, and it will get redistributed.

For the sound, Jim also wants to keep it inside the file. This does put some limits on how long the sound file can be. External sound files are out of the question because he is concerned about people modifying the Aquarium with obscene/rude sounds and it getting redistributed in that form.

Jim has been open about receiving photos for making the fish and has said that our developing fish for the Aquarium in a rough form (which he would polish and fold into later releases) is not out of the question however.

I agree with you that layered sounds are the key. Jim said that he's already receiving lots of e-mails from people having glitches and problems with 1 sound channel which uses the most rudimentary code. So he is afraid of trying multi-channel sound, even though he's always agreed that this was the answer to realistic sound.

So I'm not sure where exactly we go from here except for us to produce single-channel looped sound files of 60-120kb and submit them to Jim.

Jim,

I also come from the Amiga community, and I can more than understand your feelings about "bloated software". Seeing the talent in some Amiga programmers (like the 40K demo competition entries, for example), I can more than relate.

If you can do everything you plan with this screensaver and STILL manage to fit it on a floppy, it will be a testament to what good, efficient programming can do.

Jim, you're probably not going to like this, but from the perspective of someone who doesn't own a real aquarium, the new sound in 99k seems less realistic than earlier versions.

The reason I say this is that the bubble sounds seem to include deeper sounds, which seem to me to sound like larger bubbles breaking the surface of the water, but there are no larger bubbles. The old sound just sounded like small bubbles, like there are in the tank.

Of couse someone who owns a real aquarium might say the deeper sounds are caused by something else - comments anyone?

[Jim Sachs]

Comments in the e-mails seem to be running about 20-1 in favor of the new sound.

[hooters]

all i can say is i love the new sound

Democracy is a good thing !

Man... exploding mermaids can't wait