[Fixed:Beta 7] Fish - White Outline

[philosopher]

Jim,

Sometimes when the fish swim to a certain point at the back of the aquarium they get a white outline around them that disappears when they swim forward again. It is noticeable on a few of the fish, but most noticeable on the blue damsels. The flame angel and squarespot anthias are others that this is fairly noticeable on.

I've included a couple of screen shots.

Regards,

Justin

[cjmaddy]

I've noticed it also. The white line switches on and off, as the fish reaches a certain distance back. Very pronounced once you've seen it!

[Jav400]

huh, I'll have to check that one out.

Hey Jim - Something like that is almost like actinic lighting taking effect. If you can figure out why it's doing it, hopefully it could be a way to implement that feature.

I was guessing that if you decided to include that option it would be done with shaders though...........

[basser1]

I've noticed this myself. It seems to be on the blue damselfish, or does it do this on other fish as well?

[dboyd420]

Ive seen this appear on other fish too

[Jim Sachs]

That's the system trying to antialias the fish against the wrong color background. I'll need to fix it.

[cjmaddy]

In Beta7c, the Blue Damsel still seems to be doing its white-edge change-over.

[Jim Sachs]

It should be better in Beta7d. Not totally fixed, but better.

[cjmaddy]

Yes, a lot better. - They don't now have the pronounced white edge, the fins now change from blue to a white'ish/grey/blue. - If I wasn't looking for it, I don't think I would notice it. - I think I would consider that a success!

[Yodelking]

Hi, sometimes even the Purple Tang is outlined with white.
Checked both 7d and 7e.

ma2.jpg

[cjmaddy]

Yes, I hadn't noticed that! - Most of the other fish, such as the Flame Angel, Squarespot, Achilles Tang, Blue ring Angel and Emporer Angel for example, are all still affected by this white line as they move towards the back of the tank. - Note the difference to the pectoral fins also.
But whatever you did to the Blue Damsel has helped to improve the situation on that particular fish.

[Jim Sachs]

Yeah, I'll have to take to time and do it right, instead of on a fish-by-fish basis.

[philosopher]

Jim,

Yes, I can't even see the white outline on the blue damsel anymore and it's much less noticeable on the anthias and flame angel too.

You're definitely on the right track.

Thanks,

Justin

[Jim Sachs]

Took an hour and found the real problem. Fixed in next update.

[philosopher]

Great news! I don't know about you, but the part of programming that I love is solving the puzzles. Of course solving bugs can be quite frustrating but it feels so good when you find the solution.

[philosopher]

Jim,

I just tried out version 7g and thought I'd confirm for you that the white outline is gone.

[Jim Sachs]

Great! Regarding the joys of bug-fixing, if it's a bug like this one, with a definite cause and fix, then it's very satisfying. Unfortunately, about half the bugs I work on have no obvious fix - they are related to the drivers/background programs/viruses/etc., that people have on their computers. There's nothing more frustrating than to spend days looking for the cause of something that I can't even duplicate, only to have the customer say, "Oh, never mind - I turned off the MA-Destroyer program I had been running, and the problem disappeared! Who would have guessed?"

A good example of this is the DirectX-Drift problem. I'll upload a new version of MA, and a user will report that it doesn't run, or there are visual anomolies. So I'll tear apart the code looking for something that I might have changed since the last version. About this time, Cliff will recommend that the user re-install DirectX, and I'll be thinking how silly that sounds - why would DirectX need re-installing? Do the files drift out of adjustment on their own? But sure enough, this often fixes the problem. Well, I've recently found out that there is a very pervasive virus out there that slowly and silently attacks the DirectX files. Re-installing puts fresh copies of all those DLLs back in their proper places.

They say that when you rule out the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth. The trouble with computers is that ruling out the impossible can take a lifetime.

[philosopher]

Jim,

I certainly, unfortunately, know what you're talking about. I'm the senior developer for a large company with 7 ecommerce websites. Whenever something goes wrong on a site someone will send me an email with the error, but won't be able to tell me how to repeat the problem (I don't blame them). Then I try to recreate and can't... You know the rest.

So here's my suggestion: You say half the bugs you can crack easily and the other half are hard. I think you should send half the bugs to prolific. You choose which half.