I thought he said there would be a beta version in October, but I could be remembering incorrectly.

Unpacking boxes has "probably" set the schedule back a bit:D

I have a feeling if it wasn't that it would be something else, guess it will get here when it gets here.

Yes, selling our home of 34 years and moving to oregon has upset the plan of having a Beta ready this month. I just made the final trip from California today, after spending the past few days doing some repairs on the old house which I had promised the new owner. EVERYTHING went wrong. For example, I was driving in the last nail on some roof trim when I heard a pshhhhhhhh sound from inside the wall. I had driven the nail into a water pipe. The next day was taken up finding and repairing the leak. That was pretty typical of everything I tried to do. The house just would not let me go. Since the truck was half packed with unsecured drill presses, band saws, etc., I couldn't drive to get food, and had no phone service to even order a pizza. I finally finished and left at 7 p.m. yesterday, and drove through the night, several pounds lighter, and hallucinating from lack of sleep. Got a couple of hours at rest stops in Northern Calif, then another couple hours when I got here. Then it was off to my cousin's 50th birthday party, and now back home. G'Night.

Oh Jim, I hate all of that for you. I bet it seemed as if the day would never end. Maybe you should have checked the stars or moon or the date to see if there was a curse. Just joking of course, but I bet it felt that way.

I get days like that. I usually blame it on Sod's Law!

I have never heard of 'Sod's Law.' But I have heard of 'Murphy's Law.'

Same law, different name! :)

Murphy was an optimist!

hahahahahahaha.

Maybe the house was just trying to keep you there Jim! Boy that's a scarey thought.:eek:

It sure seemed like it. Anyway, I'm fully moved and back to working on 3.0 now. (Still nowhere near unpacked, though.)

Kill himself? .... He's considering immortality, didn't you know! ;)

Looks like you got moved out just in time Jim. Whole new round of fires up in the area.

Yes, our old neighborhood is currently evacuated.

My wife's sister and her husband are also evacuating from North San Diego.

The map of burned areas at Lake Arrowhead seems to include the homes of both my daughter's best friends. This is unconfirmed, as no one is allowed in the area. The last time this happened, our street was reported lost to fire but the report was totally false.

I have been following this and am also glad you are out of there.

Lets not get too far OT in this thread, but here is a link for sat views:

NASA

I live in Redlands, CA. I feel like a smoked brisket and my car is sprinkled in ash. All too familiar from four years ago. Here are some maps of that disaster from where I work...
http://www.esri.com/disaster_respons...res071506.html

Glad to see Jim is back on track, boxes and all. If I could work from Oregon, I would move in a heartbeat. Pretty state with very friendly people.

I'm sorry Jim, maybe this has already been answered. But are you going to have bottom dwelling creatures in 3.0? I'm referring to octopi, squids, lobsters and such.

3.0 lays the foundation for the non-fish creatures. They must be created first after the fish get redone, and will be released in a separate creature pack.

Yes, the program will first be released with the new background, but the same fish as 2.6. Then there will be updates as I re-create each fish in the new format. The new-style mesh has more polygons -- the fish will be able to move their mouths and gills, peck at the corals, dart around, school together if inclined, and chase each other. After that's done, I'll start on the Creature-Packs. These will be extra-cost add-on modules which will each contain somewhere between 5 and 10 unusual creatures like the ones you mentioned.

Well, I wouldn't say "good" exactly. I was up until 3 a.m. adding the two Lionfish to the tank. (At least the time change helped.) All the other fish are in the tank, but those two would just NOT load. Crashed the program every time. Switching from DX6 to DX8 means that every 3D model has to be reworked by hand in text mode, and it turned out that those two models accidentally had a two-point polygon buried deep in the list. DX6 was much more forgiving and just overlooked the mistake, but DX8 is a harsh mistress.

Jim do you have any estimation of how many polygons it will take to get the new fish to the level you want them to be?

Not as many as I had originally thought. About 400, compared with 220 for the current fish. The added polygons are mostly in the extra detail for the mouth and gills, and the fin tips. The complexity of the fish bodies will remain about the same.

Remember, that's just the fish. The background has over 10 times as many polygons as the old one.

same here.

How do you model a fish?
it seems like a rather complex task.

Run the screensaver and hit "W". :)

Doesn't really explain how Jim makes them ;)
really scary though seeing fish swim around like that :P

The program Jim used is Lightwave. Costs about ~$1,000. Depending on what you want with it.

Lightwave was the first 3D program that really catered to making organic shapes and models. Lightwave was used for virtually all of the 3D effects on TV shows during the 90's and early 00's. Nowadays it has steep competition from Maya and SoftImage.