What Jim had said (someplace) was that since many fish have such a narrow profile when seen head on, he decided to limit the amount of time the fish spend in that position. This makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Goldfish tend to be much more round in shape, so they don't look as weird when seen from the front or back.

2D vs. 3D
 

The Goldfish move in true 3D. The plants and objects are a mixture of 2D and 3D, but are treated as 3D.

Unlike the salt water fish (which are the result of millions, if not billions of years of design) Goldfish are the results of “Hey, look how cute, I’ll buy it.”

So they are the water version of a pug. They do look very good from many angles, and, as a result, you will see all of them, all the time.

The Goldfish go everywhere, like little puppy dogs, and become curious, and loose interest just like the real thing. They even are able to go through caves (no caves are planned for first release).

For the record, I use a 2 and 3 letter naming convension for our products, Morgan and I have talked about this in the past. No one here has to use one or the other, but so that you know:

MA = Marine Aquarium.
TF = Tropical Fresh Water
GF = GoldFish
FL = Flags (www.FlagsPride.com)

Sub products have a third letter, like MAT (Marine Aquarium Time) and MAC, Marine Aquarium Crystal.

A full code might look like this: MAC-Mac-DL, which means it is the Crystal version of Marine Aquarium, for both Mac OSX and OS9, download version only. The Wide PC version would be MACw-PC-DL.

There are now over 66 products! Don’t ask, it simply scares me all the versions we track.

3D prototype
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm beginning to think the goldfish aquarium ...ummm GF - is a prototype of the future 3D background SereneScreen Marine Aquarium (3DMA?). Seems all the tools are there - the 3d swim space - the physics, AI, collision avoidance, etc. ... like a 'warm up' version - simple - but with lots of muscle behind it. Enter, Jim - the artist - to add skin and *POOF* - 3DMA!

...now, what button do I push to make that happen?

;) I know, I"m bad at over-simplifying things sometimes.

I'd stick with millions, Reichart.

/Tiny Time

Sounds great to me, and yes, sounds like there's major progress being made. Hurrah! :)

"The Goldfish go everywhere, like little puppy dogs, and become curious, and loose interest just like the real thing."

Hee! Fantastic image and very well put.

Oh, Reichart, I apologise for spelling your name wrong. Twice!

Liath, I agree that it's good not to have the fish pointing at or away from the camera too much, but Jim's fish have enough - errr body - to carry it off from time to time. More so that the fish in Sim Aquarium, for example, which need to eat more. :D

And Cliff, thanks for those links.

SunKing,

The Goldfish Aquarium won't have nearly as much 3D geometry as you're thinking. But yes, the new tools are being used and/or in development for collision avoidance, long tails, etc. MAT ended up, in my opinion, being a great platform test for MA2.

No one answered my question. :(

Reask
 

We make many products. The word "object" can be a tank, a goldfish, a part of a rock, anything.

More questions?

Maybe an army tank?

Hmmm, I'm worried. Are you telling me that Prolific plans to put a tank and/or a flag into the goldfish aquarium? If so, that would really detract from it IMHO. I can understand that Prolific wants to promote the FlagSaver which is a really cool looking screensaver, but I'm begging you, please don't use the Goldfish aquarium as a tool for advertizing it. :(

Let the flame war begin.
 

I keep thinking your kidding, and I have been told over and over again not to display my brand of sarcasm or wit on forums, because no-one else does have a sense of humour. But, I’m sorry…

Lung’baby, we have NO PLAN to put anything in the Goldfish tank other than Goldfish stuff. No advertisement, no ugly stuff.

The original post said “Somewhere between 1.0 and 2.0 the product will be very stable, and will feature many new cool behind the scenes features along with all the other products, like:”

The key here is “Other Products” Ya’ see, my beautiful organ of oxygen, our company makes more than one product. We make tools, we make screen savers (screen art), we even make weapons for Aerospace (yup, it’s true).

Then I wrote “Packages: Packaged objects (fish, tanks, flags, ornaments)”

So, for “EXAMPLE” with the Aquarium, we might release a version, and allow you to add new different fish WITHOUT having to download the whole EXE again. In the case of www.FlagPride.com, you can go get new flags one by one, or in packages of 10. Or, for the Goldfish Aquarium, we add toys for free, or for a small fee after you have the EXE.

Now don’t get huffy, I want to see witty retort, or a new set of deadpan questions I can answer…


I do warn I have been answering emails all night to snooty Mac users.

No one else has a sense of humor??? :confused:

Not to worry, I've got MORE than enough humor and as my wife constantly points out, too much in fact. As for my comments, if I were joking, I would make it obviously apparent or I'd include an emoticon or 2 if I thought it might be taken a different way. No, my comments to you were sincere regarding the Goldfish Aquarium, thanks for clearing that up though. Oh and please, if you want to be funny, don't let anyone stop you. :TU:

Re: Let the flame war begin.
 

Hey! We love our Mac customers, even the "snooty" ones! They're probably in the same proportion as any other group of people. The only uncommon trait is their good taste in computer/OS choice! :)

COOL!
 

First, Digital Lung fish, RIGHT ON!!!

I love that since I put up my photo, I count exactly 7 people that have put up their photo…that specifically are bald, or have shaved their head…

I love your Photo. I wish everyone would use their real photo, or their favorite photo.

Mike B.: Regarding Snooty Mac people. Historically, Mac people are the BEST customers, but I got some REAL doozies yesterday. I shelter you guys from the really nasty ones. There was one last night that even called the Forum people stupid, and here is an actually quote:

“HOW can you dare to provide some "elite"-users at the feldoncentralforum with their keycodes already NOW and on the other hand all the others, who - thank god - don't post everyday stupid questions there when the next version will arrive etc, ... this other CUSTOMERS, which paid exactly the same amount of money at the same time (beta version!) have to wait some more days??”

Put me in a bad mood :)

Now *That's* snooty... ;)

/Tiny Snoot

I agree Tiny, it certainly was snooty, I would be very offended right now if I cared what they thought. :)

Re: COOL!
 

You trying to say that I lead a sheltered life?! I've been on Usenet, buddy! :)

Unfortunately, stupidity and bad manners are a cross-platform product (as evidenced by that excerpt above). And the "upgrades" just keep on coming...

Sour grapes. Big time. :)

Hey, changed my avatar before reading this stuff, hope you like it better now!?

Reichart,

Thanks for editing out the nasty ones. I, for one, am grateful for what you guys do and appreciate the fact that you consider your customers and that you even have a forum. I mean - you could just do your own thing and charge whatever you like. (I am sure you would still do quite well because you have a great product.) Instead, you have a forum, you ask for feedback, you show your gratitude to your customers and are willling to enter into conversations with them about what you do. I think that's great and commendable. Keep it up!