Marine Aquarium 3 for Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) NOW AVAILABLE
 

Marine Aquarium 3 is now available for Mac OS X (Snow Leopard).

http://www.serenescreen.com/images/p...ium3x/MA3x.jpg

GET MARINE AQUARIUM 3 from SERENESCREEN.COM

• $9.95 UPGRADE Marine Aquarium 2.6 CD or DD to Marine Aquarium 3.0
• $19.95 PURCHASE Marine Aquarium 3.0 Digital Download

DOWNLOAD Marine Aquarium 3 for Mac OS X

I have downloaded and registered the version 3.0 beta for 10.6 and I cannot make it run properly. I guess I must be doing something wrong but I feel I am going :loco:

If you look at the attached clip of the preferences pane, you will see that all of the fish appear to present. I cannot increase their number by clicking on the arrows. In fact I cannot select any fish to create my own set. I would also like to know how can I change the settings to adjust the lighting?

Please can you assist me.

Thank you. :)

Hi Something Fishy
You have all 30 fish allocated as random. You need to decrease the number of random fish before you can increase the number of other fish.

Lighting control isn't currently a feature of Marine Aquarium 3.0 Mac or Windows.

I hope that this helps.

Jim

Sharpness?
 

Hiya,

Thxn for finally posting a version I could use w/ Snow Leopard - had missed it.
Like the new features, larger aquarium,etc.

Only issue I have is that it really seems to have lost some level of "sharpness". It looks a bit "milky" to me and doesn't pop out like the last version did. (I know, not technical terms, but thought some end-user feedback would be useful.) It just doesn't look as good.

I know it was a fast port, hope a slightly sharper version comes out at some point.

(PS using 13.3" MacBook - aluminum unibody first version (now been renamed to MacBook Pros, running Snow Leopard - don't think it's a resource issue on this side - have tried a variety of contrast/resolution settings just in case).

30 Fish
 

"You have all 30 fish allocated as random. You need to decrease the number of random fish before you can increase the number of other fish."

Hiya,

I had the same problem - took me easily 20 minutes to figure out. Probably already on your list, but suggest a "Remaining fish to allocate" [that's awkard, but you know what I mean] counter - and maybe default set being some random, some others, so that by seeing the different counters it's obvious how they add up (instead of 30 random).

Take care,
ADM

Looks great on a mac
 

Just downloaded v3 on my G5, looks great! (although a bit jerky, even with only 8 fish).
The feather duster looks odd, though, as if it has longer feathers on the left side.

In MA3 for the Macintosh there are frequent duplications of random fish, something which doesn't seem to ever happen in the Windows version. In fact, to date I get duplicates (and occasional triplicates) every single time MA3 is activated in MacOS 10.6.1. This needs correction, I think.

Bob N.

AlecM -- I'm probably going to give users some control over the ratio of lightings. Some people complain the tank is dark, you're complaining that the tank is too bright. If you get the lightplay effect then you're getting my custom light mixing in the shader. If you aren't getting the lightplay effect then the lighting is being handled more by the fixed function pipeline and I have a bit less control.

Somethingfish -- I agree that the fish picking UI is a bit un-obvious. Maybe a "total fish" counter which goes up to 30, and the non-specifically assigned fish automatically go to random, if you decrement a fish then random makes up the slack?

robnich -- MA 2.6 had "don't repeat random" in it. MA 3 doesn't. I think we pulled in the Goldfish spawning code to handle "favorites" levels to bias the selection towards the more favored fish. I'll put this on the list of things to examine for the next revision.

Ah, that did it. Thanks Jim. :TU:

I guess global UI consistency is something which I was expecting rather than the internal consistency which was known only to the developer. :D

I could not add another starfish to the tank and that was the only box that was not the random box (that was displaying a yellow boxed number 1) so I had believed it to be active. I had thought that the increment/decrement arrows were not functional when I could not add a starfish or add fish from other boxes.

It is really your fault because you built something which is idiot-proof... without realising that it just attracts a more determined class of idiot. ;):D

Bright/ Milky
 

If by lightplay you mean do I see the light "shimmering" across, yes I get that.

Thnx for the clue... I was trying to determine what I meant by "milky" and I think your saying it was "brightness" was on track - if I darken screen slightly it does reduce some of what I'm referring to.

Thnx for the responsiveness.


Best,
Alec

I'm not working on MA 3 at this particular moment (back into kernel land), but keep the suggestions coming as I will be in the near future, and I'd like to get UI improvements and lighting improvements into the next minor release (we're at 3.0.1 now, with iTunes improvements from what is on the Nova download page). There is something to be said for getting SOMETHING in front of users and then refining it.

Mike is on GA 2 for Snow Leopard at the moment, then he'll probably do some UI improvements -- he did the UI changes and Snow Leopard, and I stayed in the tank for MA 3.

Masking Glitches in Background
 

Just downloaded and am running in demo mode. Hope to find my original CD to take advantage of the discount, otherwise will purchase at full price. You have obviously worked hard on this update and it shows. Very beautiful. I noticed a few glitches in the masking of the background (occasional gray patches). Also, just a suggestion, but if the edges of the coral were just a little less hard then it may add to the realism. Otherwise, quite excellent.

Hi fargilan,

Thanks for the kind words and suggestions.

Edge softness isn't easy to pull off when the angle to the eyepoint isn't constant as the part which needs to be soft changes. We could maybe do it with multiple rendering passes per frame.

Jim,
Appearance of edge sharpness/softness is most likely influenced by sharp high res LCD monitors and the background that is used. Finding the right balance may be a moving target and if multiple rendering slows down the frame rates on slower computers, may not be worth the effort. Overall, a very minor thing since the fish don't go behind the coral anyway. I'm sure the lighting controls you plan to add will make the biggest difference. Looking forward to all the planned changes, and getting rid of 'Arabesque'.

Fred

fargilan - What do you mean by "the fish don't go behind the coral"?

Just installed the trial. This is very impressive.

Hi fargilan,

I don't know what you mean by "don't go behind the corals", either. Could you elaborate a bit there for me? Multiple renderings would toss out whole generations of machines, unfortunately. I agree that the lighting controls will be the biggest win in the near future.

Hi AKCrab,

Good to see you again. I'll have to drive up your way one of these days.

Jim(s),
I just bought a full license last night and spent more time looking at the aquarium. My initial impression based on the demo with limited fish was that they darted up to the coral but did not go behind that 'layer' such that the masked edge of the coral was in front of the fish. I see now that the fish do appear to go behind the coral layer and occasionally swim 'through' two of the corals (sorry but I don't know corals very well or I'd name them). It appears that the fish are in 3D and the coral and background are 2D layers that the fish occasionally interact with. It's a nice effect and nicely done.

Fred

Everything in the tank is 3D. The best way to see the effect is to use the left-right arrow keys to rapidly pan back and forth. Hitting the W key will show all the thousands of polygons which make up the 3D objects.

As far as pass-throughs, we're working on them.

Thanks Jim. Kinda fun watching the fish swim around in wireframe mode. I see now that the coral is 3D. Was it difficult putting the textures on the coral and maintaining the rough edges? It adds significantly to the realism. I noticed the transparency in the fins too. Very nice touch.

Incidentally, my arrows don't pan but they do change the intensity of the background. Thanks for the tip.

Fred

Yes, it was tremendously difficult to create the 3D background - took several years.

As far as the background not panning, I guess JimO must have had a bit of trouble with that. I haven't actually seen the Mac translation yet.

The Mac version must be a very strange beast! - The change of intensity of the background only applies to MA2.6 on the PC.
..... Are you sure you have version 3?


ps, Sorry, Jim. - I hadn't seen your post!

Hi fargilan,

Some of the ancillary functionality is different between Mac and PC. Panning control is one of those "ancillary" functionalities.

Panning control was a lower priority than the things we finished. Lighting control, panning control, UI for background color control, look over the spawn logic... these are 3.0.2 fodder. 3.0.1 was iTunes control improvements to reduce the amount of iTunes state we changed.

I just downloaded it, and it is breathtaking. (By the way, I saw smooth and polished panning under Snow Leopard.)

Jonathan Hayward

I installed the demo version on 3 of our demo units at work side by side: A MacPro with 30" Cinema, a new 27" iMac, and a new 21.5" iMac. It was simply stunning on the 27" iMac. It appeared more crisp and vibrant than on the 30" Cinema.

The only bug I've noticed is a tendency for fish to swim through the crystal, a bug I know you're working on.

I don't get that feature - the arrow keys have no effect, whether or not auto-pan is enabled.

Sorry, I guess the manual-pan feature didn't make it into the Mac version.

Manual-pan may not work, but as in v2.6 the left, right, up, and down arrows do still control the lighting in v3 (even though this is not documented anywhere). Although it's not terribly realistic, I find that by turning the background lighting all the way down (to total blackness) it creates a VERY STUNNING display! For those that think MA 3,on a Mac, looks rather washed out, you might want to give this a try.

(The first time I played around with the arrow keys, they had absolutely no effect of any kind. After trying them while holding a modifier key -I forget which one- they began controlling the lighting and have continued to do so ever since. Also, they no longer require a modifier key to be held.)

I'd love to post a screenshot if there is a way to do it.

Can you confirm this, Jim? I have tried every modifier I can think of and the lighting does nothing.

Hmmmmmm, apparently I'm not the only one that noticed that the arrow keys will change the background lighting in MA 3.

When I mentioned modifier keys, it was nothing exotic. Either Cmd, Opt, or Cntrl.

The _saver_ does have the light modification code still in the saver with the arrow keys (not in the preview panel). Modifier keys are being ignored. I removed that code from the app and forgot that it wasn't shared code.

Apparently if the background brightness is changed in the saver, it carries over into the application.

I think what probably happened with me is that I was trying the arrow keys in the application, getting no effect, switched to the screen saver and tried the arrow keys along with a modifier. I then, incorrectly, assumed that the modifier key had made a difference.

Sorry about any confusion I caused.

Thanks for finding that, dsanfili. I'll have to make the source code match, at a minimum.

Please don't make them match by removing the code from the saver! In my opinion, the fact that it was left in in the screen saver was one of those HAPPY mistakes. ;)

I need to add in the scan control, and probably move the lighting control to the modifier keys so we're closer to Windows on that functionality.

I am SO glad to find out that there are lighting controls in the Mac version of the saver. That's the best mistake you ever made!!! Now that I know I can make the background solid black I feel like MA is finished and I got my money's worth: that doubles it's value to me not to have my screen half blue.... too windowzy imho. Whatever you do don't break that functionality!!!

Mac 3.0
 

I just opened the Mac version 3.0 for the first time. Wow!
Finding the 'light' controls still there is fantastic.
Does anyone know if the crystal can change size?

Thanks dsanfili,
.. Graeme.

Graeme,

Thanks for your interest. The crystal is a fixed size. You can place a clock, calendar, as well as custom logos on it.

Just installed 3.0
 

I installed Snow Leopard today, and downloaded 3.0. Love the new details, the lion fish rolling his eyes, Fish swimming head on, etc. Will we get the Moray Eel, soon, too please?

It would be great if we could choose which part of the aquarium to view, the pan makes me a bit queasy. I couldn't find the starfish until I panned, then I wished I could fix the screen on the far left, including the conch shell, cave and the crystal. I love uploading my graphic to the crystal. Thank you Jim and all who brought Serene Screen to the Mac!