Recent Updates
 

Hey,
I have just returned from a 2 week holiday in LA and just want to know what progress has been made on MA3 in that time?

How are the new fish models and bahviours and when will we be able to get our first glimpse of them and then get our grubby hands all over them!

Thanks

Regards,
Neil

When I get back from being away for a while, I read the new posts since my last visit. ;)

Theres no need to be nasty about it. I asked a perfectly acceptable question and I read all new posts when I came back and thought I would just post an extra thread directly asking how the progress was coming along as not a huge amount of progress reports have been posted.

Don't worry - Cliff was just teasing. (See the smilie :) )

As to what progress we've been told about:

"thought I would just post...as not a huge amount of progress reports have been posted"

There's your answer, right there! :) Sadly - not a lot! You're now as up to date as we.

Struggling with the new models.

Thanks Mark. - Nice to see that at least one person has a sense of humour! ;)


Jim, - the mental picture I have of you struggling with some new models, - is amazing!

Glad ya said model(s), plural.

Right, I apologise cjmaddy. Sorry.

We must.. while conjuring up mental images of Jim struggling with new models, remember… he is a married man :D

I think with the amount of hard work and development time going into the new fish models, it appears to some that nothing is happening with the project which is probably misleading. We got used to a new beta every month with a new piece of coral moving, or a new tube worm coming to life and it kept interest going and showed things were continuing to develop, but now Jim is concentrating on the fish, I think it will be a while before we see more sections of the background come to life. Therefore given that perception, I'd expect to see more of these type of questions/topics appearing. Its human nature!

We have a short attention span and get restless quickly:). Or... we inject mindless banter (in good humor I trust) to keep folks involved while Jim does his thing.

The MOST important thing for ME is the fish models/behavior... I'll wait as long as it takes. In fact, I'd have rather seen everything else done AFTER... but that's me. We're moving forward... I think.. hehe.. J/K-

Any more news on recent developments within the aquarium?

I'm not trying to rush you at all. Just merely inquisitive

What was the date of the most recent release? My notes say June 3, 2009, but I'm not sure that's accurate.

10d came out June 3rd , 10b with the feather duster worm on May 22nd . Over at Dream Aquarium , Alan has been working on improving fish behaviour for 10 months or so now , so it could be a while yet . Collision avoidance for tall slim fish like those in MA3 ( or those with trailing fins ) , is very complex he says .

Jim and Alan are now hip-deep in the same swamp.

If only there were 10 years experience out there writing advanced collision detection/avoidance code in the gaming industry. Oh wait...

Snippy, Morgan, very snippy! :D

Oh, it's out there, all right. I just don't have access to it :)

If only you had a Publisher with the connections necessary... Oh wait.

If only you had a product that gets featured on national TV and has enough credibility that if the right folks were approached, you'd get help. If only your Publisher would shake a few bushes... Oh wait.

It's very frustrating to watch after 9 years.

I'm willing to help for free
 

I'm more than willing to send Jim (or Feldon or whomever) the code I've been developing since I first came across MA about a decade ago. I've always felt I owed Jim and this would be one way to pay him back.

I have a number of settings that govern the behavior of my fish with regards to avoiding each other and the objects in the tank. And to my untrained eye, and to those that I've given the app to, they look fairly realistic.

The fish swim around pretty much as they please, and with less than one percent "collisions," which I track as simple sphere-sphere or sphere-box intersections. Tracking of actual triangle intersections yields almost no true mesh collisions at all, even with a large number of objects and fish in the tank.

Maybe this would be a starting point for Jim? At the very least I would be willing to write up my thoughts on how I went about the analysis as well as provide him with some pseudo-code. It's all pretty straightforward in terms of ideas, and I could provide code that he should be able to just plug into his and use as-is, assuming he's developing in C and/or C++.