foreground/background have different day/night cycle
 

I have the latest Mac version of MA and the day/night cycles are mixed up. First the background goes from light to dark to light, then the foreground (which has been light the whole time) goes from light to dark to light while the background stays light. Then the background starts it's cycle again and so on.

Is it supposed to do this?

It's not a day/night cycle. It just changes the foreground and background lighting to avoid screen burn-in.

Yup, it is supposed to do that.

I think a day/night cycle would be more realistic, esp. if you could make it 24hrs, based on the system clock, although I personally wouldn't set it to 24hrs.
I guess this should be on the wish list forum.
*sigh* sorry Jim, love the program, you just keep doing what you do best! Your doing an awesome job!

Nick,
This has been brought up numerous times before. Unfortunately it wouldn't be very interesting to see black screen for eight hours when the comp is on at night. (there is normally an "Off" button on your monitor for that feature) and getting the light on all day, every day would probably result in that screen burn-in Mr. Sachs mentioned above.

/Tiny Again

When both are set to night it looks like a night scene, it is not totally black on my computer, just dim. Well...the background is black, but you can still see what is going on in the foreground. I have my comp set to turn off the monitor after 6 mins. so I am not woried about burn-in. With xBack, a program that lets you run MA as wallpaper (although I haven't got it to work yet...) it would be cool to have the tank in the background reflect the time of day.

That just gave me another idea tho! What about a moon-lit night? Could it be done? Instead of doing the background and foreground separate could you change the lighting to dim with the color turned down and dappled white light reflecting off everything? That would look cool and be more interesting and realistic. The fish could even display night time behaviours! Jim is probably groaning at the amount of work that would take.

As for this being brought up before, I did go well back into the posts looking for it, but I have other things to do with my time other than spending hours going years back in the posts. When a forum has been going this long it is to be expected that topics will get repeated. If it was posted last week that is one thing, but this forum has been going for 3.5 years.

No worries on not reading the entire 54 page wishlist thread. I was merely pointing out that this topic has been previously explored. As for incorporating moonlight, – well, let's just say that there are 54 pages of wishes to add first. And that is if Jim likes the idea... Sorry.

/Tiny Worry

xBack is a Mac program, no?
I prefer BackLight. It's free and will run any screensaver on your desktop with a convenient menu bar item (where the clock is).

Backlight works awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And to think I was going to pay for that other one that I was tearing my hair out trying to get to run!

I now have MA as my wallpaper/desktop, thanks!

I've seen the wish list, and Jim is doing a great job! (hear that Jim?)

Nick

ok that is great for mac users....what about us PC/Windows users???

Having the Aquarium as a background is not supported by this forum.

roger that....was just wonderin..if any knew of a similar program for pc users....my bad...LOL

Why not Morgan? Burn-in issues? Can't you just set your monitor to turn off after a few minutes of idle?

No, because seeing my creation with all that grafitti covering it makes me want to slit my wrists.

But Jim, it means people are enjoying your creation MORE. Anyway, you will be happy to know I have a spotless desktop - only the hard drive icon and maybe a CD icon. OSX doesn't even have a trash icon. If my screensaver comes on it means I'm away from the computer, now I can enjoy MA while I am actually there!

Anmyway Jim, put dying at the end of your "to do" list, that way you will live to 258! LOL

Are you guys talking about putting a still image of the MA on your desktop? I understand what Jim means about 'all that grafitti' which is why my desktop is hidden.. meaning I have absolutely nothing on it.. and to get to my desktop I move my mouse to the right side and there pops out my desktop icons. Is this what you mean? If so, then can't you just take a screen shot of it and use it as a wallpaper.. or am I not on the right track here?

panthera,from what i understand :
nick wants the ss to runs on desktop (not still images).
and jim's creation will be with all that grafitti covering (maybe beneath or on top of the ss with transparency effect)...
i wouldn't want that...just like aquareal ss having this function just slowing down my system if i put it on my desktop...
although some of us have a spotless desktop but it would spoil the serenity and artworks that jim intended to show...

Then I don't understand what you mean by it running on the desktop.. wouldn't that be considered the screensaver?

MA is running full motion as the desktop with the hard drive icon, sometimes the CD icon and the file menu across the top the only other things you can see on the screen. With Backlight you can set priority for the background in terms of how much CPU time it gets. If you set it to low priority it will only do calcualtions while the CPU isn't doing anything else so it won't slow down whatever you are doing. I have this feature checked and my frame rate is 58-60fps if I am word processing and listening to MP3s with mail and web browser open in the background.

So your desktop is actually moving while you are using other applications? Just like how my desktop is.. (still image) except yours is moving.. like the screensaver effect?