That is the word I would use to describe it as well Ed. Jim has given Morgan and I the Alpha at this point to look at. It cannot be given to anyone else, and we cannot post any screenshots or pass it to anyone else, but we are allowed to describe what we are seeing
, and awesome is exactly the word I would use.
To start with I currently have 2 versions. One that runs only in full screen mode without any fish, and one that runs only in windowed mode with all the fish turned on at once. The options/settings screens are not currently available, other than changing the resolution, and that cannot be done on the fly yet. It must be changed and then restart for it to take effect. Like Jim says about 3/4 of the background is in the tank, in other places some things are blacked out where they will be, and some items are "placeholders" for Jim to plan with.
Most of the keyboard functions are not working yet, although we can pause the camera movement and dolly it using the left/right arrow keys. I am not sure how this will transpire in the finished version as those keys were used for lighting adjustments in the older versions.
The wireframe function is currently working, and I got a nice supprise there with the fish and it looks fantastic. I think everyone will be pleased with the effects even more now if it can stay like this.
The widescreen of the tank now is wonderful. The fish are limited more towards the front of the tank at this point until collision routines are developed for the coral. With the size of the tank I am hopeing that all the fish will be available at once in the finished version when the routines are worked out and finalized. As for frame rates, I am not totaly sure how that will pan out. Using the widescreen version with all the fish at once I am getting 75fps at 1600 x 1200 x 32 on the office machine using a 7800GS AGP card. Currently none of the background is in motion, and none of the future creatures are there of course yet. In addition I'm not sure if v-sync is hardwired on in the windowed version and my monitor is set to 75 so that could be it. So far its been running for about 3 1/2 hours at the office and I haven't had any crashes or problems.