The Marine Aquarium 3 ratio right now is 3.3:1. So it's good for 2 1/2 screens. 3 screens if you zoom in slightly (not sure if this will be possible) or have black bars on the left and right of the 2 outside monitors (also not sure if this will be possible).
When the Aquarium launches, it starts out black with a nice logo and Marine Aquarium 3. Then after a few seconds, the Aquarium fades up. The filesize even with all this new high res coral is still smaller than competing Aquarium products.
There are some large sections of the coral that are blank where coral will be going. Also one section of the tank is a 2D placeholder graphic which will be replaced with coral pieces in the future. There are placeholder clams in the front center which will be rebuilt when better photos become available.
That said, what's in the tank, which is about 3/4 complete, is very impressive! A wonderful transformation of the original. It's going to take a bit of time to get used to a new Aquarium background after seven years.
The cave where creatures will hang out is really nice. I cannot emphasize enough how nice the 3D effect looks. When you pan back and forth, all the coral pieces are really 3D looking. The corals that are finished are really fantastic. The brain coral and another 'round' coral really looks rounded now as the camera sweeps past. The Touch Me Not is kick butt! (I did some Google searches but did not find a decent picture)
Realize that Jim had to find much higher resolution pictures of coral for this background, so only 2 pieces of coral from the existing -- the brain coral and the elephant ear -- are coming forward. Everything else is new. I know Jim is still working on it and adding more pieces of coral.
The fish as has been mentioned simply swim at the front of the tank, since they have not been programmed to be aware of the various pieces of coral. I know the fish will have different depths they can swim. With all 28 fish turned on, it's a bit overcrowded, but only because they all swim at the front. Once they can "hide" or school together and use the whole tank, it should look fine.
I imagine a solution rather than having an unwieldy 28 fish slots to pick from, you'll choose the fish you like to see more often or less often and then there will be a slider to control the number of fish from 1 through 28 and it will pick from that pool of fish.
Definitely worth the wait!!
I know some folks will feel left out. This is natural. However if this leaked out, I think there would be a smattering of negative comments about the "blanks" where there is unfinished coral. Also there is no Settings panel except choosing resolution of the main display. Jim came into the chatroom and was talking to us a bit about the preview. The fish right now have lightplay on them which is new in MA3, but the tank has none of the distinctive top and bottom lighting of MA 2.6 -- it's just flat global lighting, so the fish don't look as refined as they did. You can't adjust the foreground and background lights yet. (I miss my dark blue
)
It's a nice preview, but waiting until something more finished can be shared will benefit everyone, including Jim.