[feldon34]

Jim works at his own speed. Sometimes a year to us seems like a week to him. At this point, I consider the Aquarium product to be "stalled", but I might be surprised by something amazing next week or next month. Who knows?

I got to see a very early build of the Freshwater Aquarium and spend a bit of time with Jim 2 years ago. It was very exciting to see what was and was not complete (what was complete clearly had received a perfectionist's touch, what wasn't was rather gaping). Jim is the most hospitable and intriguing person I've ever met. He also does not work on any schedule that I could discern.

This forum is definitely Jim-positive, and that may rub you the wrong way, but how many forums allow you to ask questions directly to the developer of a product?

The background is definitely at a frustrating standstill at this moment and you may not see the logic in WHY it is frozen at its current status. I figured we would have a new background ages ago. All I can give you is this brief history:

- Jim releases the Aquarium in fall 2000. Announces at the time that the 1024 x 768 background it ships with (which blows away any and all aquarium products available at the time and is only rivaled 4 years later by SimAquarium 2) is a "temporary" background and will be replaced "soon" with a 3D background which is resolution independant.
- Jim is advised by his publisher to develop a second Aquarium product, a Freshwater Aquarium, to encourage retail stores (Best Buy, Micro Center, Wal-Mart) to carry the product. Most of these retailers won't accept a single product from a single vendor.
- Time elapses, the Freshwater Aquarium develop jumps forward in certain areas, hits a wall in others. 2 years down the road, enough retailers are carrying Marine Aquarium that there is less urgency for a Freshwater product.
- Jim announces that the Freshwater product is back on the shelf and he's focusing on the Marine Aquarium.

All along, Jim has depended entirely upon himself to research and build the Aquarium. Even though some of the concepts required to build such a 3D background which fish and invertebrates can interact with are beyond 99.5% of 3D programming experts. You see it's not enough to build a 3D background. It has to include a geometic increase in the interactivity of the fish. Right now the background is a 2D still. The fish appear to swim in front of and behind pieces of it, but it's really just a trick. The fully 3D background has to be so accurately produced in 3 dimensions that the fish can peck at it, swim close to the surface, and that creatures like eels, octopus, shrimp, etc. can crawl or swim near the surface, accurately casting shadows, and not passing through it. Few of even the most advanced 3D simulations have this level of accuracy with teams of programmers working on them. Yet Jim is trying to do this alone. Do some question his chances? Absolutely. Will he hand the Aquarium over to 3D experts? Not a chance.

I have hope for the future of the Aquarium, and I'm excited to see new fish, but the ambitions of the new background have apparently consumed thousands of man hours on Jim's part with no obvious resolution.

How's that for a response?