Enhancements

Wakanda · 04-02-2005, 01:14 PM

Marine Aquarium is a remarkable achievement both technically and aesthetically. Below are feature requests and product considerations, some of which may be obvious, upcoming or quite difficult. Just ideas from an appreciative user.

- Aquatica: See the Aquatica page for some amazing fish. Adding Aquatica's Cross Damsel and the Majestic, Rainbow and King Angels would be spectacular additions to Marine Aquarium. See http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html.

- Schooling: A Schooling Option would be wonderful where if more than one of the same fish is selected then those fish would exhbit synchronized schooling behavior.

- Count: If all of the same species is selected for the tank and the Schooling Option is active, then it would be nice to be able to select the count, such as 20 Blue Damsels or 12 Purple Tangs or 50 very small neon type fish such as the Neoglyphidodon crossi. One of my favorite freshwater tanks ever was a school of 50 neons...

- Eyes: Eyes of all fish should be highlighted as in the Aquatica fish to make all of them seem much more alive. This would enhance the visibility of the code for 'rotating' eyes - a feature that is otherwise hard to identify.

- Dimension: Fish should swim behind and then in front of the coral, and vice-versa. Currently they can't do this.

- Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc.

- Dynamic Coral: The Coral needs its own shimmering action, some shimmering plants and fastwater around it. It's too static. More munching on the coral is needed. After all, that's whey they are there.

- Fast Action: More random fast action is needed from the fish. Rushing water from an offscreen 'filter inlet' would be a good way to vary the fish speed more when it's near that area. This code seems to already be in place, but it's a bit too subtle or the intensity should have a slider option.

- Feeding: A Feeding Option would be great, especially with a 'Feed Key'. Then of course we would need a catfish...

- Kissing: Fish should sometimes kiss or munch on each other.

- Bubbles: It would be nice if few sparse bubbles infrequently and randomly emerged from the sand and under the coral.

- Sound: Bubble sound volume in the Settings screen doesn't go low enough. The guage needs to be a slider instead of a thermometer. More range is needed between off and on so that one could listen to iTunes with a remote and still hear the bubbles in the background without the bubbles dominating.

- Lighting: The foreground and background thermometers need to remain active and become the controlling range factor for Automatic Lights, thus enabling the user to establish the range parameters for the lighting cycle.

- Time: The Time Crystal needs a Small Option for a small analog clock crystal in the lower right without losing the wonderful 'flower coral'. The Time Crystal is far too large and dominant for me personally, and the reason I didn't spend the $10 for it.

- Mail Count: It would ideal to see the number of unread messages in red, hidden in the coral as the center of a flower...

- Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too.

These are just ideas to enhance an already great, great product.

ESHIREY · 04-02-2005, 02:12 PM

WOW, That's a lot of info. I'm sure Jim will have a lot to say.

I also want to welcome you to the forums. You will really like it here. We are like a big family here. Check out the rest of the forum. You will see we don't just talk about the program here. We talk about everything here.

Again, WELCOME.

Jim Sachs · 04-02-2005, 04:30 PM

- Aquatica: See the Aquatica page for some amazing fish. Adding Aquatica's Cross Damsel and the Majestic, Rainbow and King Angels would be spectacular additions to Marine Aquarium. See http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html.

I'd rather go a different way and add fish that other programs don't have, but the Mandarin Goby is planned (mistakenly referred to as a "Cross Damsel" on that Aquatica link).

- Schooling: A Schooling Option would be wonderful where if more than one of the same fish is selected then those fish would exhbit synchronized schooling behavior.

As discussed in another thread, schooling is planned.

- Count: If all of the same species is selected for the tank and the Schooling Option is active, then it would be nice to be able to select the count, such as 20 Blue Damsels or 12 Purple Tangs or 50 very small neon type fish such as the Neoglyphidodon crossi. One of my favorite freshwater tanks ever was a school of 50 neons...

Yes, planned. (Not 50, but still more than the current maximum.)

- Eyes: Eyes of all fish should be highlighted as in the Aquatica fish to make all of them seem much more alive. This would enhance the visibility of the code for 'rotating' eyes - a feature that is otherwise hard to identify.

I'm pretty happy with the current eye movement, and don't plan to change it.

- Dimension: Fish should swim behind and then in front of the coral, and vice-versa. Currently they can't do this.

Yes they do. They can go through the middle of the tank or around the edges to get from front to back or back to front, but if there is another fish in the way, they won't. Having 7 fish in the tank greatly reduces the opportunity for them to switch sides.

- Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc.

No. If you want icons in front of the Aquarium, you are on your own.

- Dynamic Coral: The Coral needs its own shimmering action, some shimmering plants and fastwater around it. It's too static. More munching on the coral is needed. After all, that's whey they are there.

Planned.

- Fast Action: More random fast action is needed from the fish. Rushing water from an offscreen 'filter inlet' would be a good way to vary the fish speed more when it's near that area. This code seems to already be in place, but it's a bit too subtle or the intensity should have a slider option.

Darting is planned, but not fish being pushed around by water currents.

- Feeding: A Feeding Option would be great, especially with a 'Feed Key'. Then of course we would need a catfish...

Feeding is planned.

- Kissing: Fish should sometimes kiss or munch on each other.

Nipping and chasing is planned.

- Bubbles: It would be nice if few sparse bubbles infrequently and randomly emerged from the sand and under the coral.

Uhhh....maybe.

- Sound: Bubble sound volume in the Settings screen doesn't go low enough. The guage needs to be a slider instead of a thermometer. More range is needed between off and on so that one could listen to iTunes with a remote and still hear the bubbles in the background without the bubbles dominating.

Prolific is in charge of the user interface. I'll bring it up with them.

- Lighting: The foreground and background thermometers need to remain active and become the controlling range factor for Automatic Lights, thus enabling the user to establish the range parameters for the lighting cycle.

Thermometers? Lighting is another user interface issue. Prolific has my permission to allow the user to vary the background color through all possible ranges. (Before settling on the only good one as I did.)

- Time: The Time Crystal needs a Small Option for a small analog clock crystal in the lower right without losing the wonderful 'flower coral'. The Time Crystal is far too large and dominant for me personally, and the reason I didn't spend the $10 for it.

Maybe.

- Mail Count: It would ideal to see the number of unread messages in red, hidden in the coral as the center of a flower...

No.

- Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too.

As covered in another thread, all 4 versions (Regular, Widescreen, Time, and Logo) are about to be combined in V2.5.

ESHIREY · 04-02-2005, 05:12 PM

See.................. I told you he would.

feldon34 · 04-02-2005, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by Wakanda:

- Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc.

The Aquarium will never have a "wallpaper" option because people put icons and other garbage on top of it.

Originally posted by Wakanda:

- Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too.

This isn't "industry standard". It's an Aquarium screen saver. Marine Aquarium Time appeals to a very narrow group and that group cannot be bothered with buying and downloading the Aquarium and then downloading a plugin to add clock features.

Wakanda · 04-03-2005, 01:29 AM

I'm pretty impressed that you folks really read my comments. Thanks for the welcome. I'll look around...

And Jim, your attention to it all is great.

Here are a few responses to Jim's comments:

- The Aquatica Reef Dwellers are not part of any screen saver or software and were only used once in a brochure for a trade show in 1995. Bob Jennings painted them and they haven't been used since.

- My suggestion regarding the eyes is that some highlights around the eyes would give them more character. The animation on the eyes is terrific already. I mailed you a brochure so the highlighting might be more apparent in print.

- I'll fix the Mandarin Goby and Koran Angel names.

Marine Aquarium is mesmerizing... so real...

Jim Sachs · 04-03-2005, 02:58 AM

Ahh, I see - You are connected with Greensboro Design.

Yes, those images are very striking. Some day I may ask for permission to use them on some ceramic tiles.

I see that you have already corrected the Mandarin Goby name. I guess the other fish could be a Koran Angel, but there are several species which start out looking like that, then change drastically later on. I'm also not quite sure which fish the "Mandarin" in the top row is meant to be. It could possibly be a Cross Damsel, but the markings are quite different from the few pics I've seen.

Wakanda · 04-03-2005, 11:14 AM

Bob Jennings, a muralist, painted in large formats, and there is some artistic license involved. These 12 paintings are 6 or 8 feet in size, studio photographed and drum scanned into 5 file EPS format for print reproduction, each about 25 megs. I removed the backgrounds in photoshop, brushed the edges and did some color adjustments for print.

Bob and I looked through a stack of marine life coffee-table books when selecting images to paint, but that was years ago. Eventually I tried to round up the names for these fish and found myself confused...

On the Aquatica page I put a photograph of a neoglyphidodon-crossi, a fish that I found the other day when looking for 'saltwater neon tetras' that might 'school' well. The Marine Aquarium Blue Damsels, Purple Tangs, Yellow Tangs, Royal Grammas and Rock Beauty Angels all look good as a single species tank, but my most startling tank was the simple color of 6 dozen neon tetras darting en masse. Memories, I suppose...

feldon34 · 04-03-2005, 02:08 PM

That's a juvenile Emperor Angel, which I have always preferred over the Koran Angel. Sorry, Jim.

Emperor -rounded, luminescent blue and white lines with "webbing" effect on rear fins.

Koran - more "craggy" or geometric non-luminescent blue and white markings, no "webbing".

Wakanda · 04-03-2005, 06:05 PM

Well then, I'll give this poor fish its third name of the day...

It's fixed now at http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html

Thanks!

04-02-2005, 01:14 PM	#1
Wakanda Registered Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Greensboro, North Carolina Posts: 12	Enhancements Marine Aquarium is a remarkable achievement both technically and aesthetically. Below are feature requests and product considerations, some of which may be obvious, upcoming or quite difficult. Just ideas from an appreciative user. - Aquatica: See the Aquatica page for some amazing fish. Adding Aquatica's Cross Damsel and the Majestic, Rainbow and King Angels would be spectacular additions to Marine Aquarium. See http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html. - Schooling: A Schooling Option would be wonderful where if more than one of the same fish is selected then those fish would exhbit synchronized schooling behavior. - Count: If all of the same species is selected for the tank and the Schooling Option is active, then it would be nice to be able to select the count, such as 20 Blue Damsels or 12 Purple Tangs or 50 very small neon type fish such as the Neoglyphidodon crossi. One of my favorite freshwater tanks ever was a school of 50 neons... - Eyes: Eyes of all fish should be highlighted as in the Aquatica fish to make all of them seem much more alive. This would enhance the visibility of the code for 'rotating' eyes - a feature that is otherwise hard to identify. - Dimension: Fish should swim behind and then in front of the coral, and vice-versa. Currently they can't do this. - Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc. - Dynamic Coral: The Coral needs its own shimmering action, some shimmering plants and fastwater around it. It's too static. More munching on the coral is needed. After all, that's whey they are there. - Fast Action: More random fast action is needed from the fish. Rushing water from an offscreen 'filter inlet' would be a good way to vary the fish speed more when it's near that area. This code seems to already be in place, but it's a bit too subtle or the intensity should have a slider option. - Feeding: A Feeding Option would be great, especially with a 'Feed Key'. Then of course we would need a catfish... - Kissing: Fish should sometimes kiss or munch on each other. - Bubbles: It would be nice if few sparse bubbles infrequently and randomly emerged from the sand and under the coral. - Sound: Bubble sound volume in the Settings screen doesn't go low enough. The guage needs to be a slider instead of a thermometer. More range is needed between off and on so that one could listen to iTunes with a remote and still hear the bubbles in the background without the bubbles dominating. - Lighting: The foreground and background thermometers need to remain active and become the controlling range factor for Automatic Lights, thus enabling the user to establish the range parameters for the lighting cycle. - Time: The Time Crystal needs a Small Option for a small analog clock crystal in the lower right without losing the wonderful 'flower coral'. The Time Crystal is far too large and dominant for me personally, and the reason I didn't spend the $10 for it. - Mail Count: It would ideal to see the number of unread messages in red, hidden in the coral as the center of a flower... - Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too. These are just ideas to enhance an already great, great product.

04-02-2005, 02:12 PM	#2
ESHIREY Smilie Dragon Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Lebanon, PA Posts: 4,725	WOW, That's a lot of info. I'm sure Jim will have a lot to say. I also want to welcome you to the forums. You will really like it here. We are like a big family here. Check out the rest of the forum. You will see we don't just talk about the program here. We talk about everything here. Again, WELCOME. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

04-02-2005, 04:30 PM	#3
Jim Sachs Developer Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Southern Oregon Posts: 9,774	- Aquatica: See the Aquatica page for some amazing fish. Adding Aquatica's Cross Damsel and the Majestic, Rainbow and King Angels would be spectacular additions to Marine Aquarium. See http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html. I'd rather go a different way and add fish that other programs don't have, but the Mandarin Goby is planned (mistakenly referred to as a "Cross Damsel" on that Aquatica link). - Schooling: A Schooling Option would be wonderful where if more than one of the same fish is selected then those fish would exhbit synchronized schooling behavior. As discussed in another thread, schooling is planned. - Count: If all of the same species is selected for the tank and the Schooling Option is active, then it would be nice to be able to select the count, such as 20 Blue Damsels or 12 Purple Tangs or 50 very small neon type fish such as the Neoglyphidodon crossi. One of my favorite freshwater tanks ever was a school of 50 neons... Yes, planned. (Not 50, but still more than the current maximum.) - Eyes: Eyes of all fish should be highlighted as in the Aquatica fish to make all of them seem much more alive. This would enhance the visibility of the code for 'rotating' eyes - a feature that is otherwise hard to identify. I'm pretty happy with the current eye movement, and don't plan to change it. - Dimension: Fish should swim behind and then in front of the coral, and vice-versa. Currently they can't do this. Yes they do. They can go through the middle of the tank or around the edges to get from front to back or back to front, but if there is another fish in the way, they won't. Having 7 fish in the tank greatly reduces the opportunity for them to switch sides. - Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc. No. If you want icons in front of the Aquarium, you are on your own. - Dynamic Coral: The Coral needs its own shimmering action, some shimmering plants and fastwater around it. It's too static. More munching on the coral is needed. After all, that's whey they are there. Planned. - Fast Action: More random fast action is needed from the fish. Rushing water from an offscreen 'filter inlet' would be a good way to vary the fish speed more when it's near that area. This code seems to already be in place, but it's a bit too subtle or the intensity should have a slider option. Darting is planned, but not fish being pushed around by water currents. - Feeding: A Feeding Option would be great, especially with a 'Feed Key'. Then of course we would need a catfish... Feeding is planned. - Kissing: Fish should sometimes kiss or munch on each other. Nipping and chasing is planned. - Bubbles: It would be nice if few sparse bubbles infrequently and randomly emerged from the sand and under the coral. Uhhh....maybe. - Sound: Bubble sound volume in the Settings screen doesn't go low enough. The guage needs to be a slider instead of a thermometer. More range is needed between off and on so that one could listen to iTunes with a remote and still hear the bubbles in the background without the bubbles dominating. Prolific is in charge of the user interface. I'll bring it up with them. - Lighting: The foreground and background thermometers need to remain active and become the controlling range factor for Automatic Lights, thus enabling the user to establish the range parameters for the lighting cycle. Thermometers? Lighting is another user interface issue. Prolific has my permission to allow the user to vary the background color through all possible ranges. (Before settling on the only good one as I did.) - Time: The Time Crystal needs a Small Option for a small analog clock crystal in the lower right without losing the wonderful 'flower coral'. The Time Crystal is far too large and dominant for me personally, and the reason I didn't spend the $10 for it. Maybe. - Mail Count: It would ideal to see the number of unread messages in red, hidden in the coral as the center of a flower... No. - Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too. As covered in another thread, all 4 versions (Regular, Widescreen, Time, and Logo) are about to be combined in V2.5. Jim Sachs Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium

04-02-2005, 05:12 PM	#4
ESHIREY Smilie Dragon Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Lebanon, PA Posts: 4,725	See.................. I told you he would. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

04-02-2005, 05:27 PM	#5
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	Originally posted by Wakanda: - Fullscreen: A fullscreen option that would sit behind the dock and cover the entire desktop. Currently the largest window doesn't go all the way. Desktop utilities such as XBack use up vast resources and seriously slow background tasks such as the climateprediction.net Boinc. The Aquarium will never have a "wallpaper" option because people put icons and other garbage on top of it. Originally posted by Wakanda: - Modularization: Selling "Time" separately seems to lessen rather increase the value of the product. I'd personally prefer industry standard solutions, such as offering Time as a plugin module. This feels differently than selling it as a separate product. You could also then sell additional fish or fish packages as separate plugins, too. This isn't "industry standard". It's an Aquarium screen saver. Marine Aquarium Time appeals to a very narrow group and that group cannot be bothered with buying and downloading the Aquarium and then downloading a plugin to add clock features. "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

04-03-2005, 01:29 AM	#6
Wakanda Registered Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Greensboro, North Carolina Posts: 12	wow, thanks much I'm pretty impressed that you folks really read my comments. Thanks for the welcome. I'll look around... And Jim, your attention to it all is great. Here are a few responses to Jim's comments: - The Aquatica Reef Dwellers are not part of any screen saver or software and were only used once in a brochure for a trade show in 1995. Bob Jennings painted them and they haven't been used since. - My suggestion regarding the eyes is that some highlights around the eyes would give them more character. The animation on the eyes is terrific already. I mailed you a brochure so the highlighting might be more apparent in print. - I'll fix the Mandarin Goby and Koran Angel names. Marine Aquarium is mesmerizing... so real...

04-03-2005, 02:58 AM	#7
Jim Sachs Developer Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Southern Oregon Posts: 9,774	Ahh, I see - You are connected with Greensboro Design. Yes, those images are very striking. Some day I may ask for permission to use them on some ceramic tiles. I see that you have already corrected the Mandarin Goby name. I guess the other fish could be a Koran Angel, but there are several species which start out looking like that, then change drastically later on. I'm also not quite sure which fish the "Mandarin" in the top row is meant to be. It could possibly be a Cross Damsel, but the markings are quite different from the few pics I've seen. Jim Sachs Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium

04-03-2005, 11:14 AM	#8
Wakanda Registered Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Greensboro, North Carolina Posts: 12	Bob Jennings Bob Jennings, a muralist, painted in large formats, and there is some artistic license involved. These 12 paintings are 6 or 8 feet in size, studio photographed and drum scanned into 5 file EPS format for print reproduction, each about 25 megs. I removed the backgrounds in photoshop, brushed the edges and did some color adjustments for print. Bob and I looked through a stack of marine life coffee-table books when selecting images to paint, but that was years ago. Eventually I tried to round up the names for these fish and found myself confused... On the Aquatica page I put a photograph of a neoglyphidodon-crossi, a fish that I found the other day when looking for 'saltwater neon tetras' that might 'school' well. The Marine Aquarium Blue Damsels, Purple Tangs, Yellow Tangs, Royal Grammas and Rock Beauty Angels all look good as a single species tank, but my most startling tank was the simple color of 6 dozen neon tetras darting en masse. Memories, I suppose...

04-03-2005, 02:08 PM	#9
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	That's a juvenile Emperor Angel, which I have always preferred over the Koran Angel. Sorry, Jim. Emperor -rounded, luminescent blue and white lines with "webbing" effect on rear fins. Koran - more "craggy" or geometric non-luminescent blue and white markings, no "webbing". "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman

04-03-2005, 06:05 PM	#10
Wakanda Registered Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Greensboro, North Carolina Posts: 12	Well then, I'll give this poor fish its third name of the day... It's fixed now at http://www.greensboroughdesign.com/Aquatica.html Thanks!