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Old 03-09-2003, 04:24 PM   #81
feldon34
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STEVEPOON said:
MA2 will be released. How about Wide verison? I like wide version. Will it be stopped until 3D background is introduced. (Two version merge together) Why I like wide, one more fish can come out.
Wide MA2 is coming soon.


Digital Lungfish said:
As for paying $5 for MA 2.0, count me in, it's only fair.
Why would you need to pay $5?

Digital Lungfish said:
Since we're on the topic of fish improvements, did you ever manage to fix the open yellow mouth problem that the Regal Tang has been suffering from since it was born?
The texture would have to be re-wrapped to fix this and maybe it's not possible to fix with the current vertex count. The outline of the mouth is 'flesh colored' or tan but the inside of the mouth is most certainly not piercing yellow, but black. It's the food hole.

Digital Lungfish said:
Oh and one other thing, did I hear right in another post that you guys are no longer using the Wish List? Or do you mean that you plan to create more fish than just those on the Wish List?
Prolific generally did not select fish that appear on our Wishlist.

I think they did the fish they like, instead of the fish that are the most popular. Otherwise they might have started with a Moorish Idol and a few other popular ones. I like what they chose. There are probably other reasons they did not hit the Wishlist. Two of the fish they put ARE on the wishlist anyway, the Imperator and Annularis Angels.


Tiny Turtle said:

The Hawaiian state fish is the Painted Triggerfish (Rhinecanthus rectangulus) which in Hawaiian tounge is called the "Hu-mu hu-mu nu-ku nu-ku a pu-a-'a" which supposedly translates into "Fish who comes out of the water and sounds like a pig". The Picasso Triggerfish (Rhinecanthus aculeatus) is not the same thing.
It does not help that there are so many websites that mix the two...
http://www.riebesell.net/aquaria/livestock.cfm?fid=101
http://www.marinedepotlive.com/763714.html
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/M...6/trigger.html
http://www.aquacon.com/html/images/sp11.htm

Here's the real Humu Humu Trigger...

http://store6.yimg.com/I/marinedepotlive_1726_15859222

This page even talks about the difficulty between these 2 fish...
http://saltaquarium.about.com/librar...y/aa100600.htm
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Old 03-09-2003, 04:47 PM   #82
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Good reading, Morgan. Sorry for yapping about it. – Guess I was just eager to show that I too knew one thing about reef fish.

Then again, If so many mix 'em up – All the more reason not to use them incorrecly.

/Tiny Thanks
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 03-09-2003, 04:51 PM   #83
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There was an internal project at Prolific specifically for confirming that we are using the "correct" names for all the fish in the Aquarium.

It involved Reichart, an ichthyologist, etc.

I still don't know how the Wimplefish became a Long-finned Butterfly or how the Picasso Trigger became a Picassofish, but great minds made these decisions.
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Old 03-09-2003, 05:38 PM   #84
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The Hawaiians don't discriminate between slightly different types of Triggerfish -- they are all Huma-Humas (Pig-faced).

As with many marine fish, there is a question whether variations in coloring actually constitue a different species.
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Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
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Old 03-09-2003, 05:58 PM   #85
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Purchasers of the Aquarium before February 22nd, 2001 (prior to the Lionfish's release) are entitled to a free upgrade to MA2.0.
Morgan,
Shouldn't that be "February 22nd, 2002"?
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Old 03-09-2003, 07:22 PM   #86
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OOPS! At least I was not accidentially over-inclusive.
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Last edited by feldon34; 03-09-2003 at 07:40 PM.
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Old 03-10-2003, 12:50 AM   #87
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What is being done with the Pictures being used for the coral. Would recommend going back to the original photos and creating higher resolution images for use on large screens. When projecting on a 60 inch screen with a DPL projector the fish look great but the coral starts to look really really pixelated. Maybe a highres coral option with the satament it will effect frame rate.

Would still love to see more work being put into the coral and live rock etc.
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Old 03-10-2003, 12:51 AM   #88
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Why would you need to pay $5?
Ahhh, so those of us who have been here since the beginning aren't required to pay the $5, I guess that slipped by me.
The texture would have to be re-wrapped to fix this and maybe it's not possible to fix with the current vertex count.
Hmmm, so are you saying this problem may never be addressed? Or am I misunderstanding your response Morgan?
Steve
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Old 03-10-2003, 02:06 AM   #89
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Southpaw,
As the background image eventually will be replaced with a 3D background, there won't be any more work done on the "old" background. As for when this will be implemented – Well, Nothing's certain except that it will come after the Freshwater Aquarium.

/Tiny Southpaw Too
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 03-10-2003, 02:21 AM   #90
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Originally posted by SouthPaw42
What is being done with the Pictures being used for the coral. Would recommend going back to the original photos and creating higher resolution images for use on large screens. When projecting on a 60 inch screen with a DPL projector the fish look great but the coral starts to look really really pixelated. Maybe a highres coral option with the satament it will effect frame rate.

Would still love to see more work being put into the coral and live rock etc.
Every day spent on the flat 2D background now (which was never intended to be permanent or to even be in place this long) means that the 3D background is a day further away.
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Old 03-10-2003, 02:32 AM   #91
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Is the 3d backgroung being done by an experienced 3d artist using maya or 3d studio to create the high polly count model to create the texture map, lumanance map, reflection map etc.
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Old 03-10-2003, 02:43 AM   #92
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I guess you are not happy with Jim's work?
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Old 03-10-2003, 02:44 AM   #93
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The 3D background will be done by the experienced artist James D. Sachs who has done some other work on this screensaver (Just kidding – Jim Sachs has done *everything* on this one, programming as well as the graphics)

/Tiny Want Your DPL

Edit:
Seems like a lot of double-answering right now, eh Morgan?
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 03-10-2003, 03:00 AM   #94
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Jim Sachs has done beautiful work on the screensaver so far. But building models in Maya or 3D studio with trillions of polygons proper reflections lighting luminance takes tremendous experience. Then converting them to maps for use in directx takes even more experience. Now This screen saver isn't doom 3 but it takes the same expertise just less time.
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Old 03-10-2003, 03:25 AM   #95
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Doom3?

1. Q: But building models in Maya or 3D studio with trillions of polygons proper reflections lighting luminance takes tremendous experience.
A: What? The BG will be photo realistic in 3D with a lot less than trillions, billions, or even millions of polygons. Lets consider this from a different point of view.
Imagine that every single pixel were its own polygon (like a texil, http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/teaching/cs4...s/glossary.htm)

Assuming a screen res of 1024x768, and assuming the coral is about 30% of the area, then we would be talking about 260K polys. But the simple FACT is that this will not require a 1:1 ratio. Usually photo-realism can be done using between 10:1 and 30:1 ratio. Or 26K on the high side, and less than 10K on the low side. Then there is the magic factor, which is where a well trained and skillfully and talented person like Sachs, spends day and night for weeks to months on end creating illusions as these number are shoved even further down.

2. Q: Then converting them to maps for use in directx takes even more experience.
A: It does? I think we just use a little program we wrote to do this.

2. Q: Now This screen saver isn't doom 3 but it takes the same expertise just less time.
A: You seem to have this backwards. While the artist that do video games are often very good, they are not even in the same league as what is required for this type of production. The artists at ILM, Disney, or Dreamworks would be a better match.
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Old 03-10-2003, 04:12 AM   #96
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Cinematic rendering in DirectX 8 and 9 requires that the models be built with millions of polygons and then rendered with High Dynamic Range. These models are used to create bump maps, reflection maps, luminosity maps, light map, 3D transformations, per-pixel lighting and Projective Texturing for hardware rendering. Thes are the things that will let a Pentium 4 render images in real time that look alotbertter than pixars work in "Finding Nemo".

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney...emo/large.html
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Old 03-10-2003, 04:21 AM   #97
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I guess we'll have to settle for something less than "cinematic rendering" then – or at least your definition of it SP.

This one *will* be possible to run on a system not equipped with a 3.06GHz P4 and a DX9 vid card. Also, the background won't be a 3D "world" – It will be seen from one side (sidescrolling) which would lower the poly count considerably, don't you think?

Really enjoyed that trailer yesterday, btw. "Look, Krill!"

/Tiny Polygon Count
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.

Last edited by Tiny Turtle; 03-10-2003 at 04:50 AM.
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Old 03-10-2003, 04:42 AM   #98
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You are missing something for instance bump map. http://webreference.com/3d/glossary/bump.html
Lets say to create a 2000 polygon sphere apply a bump map and you could make the sphere look like a dimpled golf ball that would nomally have 200,000 polygons. From the CPU end it is rendering a 2000 polygon sphere the graphics card does the rest of the work.

http://mirror.ati.com/vortal/r350/fl...nal/index.html

http://www.ati.com/vortal/r300/dx9demo/main.html
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Old 03-10-2003, 04:44 AM   #99
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Yes?
Thanks to Morgan, Tiny Snapshots is up and running again with "Tiny Järvafält" as the latest addition – Go have a look and tell me what you think.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.
I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
" /Robert Oppenheimer on witnessing the first thermonuclear detonation in history.
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Old 03-10-2003, 04:51 AM   #100
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You know, for all 3D experts that keep coming here and telling Jim and Prolific how to do their job, why is Jim the only one doing anything that looks this good?

There are no plans for Maya (why would anyone use this to make something in DirectX that must run 60fps on a GeForce 2 MX?) or 3D Studio Max (excellent animator, horrible modeler) to be used in the creation of the 3D coral.

You are missing something for instance bump map. http://webreference.com/3d/glossary/bump.html
Lets say to create a 2000 polygon sphere apply a bump map and you could make the sphere look like a dimpled golf ball that would nomally have 200,000 polygons. From the CPU end it is rendering a 2000 polygon sphere the graphics card does the rest of the work.
Now you are just being insulting.

You are talking to 3D artists who have been doing this for 15+ years. I think it is hilarious how everyone keeps coming in and saying that bump mapping technology will solve the world's problems. Well, no, not if your model sucks. Bump mapping is an addition, it is not its own solution. And animating a bump map is more intensive than moving geometry around. You are talking pie-in-the-sky numbers here.

2,000 polygons for a sphere? Jim is using 994 vertices for SEVEN FISH!!!

Thes are the things that will let a Pentium 4 render images in real time that look alotbertter than pixars work in "Finding Nemo".
Pixar films take weeks or months to render on server farms of 200-300 computers. Before Monsters, Inc., NOBODY had done hair that realistically before. It took days to render sequences with Sully in them.


Reichart said:
Assuming a screen res of 1024x768, and assuming the coral is about 30% of the area, then we would be talking about 260K polys. But the simple FACT is that this will not require a 1:1 ratio. Usually photo-realism can be done using between 10:1 and 30:1 ratio. Or 26K on the high side, and less than 10K on the low side.
Actually, I have had 3D coral on the brain lately. Daunting is not the word for it. When I look at a small anemone suitable for the False Percula Clown we have in the tank right now, I see ~600-900 vertices at least. And that's just one anemone! How many polygons can we push around here? Jim initially said that the the 3D background would take up "about 5 fish" worth of geometry. In my estimations, we're talking about 30 fish worth of geometry for an undemanding 3D scene.

Hmm...
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