Home Register Arcade Gallery Chatroom Members Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Log In
Go Back   Inside: SereneScreen Fan Forum > SereneScreen Products > Marine Aquarium 3 for Windows
Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 07-27-2006, 01:33 PM   #1421
schneb
Registered
 
schneb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2002

Location: Redlands, CA
Posts: 51
Magnifier

Yes, this would require doubling or tripling the resolution. Which would not be practical and would slow everything down. There are utilities that will magnify your monitor resolution (for both Mac and PC) and this might help get you something like that.
schneb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2006, 03:07 PM   #1422
johnblommers
The Architect
 
johnblommers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
Mipmapping anybody?

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:
The only problem with a magnified view is that someone (me) would have to put in all that detail.  
Why Jim, does that mean you are going to work on that texture resolution enhancement project and update the aquarium? Excellent! Now I still love MA 2.6 on the Mac. But on my 24-inch Dell 2405FPW at 1920x1200 some of that coral does get pixelated (see attached). Why not address the coral first? The fish are great!

On the other hand even on my lowly QuickSilver Mac MA2.6 runs at a very respectable 66fps at 1920x1200 and thousands of colors. You do know how to code for performance!

Rock on!

- John
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Picture 1.jpg (40.3 KB, 56 views)
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
60% - It’s for nerds.
39% - The show’s stupid.
01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
johnblommers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2006, 03:29 PM   #1423
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,937
Don't count on it.

The goal is for Jim to recreate the Aquarium with 3D objects and high-resolution textures so that the background scales to any resolution without jaggies. For some reason, on many systems, the background does not antialias.
"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
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2006, 03:48 PM   #1424
johnblommers
The Architect
 
johnblommers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
Better Yet

Originally posted by feldon30:
Don't count on it.

The goal is for Jim to recreate the Aquarium with 3D objects and high-resolution textures so that the background scales to any resolution without jaggies. For some reason, on many systems, the background does not antialias.  
The grey matter does seem to recall that there was a new 3D aquarium in the works but that it had been set aside. It has been so long .... So I stand corrected and welcome Jim's efforts on it.

Leave MA2.6 be, it's not broken.

Perhaps someobody could educate me as to why 3D modelers are devoted to texture mapping polygons. Why not use procedurally generated textures that are resolution independent? I may be blowing smoke here
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
60% - It’s for nerds.
39% - The show’s stupid.
01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
johnblommers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2006, 04:05 PM   #1425
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,937
Originally posted by johnblommers:
Perhaps someobody could educate me as to why 3D modelers are devoted to texture mapping polygons. Why not use procedurally generated textures that are resolution independent? I may be blowing smoke here  
Because then you can't pan, tilt, or swivel the camera.
"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
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-27-2006, 05:52 PM   #1426
Jim Sachs
Developer
 
Jim Sachs's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 9,768
JB - Yes, I've been working on 3.0 for some time now. All the textures will have at least four times the area of the originals. All the fish have to be redone also, though it may not be quite so apparent as the background objects.
Jim Sachs
Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
Jim Sachs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 06:01 AM   #1427
BBtm64
Careful, I bite :)
 
BBtm64's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Springfield,OH
Posts: 16
It's good to know that your work is ongoing, Jim. I've never found a better aquarium screen saver than your's.
I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing & I admit to less.
BBtm64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 09:40 AM   #1428
johnblommers
The Architect
 
johnblommers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
the real thing

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:
JB - Yes, I've been working on 3.0 for some time now. All the textures will have at least four times the area of the originals. All the fish have to be redone also, though it may not be quite so apparent as the background objects.  
The lionfish mesh of MA 2.6 fame gets its colored barbs not from the mesh but from an alpha map of the fin mesh textures. Hence they don't seem to benefit from anti-aliasing effects. I wonder if you have thought to increase the poly count and actualy produce real barbs?

- john
Attached Images
File Type: png Picture 1.png (51.0 KB, 40 views)
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
60% - It’s for nerds.
39% - The show’s stupid.
01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
johnblommers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 10:05 AM   #1429
spiralmonkey
Developer
 
spiralmonkey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 72
Originally posted by johnblommers:
Perhaps someobody could educate me as to why 3D modelers are devoted to texture mapping polygons. Why not use procedurally generated textures that are resolution independent? I may be blowing smoke here  
Well, in my experience good procedurally generated textures (aka shaders) are very difficult to create. Imagine having to come up with an equation to draw a stick figure vs. actually just drawing a stick figure. There's almost always a quality tradeoff, as well as being much more work. Much easier to just paint a texture at higher resolution and then scale it down to your needs, which i assume is what jim is doing.
Developer of Dream Aquarium
spiralmonkey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 11:25 AM   #1430
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,937
Procedurally generated textures almost always look it.

And memory is so cheap that there's no reason not to just go photograph something and stick it on there.

Some exceptions are trees and water, and libraries have been written to draw large numbers of trees and realistic water without the programmer having to reinvent the wheel.
"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
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 12:10 PM   #1431
johnblommers
The Architect
 
johnblommers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
It's not just the memory

Originally posted by feldon30:
...And memory is so cheap that there's no reason not to just go photograph something and stick it on there....  
True enough, the latest crop of video cards carry a whopping 512 meg of dedicated VRAM but require PCI express slots. So that rules out a lot of users with older hardware. Plus once the texture buffers get full, the application has to do a lot of texture juggling, and that consumes backplane bandwidth, which in turn cases lag and slowed frame rates.

MA is so cool because it will run well at 1024x768xthousands of colors on an 8-meg VRAM system - my trusty and aged Pismo Powerbook. Its RAM cannot be upgraded or retrofitted to make room for textures.

But procedurally generated textures at that resolution might look nice and won't take up more VRAM.

I think. Here I'm not clear.
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
60% - It’s for nerds.
39% - The show’s stupid.
01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
johnblommers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 01:43 PM   #1432
Tiny Turtle
is pleased
 
Tiny Turtle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
27 Highscores

Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 7,365
There has to be some middle ground in there. Even of latest-and-greatest half-a-gig vid cards isn't exactly standard, a Pismo is still a bit old. Developing something now with the aim of it looking good enough to sell to people buying computers today won't be helped by having to factor in the performance of a portable computer released in early 2000...

Sorry if I come across as grumpy.

/Tiny Reflective Scales
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.
Tiny Turtle is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 03:07 PM   #1433
johnblommers
The Architect
 
johnblommers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: Seattle
Posts: 756
Actually you are being kind

Originally posted by Tiny Turtle:
....a Pismo is still a bit old. Developing something now with the aim of it looking good enough to sell to people buying computers today won't be helped by having to factor in the performance of a portable computer released in early 2000...

Sorry if I come across as grumpy.

/Tiny Reflective Scales  
Not at all Tiny Turtle, we're really on the same page. I really don't expect the 3D MA to run on the Pismo. It amazes me how well MA works on that ancient Pismo given its modest 8 meg of VRAM. And that old video card propably has no means to generate procedural textures anyway. Given that textures are easy to capture with a camera, it's the clear choice for 3D artists. I see that now.

So to support small-VRAM systems, would not a technique called Mipmapping help out? This method draws low-res textures on large distant objects and swaps in a higher-res texture when the camera moves closer. Given a low VRAM system you can use the lower res textures and for modern 512-Meg VRAM cards you an use all the high res textures.

As I have never coded in OpenGL I have no idea how easy or hard or stupid MipMapping is
Reasons people don't watch Star Trek:
60% - It’s for nerds.
39% - The show’s stupid.
01% - My parents were killed by Klingons and it's still too painful.
johnblommers is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 03:40 PM   #1434
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,937
If someone wants a great Aquarium that runs on older computers, that's what Marine Aquarium 2.6 is for. Hopefully it won't be removed from SereneScreen.com when 3.0 comes out.
"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
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 04:02 PM   #1435
Tiny Turtle
is pleased
 
Tiny Turtle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
27 Highscores

Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 7,365
Probably just renamed "Marine Aquarium Classic"
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.
Tiny Turtle is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 04:29 PM   #1436
drfish
the Doc
 
drfish's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002

Location: Zeeland, MI
Posts: 5,351
MAC? I think they could get into trouble for that...

What about, "Sachs Marine Aquarium Classic?" Oh wait...
I don't watch commercials.
drfish is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 06:30 PM   #1437
Tiny Turtle
is pleased
 
Tiny Turtle's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
27 Highscores

Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 7,365
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.
Tiny Turtle is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-10-2006, 11:13 PM   #1438
Jim Sachs
Developer
 
Jim Sachs's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 9,768
Too many questions for me to remember, so I'll just throw out some answers and maybe they'll match up to some of the questions

Procedural textures - I've never seen any that were very realistic. Even Alan doesn't use them, and he won an Academy Award for computer effects.

Mipmapping - nearly all Direct3D programs use them, and MA is no exception. A mipped texture is 33.3% bigger (in bytes) than a single-level texture, so they are not a byte-saving item, but a visual-quality item. When a 3D object goes off into the distance so that its size is only half what it was when near the camera, the graphics system has a hard time deciding which of pixels of the original large texture to display on the now-small object. This causes aliasing, or sparkling of the texture. With mipmapping, it just switches to the next smaller picture, until it finds one which more closely matches the size of the object on the screen.

Lionfish barbs - The new Lionfish does have polygon barbs on its head. The barbs on the fins are in the textures. Yes, all the new fish will have more polygons than the existing fish, but the added realism will mostly come from bigger textures. A high-res texture with alpha will automatically anti-alias itself when stretched, but the only card that I've ever seen perform a decent job of polygon anti-aliasing is the now-obsolete 3Dfx series (and then only when using its native Glide language).

I wrote MA to squeeze every last bit of realism possible out of an 8-meg card at 1024x768. Sure, a lot of people still have these cards, and for them MA 2.6 will continue to be sold and supported for years to come. Now it's time to move on and give the people with systems made in THIS decade something to look at.
Jim Sachs
Creator of SereneScreen Aquarium
Jim Sachs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2006, 10:43 AM   #1439
Jav400
Administrator
 
Jav400's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
22 Highscores

Location: Tennessee
Posts: 9,725
Jim,

I am glad to hear things are progressing. As for something to consider for future use, ( I know you have too much going on getting things built for now ), but maybe someone at Prolific could get it added later. Would you even consider actinic lighting in the new version? It would be awesome to see something like the Blue Faced Angel in the first photo, turned into the second one with lighting changes. I can't remember seeing any other aquarium that has anything close to this and it would be another way to set yours apart from the rest.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Blue Faced Angel.jpg (100.4 KB, 40 views)
Jav400 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-14-2006, 11:01 AM   #1440
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,937
Basically it would be a second texture that only lights up when that texture gets close to a certain light source. I would love to see this. I don't know if that second texture would have to have the same resolution as the fish's main texture.
"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
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply
Go Back   Inside: SereneScreen Fan Forum > SereneScreen Products > Marine Aquarium 3 for Windows



Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:04 AM.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.