My New Aquarium Screensaver - give it a try!

By spiralmonkey
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Grand Master

SkyyPunk Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

:o wow this is extremely good work...runs real smooth for me :)

One thing i noticed (unless i read wrong..i am tired)

Originally, the screen was set to Semi-widescreen...

I clicked it, then it only toggeled between Widescreen and Full (no more semi)

Grand Master

Astra.Xtreme

Posted
Posted

This screensaver is truly amazing. I am really impressed how life-like it is.

Now the next step is to get a new sound. :p

Then you can move on to put in more tropical and colorful fish.

Then it will be damn near perfect

Rookie

spiralmonkey

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Very impressive. i found a bug with the Deep Blue Tank.

bug.png

aha, i see you've found the 'beta testing' option in the display properties settings. That's my swatch test. You probably don't want that option on, as it mostly just generates bigger log files.

Why don't you use DirectX 9 instead of DirectX 8?

does it make much of a difference? i honestly don't know. my intention was to go with an OLDER version so mom & dad & aunt mable wouldn't have to upgrade. this would be for mass consumption.

P.S. I've used both Marine Aquarium and Goldfish Aquarium so I know my fish screensavers ;)

First, thanks for everyone's kind comments. I'm glad people are enjoying it. Feel free to spread the word. Yes, MA and GA are arguably the 2 best aquarium SS's out there. Goldfish Aquarium is fine if you like goldfish, colored gravel and plastic plants, but it doesn't do much for me personally. Marine Aquarium is the one that got me thinking about doing an aquarium. it's very good, the fish look very real. A nice piece of work. i wanted a freshwater aquarium because i like planted tanks, and i wanted more liberated fish movement than those have. I want my fish to [eventually] really explore their environment. One thing i always felt with Marine Aquarium is that the fish just paced back and forth, always seeming like they were looking for a way OUT of their tank. I think the fish should enjoy being IN their environment. My fish behavior is limited right now - currently i'm trying to get all the technical issues of the SS worked out. then i'll dive back into the rendering quality and give them some personality and behavior - chasing, scrounging for food, looking around etc... It's definitely tricky programming, by far the biggest complication being collision avoidance.

THe sound needs a little work though. maybe like a water trickling sound..?

yes, you're not the first to mention that. At least now it starts with the sound off ;)

sounds awesome but it still aint' workin for me lol any solution to my prob? see previous post

timmay, you need gdiplus.dll. not sure why you don't have it (it's standard issue) but i had a friend with the same problem. google "gdiplus.dll download" and put it in your WINNT/system32 directory. however, i have another friend with your same graphics card, and it doesn't run too smooth. that's an old graphics card, and this aquarium's 3d is fairly 'needy'. I hope to come out with a more basic tank eventually, and i still need to optimize the graphics in general.

btw, THANK-YOU to those who have sent bug reports and told me about issues. i'll try to get to address them as soon as i can. There are still some bugs to iron out.

This is great, all you need to do is finish porting it to OS X

yeah, unfortunately will all the stuff that still needs doing, that's still a few months away. I thought i would have had this released six months ago :(

oh, I have no idea why i wrote copyright 2000 in the About. i've been working on it for a little over a year.

Do you also take suggestions...like a hotkey to feed the fish, as well as random feeding locations would be cool. the mouse is a little inconvenient as i close my laptop lid and run it on my lcd tv.

yes, random feeding locations has been asked for before, or use the mouse to place food. here are the hotkeys (not documented anywhere yet)

F - feed the fish

L - change camera formatting

1,2,3 - add fish

D - delete last fish added

W - wireframe / solid

C - fish collisions on/off

and one other key has a very special EASTER EGG! i won't tell you which one or what it is... ;)

Edited by spiralmonkey
Mentor

Dark_INk

Posted
Posted

Very impressive. i found a bug with the Deep Blue Tank.

bug.png

my screen resolution is 1280x1024, grfxcard ati all-in-wonder 9600 pro

weird- tried your settings (same card) and i couldn't replicate the error. what drivers are you using? (me: omega 2.6.71 based off cat 5.9)

I second that.

faq's say it's coming :)

Rookie

spiralmonkey

Posted
  • Author
Posted

weird- tried your settings (same card) and i couldn't replicate the error. what drivers are you using? (me: omega 2.6.71 based off cat 5.9)

it looks like that because the 'beta mode' is activated (in the display properties screensaver settings). it's a swatch i've used to diagnose rendering issues. Beta mode is not recommended btw - slows stuff down.

Community Regular

Hikaru

Posted
Posted

The screensaver crashed while I was at school... There was a Dream Aquarium titled window with:

---------------------------

Dream Aquarium Error

---------------------------

Could not open Direct3D windows

---------------------------

OK

---------------------------

and another window asking if I could send the bug report to your servers and say it'll increase my karma or something, lol. I had also included my email, but it seems that there was a problem since it now says:

---------------------------

Incomplete Report

---------------------------

THANK-YOU. Unfortunately the report was a bit big, but some data was sent.

---------------------------

OK

---------------------------

GeForceFX 5200, 1024x768. It worked fine before I went to school.. :p Was only out for like 5 hours, and then.. :p

Rising Star

RudyJ

Posted
Posted

:woot:

Love it! I think I should be glad I don't have a cat :D

I'm also running this on an older PC (AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz, GeForce2 MX/MX 400 64MB - 81.95 Foreceware drivers) and I'm amazed at how great it looks.

Two things though, whenever that PC comes back from the SS the mouse pointer is gone, it takes a few right and left clicks to make it re-appear, this is only when I use the DirectX option, no problems with openGL.

And I get the "Could not open Direct3D window" alert once in a while.

Love the easter-egg key BTW :cool:

Contributor

danielkoch

Posted
Posted

I used Sachsmarine a long time ago. i like your screensaver. especially the movements of the plants. i really miss the anglfish. you can add one in future versions? i wanted to note that the neon fish is a swarm fish. they should swim closer together.

The SS works fine here - no errors.

P4 Dualcore 3.6 GHZ

Nvidia Geforce 6700XL

XP SP2

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