3D Fish Tank v 1.0 Released!

3D Fish Tank | Posted by admin
Jul 03 2009

Any questions or requests? Please register and leave a comment in this post, I’ll answer privately or publicly if I think this comment is for everyone.

Official page is here : http://www.funpoint.com

*** Note : low sale price is valid for one week only : hurry! ***

Welcome to 3D Fish Tank the new iPhone / iPodTouch application. The aquarium is so real that it is like having an aquarium in the palm of your hand.

The aquarium is totally in 3D, you can swim with the fish and have several camera angles.

3D Fish tank is an healthy and beautiful application, it is not a game, but if you want to relax between 2 meetings or while you wait for the dentist, it is a different and peaceful solution.

3D Fish Tank is a top-notch application where the technology is used to re-create the beauty of nature.

It is also the best technical demo for your new 3GS and iPodTouch.

It offers you 3 different tanks, one is optimized specifically for the new iPhone 3GS and iPodTouch.

You have 3 different ambient lighting, 4 cameras, and 2 professional hi-quality music worth the price of the application alone.

There is an extreme attention to details. Even the plants are in 3D moving according to the water movements.

The fishes artificial intelligence is at a level never seen before. Nothing is scripted, and each object interacts with each other.

We use particles to simulate the bubbles and the fog at the bottom of the aquarium. Flares and projectors for the water reflections.

Fish and Plants are animated at vertex level and are subject to physical rules, so they never do the same thing.

We use 3D sounds so you feel totally emerged when you are into the water and you swim with the fish inside.

Features :
- 3 lighting : (night, normal, bright)
- 3 tanks (empty, quick for 2G and 3G, busy for 3GS and above)
- 4 cameras (front, inside, top and swim with the fish).
- in Swim mode you can switch from one fish to another by tapping with 2 fingers. The name of the current selected fish is displayed in the left top corner.
- 3 sounds mode : (no sound so you can play your own music, music 1 and music 2)

Technical features:
- flares, multiple lights and texture projectors.
- water animation.
- vertex and bones animation for the plants and the fish.
- realistic IA. Crazy movements and rides, the fish can bump against each other, race, do nothing, go nuts!
- particles, volumetric fog and bubbles.
- precise collision with the plants and objects. The fish can get stuck in the plants and have to shake to escape.
- 3d sound that moves all around you.
- non repetitive bubble sound fx.
- one star fish.
- one Dog Fish puffer that gets upset.
- a bunch of other fishes with different attitude.

Check http://www.funpoint.com for more info and updates.

3D Fish Tank Beta 1

3D Fish Tank | Posted by admin
Jun 22 2009

3D Fish Tank is in phase Beta :

- all fishes are included and working.
- all physics are working,  fish moves too.
- all options have been programmed.
- tested on iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3GS : working.
- need a little bit of tweaking but I should send it to Apple next week-end.

Here are the list of features :

- 3 Aquariums (1 very busy for 3GS, one empty to race with the fish at maximum speed and one normal)
– 4 selectable cameras (you can swim with any fish, see from outside, front, inside) each with its own game-play.
– 3 different ambiance (night, normal and bright)
– 2 hi-quality background music (or no music)
– 3D sounds fx that does not loops constantly
– Rigged fish with IA (doing almost unpredictable things)
– all objects interact with each other (fish can be stuck in the plans, push themselves, push the bubbles)
– plants are real 3d animated at vertex level.
– water animation from inside top, and light caustics
– tiki bar where the fish can eat
– one star fish, one Dog Face fish (that get upset) and a bunch of Discus, each with an attitude.


It is not a game, just a relaxing application and a technical demo.

3dfishtank55

3dfishtank54

3dfishtank51

3dfishtank53

3dfishtank52

3D Fish Tank Alpha 2

3D Fish Tank | Posted by admin
Jun 02 2009

iphone01Things are going to move really quick now for this application.

I’ve solved most of the tricky parts so I post the first video WITHOUT fish!

- Menu system so I can choose different cameras.
- Made all the cameras settings (the video shows only 3 of them)
- Sliders to set the options
- Smoke at the bottom of the Fish Tank, so when you shake the iPhone the smoke fills all the tank and after a while when the water is calm again goes back to the bottom.
- A Library backgrround for the views from inside the Fish tank.

What still need to be done :

- add the fishes their IA is already done
- make 3 different fish tanks and a way to select them.

I think I should have the first Beta (everything functional) by next week.

3D Fish Tank Alpha 02 from Nicolas Choukroun on Vimeo.

3D Fish Tank : plants and physics

3D Fish Tank, Misc | Posted by admin
May 24 2009

I’ve finally got the physics to work. I explain, this is not a boring fish tank where the fishes and moving from left to right. It is a true emulation of a real fish tank. That means that the plants must move the way they should, etc… moving the plants along the water current is not simple.

So here is what I’ve done so far :

- each objects has physics properties, collide and are deformable.

- the bubbles collide as well and bounce or are stopped by a fish or a plant.

- Plants are moving like real plants, that means that they do not have a looped animation, but they are animated at vertex level, so they can move always differently depending on the water.

- The star fish is functional, he is deformable, can bounce and some time try to move… it is quite stupid.

- The tank is 3 time larger than the iPhone screen so we can scroll from left to right.

- Camera can follow any element (like a fish).

fishtank21

3D Fish Tank debuts

3D Fish Tank | Posted by admin
May 19 2009

Here it is: my first iPhone application will be a fish tank. I’ve been amazed how Serene’s Screen Savers were doing well, and I’ve decided to be the first or at least one of the first to be on the iPhone Platform with a Fish Tank.

What will make this one different from the other ones?

Well that’s simple : this will be a REAL 3D fish tank, not a couple of 3D fishes moving from left to right with some background flat pictures… You’ll be able to turn around it, and zoom… more info coming soon.

Here comes some pictures and some already working features!

The water view from the top

The water view from the top

Some cheap caustic animation gives the illusion of moving water… You have to see it animated, it looks great!

Fish Tank from the side

Fish Tank from the side

From the side you can see the top animation of the water that works also from above, and the fake shadows on the Sand. Yes because there is no shadows on iPhone, so I need to fake them with a projector.

The caustics animations are projected on all the objects, this gives to the tank a nice underwater effect like in the famous Serene Screen saver.

Infinite Ocean v3 final version

Ocean 3D | Posted by admin
May 10 2009

Final version of the Ocean. Now I’ll release it to the Unity 3D community.

Funny, I’ve found that This company http://www.ocean3dinteractive.com/HTML/ocean_sales.html is selling the same technology for 14.500,00 EUR / title!

Check the download section to get the project file.

3D Ocean Simulation v2

Ocean 3D | Posted by admin
Apr 28 2009

I’ve added a bunch of settings, with the Sun reflection and more… In this video I play with all the settings, color etc…

3D Ocean Simulation

Ocean 3D | Posted by admin
Apr 27 2009

I’ve always been attracted by the Ocean and re-creating the waves, the refraction, the color and the reflections of an Ocean is quite a challenge.

Here is my first test… I’ll improve the Ocean in the future and will release the source code under the BSD license.

Huge Spaceship v2 with Unity 3D

Huge 3D Spaceship | Posted by admin
Mar 31 2009

I’ve purchased Unity 3D that is finally the kind of tool I was waiting for.

Now I can move forward and create some of the projects I have in my head. This huge spaceship is one of them.

check here to run the demo on your computer! Works for MAC and PC :

http://www.nikkoid.com/Huge_Spaceship.html

Huge 3D Spaceship v1 with C4

Huge 3D Spaceship | Posted by admin
Nov 10 2008

This is my first experiment using the Huge Spaceship model. I got a lot of trouble importing the model into C4 3d engine. I had to optimize it to 3 Millions Poly and finally, so I could import it.

I got a lot of trouble to find a nice texture, C4 is very limited or I don’t get it. I’ll try to improve the result later.