Hey folks! It's been a long time since I've given an update on new development, so here goes.
Starting in the fall of 2014 I began working on the next generation of the game. My goals:
Support for higher resolutions
Much smoother water animation
A wide assortment of locations
Backward compatibility so people can continue to use existing outings
Proper support for current versions of Windows
A single code base supporting multiple platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS
Distribution through official app stores
Support for both mouse, keyboard and touch screen devices
So far I've done a lot of travel and photography, and a lot of video/photo editing. I thought I might release the new version this winter, but I've decided I need at least one more photo shoot to round out the content. To date I've shot 47 outings in 13 states for the new version, but all in central and eastern time zones. I wasn't able to fit in a trip out west last year, and I can't bring myself to accept a total lack of western waters. This year I'll be spending a week or two out west shooting some of those to round out the content. In the fall I'll finish the coding and content work.
To produce sites for My new shooting technique involves taking HD video (1080p) and stills (18 megapixels) at each site. Later I make a seamless 6 frame animation loop from the video, and then overlay the land from a still photo. That produces much smoother flowing water from the video, and much sharper detail in the non-moving parts from the still. While combining those parts I also adjust the light levels of the water and land portions separately, which improves the scenes aesthetically, and avoids having excessively bright or dark water.
I started with a photo shoot in the northeastern states,shooting a couple dozen waters in 8 states. Last spring I shot another 7 waters in Arkansas and Missouri, and last summer and fall I shot a number in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. I haven't locked down my plans for this summer, but I have a long list of locations in mind.
Generally I'm shooting 8 to 20 sites per outing. I've shot something like 600 sites so far. I've done most of the photo/video editing for those sites, producing the 6 animation frames for each site. That's over 3,000 site frames I've edited so far, including some I'm redoing where there's room for improvement. I'll reject some of the sites after I see them all in the game at full resolution to trim the content down to high quality sites. After that I'll do the site mapping (depth and current) and configure the fish and food populations.
Eventually I'll probably release both desktop and mobile editions, with the desktop versions including the highest resolution content (1920 x 1080 pixels) and a larger quantity of sites. The mobile version will probably use a slightly reduced resolution and a smaller set of sites just to keep the app size down. The full resolution animation frames will amount to 7 or 8 GB once I add the western waters. I may apply a little higher compression to bring that down, and with weeding out the poorer sites, it may get down to a total of 4 or 5 GB for the desktop version. That's close to 10 times the size of the third edition.
In the meantime I'm exploring releasing the current mobile version (Fly Fishing Simulator) on the Windows Store. It's designed for mobile devices, so the resolution is slightly lower than the current Windows version, but that would provide a version that's fully compatible with Windows 8 and 10, for computers and mobile devices. It would be the same as the version now on the Play Store, iTunes Store and Amazon App Store, with the addition of support for keyboard and mouse input for non-touchscreen devices.
That about sums things up for now... Now I should get back to work. =)
Paul
PS - Here are the waters I've shot so far for the upcoming version:
NorforkRiverAR
WhiteRiverAR
NaugatuckRiverCT
StillRiverCT
SandyBrookCT
FrenchCreekIA
UpperIowaRiverIA
FarmingtonRiverMA
WestfieldRiverMA
WildRiverME
AndroscogginRiverME
ForestvilleCreekMN
MiddleForkWhitewaterRiverMN
PickwickCreekMN
SouthBranchRootRiverMN
SouthForkWhitewaterRiverMN
StateParkPondMN
TroutRunCreekMN
CurrentRiverMO
ElevenPointRiverMO
LittlePineyCreekMO
MillCreekMO
SpringCreekMO
SwiftRiverMA
LampreyRiverNH
PemigewassetRiverNH
SouthForkPemigewassetRiverNH
SabbadayBrookNH
SwiftRiverNH
SacoRiverNH
EllisRiverNH
CullhaneBrookNH
MusconetcongRiverNJ
SouthBranchRaritanRiverNJ
WestBranchDelawareRiverNY
SusquehannaRiverNY
SalmonRiverNY
PineCreekPA
NewHavenRiverVT
OtterCreekVT
EmeraldLakeVT
BattenKillRiverVT
CoonCreekWI
NorthForkBadAxeRiverWI
SugarCreekWI
TainterCreekWI
TimberCouleeCreekWI
