15-Minute Reviews :: Atlantis 3D Screensaver

Good morning all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review, Screensaver-Style! Today’s screensaver is Atlantis 3D Screensaver by Astro Gemini Software – This screensaver takes you exploring the depths into Atlantis

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Hold your breath and take an exciting dive into the magic underwater world of Atlantis 3D Screensaver. Deep down, below the water surface, you will see the ancient ruins of the legendary Atlantis.

This once majestic city is now populated by thousands of sea creatures. Trees have been replaced by seaweed, flowers – by corals and the remains of the coliseum became home to a family of sharks. Use the unique chance to explore the lost continent!”

Quick Pros

• Realistic water surface and underwater light ripples
• Most of the plantlife looks really good (Two plants look out of place)
• Marine life looks nice as well and don’t look ‘square’
• Anti-alias support cleans a lot up well

Quick Cons

• Advanced features such as bumpmapping missing
• Not a lot of marine life; slider to allow control of density of marine life?
• More ‘areas’ or buildings to explore
• Fore portion of where the whale fins attached have graphical anomaly
• Too many icons on desktop and icons where not wanted in Start Menu

Expansion

Water screensavers are so hard to look realistic. There is just too many details to try to cover, but this one attempts to touch on some of the major ones. The realistic water surface ripples are really good; The light they cast on the bottom is amazing. It ‘flows’ very similar to real water and does cast an ambiance that helps immensely with the scene’s feel. A lot of the plants and bottom-dwellers looks really good, having kept in mind during development the trade-off between polys and visual appeal. There are however a few of these that look extremely out of place or not right (The small coral-looking one as well as what looks like the patch of cucumbers.) The movement of the marine life is a nice addition as well. There is a variety of life is nice; Now, if only there was a slider to increase the numbers to a more realistic number of marine life or even toss in a few schools of fish going around objects in the screensaver. The marine life was well-built; You can’t see a lot of the polygon edges or corners which usually stand out on the marine life and make these creatures look mechanical.

I was glad to see anti-aliasing involved; However, it would have been nice to also see a feature such as bump-mapping which would have done wonders on the structures and ground from the impressive water effect. The feel of ‘depth’ and ‘age’ to the buildings would have helped immensely with the feel of this screensaver. While on the topic of buildings, it would have been nice if the area the camera explores would have been larger. The area is relatively small and not a lot to see.

There was one graphics anomaly which I spotted on the whale. The part of where the fins attach to the side of the whale towards the head constantly ‘ripples’, causing a strange look to that portion. I can’t see this being intentional, and it detracts from the beauty of the whale.

Final Verdict

This is one of the better screensavers for underwater I’ve seen, due to the effective use of water, decent plantlife overall and decent quality of the models of most of the marine life. While free, if you love underwater and screensavers (and underwater screensavers,) give this one a try and see how you like it. However, without advanced features such as bump-mapping, not a lot of marine life and the area being so small, I would have difficulties warranting spending $19.95 on this screensaver. I’d be more keen on a price of $9.95, possibly up to $12.95 for this screensaver.

Posted by BladedThoth on Saturday, May 12, 2007