Alice Tutorial: Overview and Concepts Wayne Summers Columbus State U. 11/17/06

Columbus State University 11/17/ What is Alice? It’s not an acronym A fun way to learn programming You “direct” a “movie” in Alice 3-D graphical environment similar to gaming environments You create animations by moving objects in a world

Columbus State University 11/17/ Alice concepts Virtual world begins with a template Template is the initial scene You can add “objects” to your world Lots of 3-D models provided in “galleries” (local or web-based) Example: snowman object

Columbus State University 11/17/ Object concepts An object has 3 dimensions… 1) Height (vertical, top-to-bottom) 2) Width (horizontal, left-to-right) 3) Depth (front-to-back) … and 6 directions to move in 1) Up 3) Left5) Forward 2) Down 4) Right 6) Backward

Columbus State University 11/17/ Object concepts (cont’d) 6 directions of movement are called 6 degrees of freedom or orientation From the object’s perspective Center of an object Provides a reference for spin motions Typically the center of mass

Columbus State University 11/17/ More object concepts Distance between objects is Measured from center to center Position of an object in the world is Its center Center of the ground is the center of the (virtual) world in Alice

Columbus State University 11/17/ Getting Started Open the “Alice” folder Double-click “Alice” to start the program You will see the Welcome to Alice! dialog box -

Columbus State University 11/17/ Tutorials Run the Skater tutorial Other tutorials Bunny – create methods Penguins – events Space – create scenes

Columbus State University 11/17/ snowLove Exercise Select the Examples tab and then select the snowLove example and click Open If you don’t see the Examples tab, then cancel out of the window and… Select the File menu and then choose Open World After the example loads, click the Play button to run the animation

Columbus State University 11/17/ snowLove Exercise (cont’d) Observe the objects and their movements What do the buttons do? After the animation stops, close the window and observe… The windows on the screen The “Add Objects” button All the objects in the world

Columbus State University 11/17/ lakeSkater Exercise Play the lakeSkater world and observe all the details that you did in snowLove Exercise What makes this world more interesting than snowLove? Is this more difficult to create than snowLove? Why or why not?

Columbus State University 11/17/ Snowman Exercise (1/5) Click on File and choose New World Select the snow template as the initial scene Click on Add Objects and choose People from Local Gallery Choose the Snowman (Class Snowman) and click on “Add instance to world” Notice how Alice positions the snowman in the center of the snow in the world

Columbus State University 11/17/ Snowman Exercise(2/5) Save your world What extension does Alice give its worlds? Click on the snowman object and drag it around on the screen until you like its position in your world

Columbus State University 11/17/ Snowman Exercise (3/5) One at a time, select each of the buttons on the mouse control toolkit on right top corner and experiment with the snowman Do you find it difficult or easy to use the buttons? Which button is the easiest to use? Why? Which one is the most difficult to use? Why?

Columbus State University 11/17/ Snowman Exercise (4/5) Check the “affect subparts” box and then play with each of the buttons to control the snowman’s hat Uncheck the “affect subparts” box At any time, you can undo your actions by clicking the “Undo” button (next to “Play” – left top corner)

Columbus State University 11/17/ Snowman Exercise (5/5) Once you have resized the snowman and moved him (and his hat) the way you want, save the changes to your world again Now play with the camera controls – the 3 arrow tools directly beneath your snowman in your world Which control is the easiest? Why?

Columbus State University 11/17/ Tea Party Exercise Create a Tea Party scene with AliceLiddell, the whiteRabbit, a table, three chairs, a teapot, toaster and plate. Use method instructions, the mouse, and quad view to properly position objects on the table.

Columbus State University 11/17/ What you can do next Do the exercises in one of the texts Go to alice.org and search for more 3-D models in the Web gallery Try to do the more “challenging” exercises Work in pairs or teams and have fun !

Columbus State University 11/17/ Resources Demonstration videos Learning to Program with Alice A 1-page handout giving a brief overview of Alice A video (75MB.WMV) describing Alice -- from 2003 Summer Camps for Middle School Students Textbook info