Getting started in Alice

Getting started in Alice
Creating the World Getting started in Alice Copyright © Curt Hill

The Programming Process is Usually Like this:
Analyze the problem Understand how to solve it Code the solution Test the solution Document the program Maintain the program Any programmer may not always do all of these Systems analysts often do the first step, this step often involves substantial interaction with the ones who will benefit from the program - these are often somewhat ignorant of computers None of these are easy as they might appear Most of us hate the documenting phase Maintenance is revising a program once a bug is found or after some outside change forces a change in the program Consider maintenance programmers etc. Copyright © Curt Hill

Programming Process in Alice
Somewhat different than the previous More like movie making Come up with an idea for a story Design storyboards that illustrate the idea Code the storyboards Test the scene Try it out on friends and family Notice this has only the code and test in common with the normal process Copyright © Curt Hill

Alice Programming Quite different than most
In Java the programmer types in instructions that the computer will execute There is some drag and drop for form design In Alice we mostly use a mouse to: Arrange the scenery Choose the actors Move the figures in the scene There is very little typing and most of the mistakes of normal programming cannot occur Copyright © Curt Hill

Virtual World An Alice program is a movie that occurs within a virtual world This is a three dimensional space The viewpoint of the camera as well as the actors can independently move in three dimensions A template is the starting point of building this virtual world The standard templates usually have a sky and ground, such as grass or snow Copyright © Curt Hill

Template A template is the painted background of the movie set
It looks three dimensional In fact it is a plane of next to no thickness ObjectS that move behind or under it disappear If the camera moves behind it we get lost Copyright © Curt Hill

Objects A template only is rather boring
The world needs to be populated with objects Birds, trees, buildings and actors Alice contains a gallery with a large number of 3D objects to choose from Each object has a variety of actions that can be performed Copyright © Curt Hill

Objects Alice objects and Java objects have a number of commonalities
All Alice objects are Java objects as well They both have properties, methods and events A property is a value that somehow describes the object, such as a position in 3 dimensional space A method is an action that the object may perform, such as move An event is an action that occurs, to which an object may react Copyright © Curt Hill

Object Actions Simple objects have little that they can do
A cone may be sized and moved A person model should move somewhat like normal Arms and legs may be raised and lowered Arms and legs only bend at joints As director you make your actors do exactly what you want Copyright © Curt Hill

Object Dimensions An object must have three dimensions:
Width, height and depth They can move in six directions, two for each dimension Up, down, left, right, forward, and backward Each object must also have a center and a location Copyright © Curt Hill

Centers Most objects have a center based upon their bounding box
The midpoint of their three dimensions The location of an object is the 3D position of their center People objects have their center between their feet, so they are zero meters above surface The distance between two objects is the distance from their centers Copyright © Curt Hill

Creating a New World Inside Alice use the File menu and choose New World The default when Alice is started This will show that initial dialog box again This time the template tab will be showing It will look like the following: Copyright © Curt Hill

A New World The previous screen shows the world after the sea and sky template has been chosen There are no objects except the camera, light and background The Method Editor is also blank Objects are added by clicking on the Add Object button When you do that you see something like this: Copyright © Curt Hill

Scene Editor The Alice scene editor appears when Add objects button is clicked This will allow us to add objects to our scene These are both the props and the actors It will also allow us to rearrange the initial positions and orientation of the characters Here we add a fish to a scene Copyright © Curt Hill

Aspect and orientation
We may control the size and orientation of the each object Select an object from the gallery It then appears in the scene Use the arrows on the right to select the means to manipulate it Then drag the arrow on the object needed to be reoriented Copyright © Curt Hill

Bottom Arrows The bottom arrows reorient the original camera position
This gives a different perspective on the whole scene Copyright © Curt Hill

If this were an art class we would pay special attention to:
The story line in the animation The natural motions of characters Believability Dialog and sounds These will be dealt with more closely once the fundamentals of creating the movie are accomplished This is a programming introduction, not theater! Copyright © Curt Hill

Exercises The exercises from here on have a goal: show important features of Alice The exercises also build on one another The starting point for one is the ending point of a previous There is enough flexibility that each project will turn out different Copyright © Curt Hill

Scene Exercise In this exercise we will create a simple scene
We will create a background We will add actors to it We will give them an initial orientation We will save the world We will see what happens when the camera is moved Copyright © Curt Hill

Getting started in Alice

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