Getting Started with Alice

1. Getting Started with Alice Michelle Venable-Foster Barbara Ericson Jan 2007 Adventures in Animation

2. What is Alice? • Alice is free software from CMU that can be used to create 3 dimensional • Movies • Games • It is named after Lewis Carroll’s Alicein Wonderland! Adventures in Animation

3. Let’s Get Started! • You should first locate the Alice icon and double-click it • It is on the desktop and looks like this Adventures in Animation

4. Let’s Get Started! • You will see the Welcome to Alice! dialog box - Adventures in Animation

5. Let’s Look At Some Examples! • Click on the Examples tab at the top of your Welcome to Alice! dialog box. Adventures in Animation

6. Let’s Look at Some Examples! • Spend the next few minutes viewing the examples in Alice. Click on the animation you want to view, and click on the Open button. • When the world opens up, click on the Play button: Adventures in Animation

7. The Welcome to Alice! dialog box has five tabs: Tutorial, Recent Worlds, Templates, Examples, and Open a world. Let’s Look At The Tabs Adventures in Animation

8. The Tutorial Tab • Click on the Tutorial tab. • You will see 4 tutorials. We won’t be doing these now, but, you can come back to them during any “free time” we have, or at home. • When you are ready to view a tutorial, you can either click on the Start the Tutorial button or directly onone of the tutorial screenshots. Adventures in Animation

9. Click on the Templates tab. You will see 6 blank templates for starting a virtual world – dirt, grass, sand, snow, space, and water. The Templates Tab Adventures in Animation

10. Choose Your Background! • Just to get us started, choose one of the templates for your virtual world. Double-click the background you want to play with. • It’s not really important which one you choose now; this is just to get your feet wet! Adventures in Animation

11. Let’s Add Some ObjectsTo Our World • For right now, think of an object as anything that can do something! • Click on the Add Objects button – Adventures in Animation

12. Let’s Add Some ObjectsTo Our World • You will see categories of objects that you can add to your world. Make sure to scroll to the right to see all of the available categories (galleries) Adventures in Animation

13. Let’s Add Some ObjectsTo Our World • Select a category and look at the different objects that you can add. • You can get back to the main level by clicking on Local Gallery. Adventures in Animation

14. Adding Objects To Our World • Once you’ve chosen which object you’d like to add to your world, select it by clicking on it and then clicking the button that says, “Add instance to world”. Adventures in Animation

15. 3 Dimensions, 6 Directions • Each object has height, length, and depth • It also has 6 directions in which it can move: Adventures in Animation

16. Modify Your Object • You can modify the instance of your object by using these tools: • Using these tools you can, Move Objects Freely, Move Objects Up and Down, Turn Objects Left and Right, Turn Objects Forwards and Backwards, Tumble Objects, Resize Objects, and Copy Objects – just by using your mouse. • Spend the next few minutes experimenting with these tools. Adventures in Animation

17. Modify Your Object • You can undo or redo your last moves by clicking on the appropriate buttons: Adventures in Animation

18. Deleting An Object Right-click on the object and choose delete. Watch the object spin away! Adventures in Animation

19. Posing Your Object You can move just one part of your object by either clicking the box next to affect subparts, and moving it with your mouse, or by choosing the part you want to move in the Object Tree. Adventures in Animation

20. Let’s Make Our Object Move! • Click on the big button if you are done adding objects. • This will return you to the standard Alice interface. • To make objects move you need to use methods. • Things the objects know how to do Adventures in Animation

21. Parts of Alice World Window Object Tree Events Area Editor Area Details Area Adventures in Animation

22. Let’s Make Our Object Move! • Click on the name of the object in the Object Tree you’d like to move: Adventures in Animation

23. Let’s Make Our Object Move! • Make sure that you click on the Methods tab in the DetailsArea. Adventures in Animation

24. Let’s Make Our Object Move! • Find a method you want to use in the details area • and drag it from the details area to the editor area • Drop it on the Do Nothing • A short menu may ask you for more information, such as, direction or amount you want to move Drag to here Adventures in Animation

25. Play The Movie! • I know we haven’t done too much so far, but, let’s test our animation by playing the movie. • Click the Play button near the upper-left corner of the Alice interface. Cool, huh? • Click the Restart button to play the world again, and then click Stop to return to the Alice interface. Adventures in Animation

26. Saving Your Work • Click on File • Then on Save World • You can save it to the desktop • Give it a name • Save often • Alice will remind you Adventures in Animation

27. Advanced Coding Techniques • You can group methods by using the commands at the bottom of the Editor area. • Do in order – will run the actions (methods) one after the other • Do together – will run the actions at the same time. Adventures in Animation

28. Moving Code • You can move actions (tiles) by dragging the dotted left-hand corner of the tile. • The move that you’re attempting is “legal” if you see a green bar! Adventures in Animation

29. Deleting Code • You can delete tiles in two different ways: • You can drag the tile into the trashcan icon. • You can right-click on the tile that you want to delete, and select delete. Adventures in Animation

30. Let’s Make Our Object Move! • For the next few minutes, experiment with Alice by using the methods available for the objects in your world. • Try these methods: • move • turn • say • think • turn to face Adventures in Animation

31. Posing An Object • You can “pose” an object by right-clicking the object in the Object Tree and selecting Methods and choosing the pose you’d like! Adventures in Animation

32. Quad Views • In the Object Editor screen, you can choose Quad View, which will give you 4 different views of your object at the same time! Adventures in Animation

33. Quad View • You can click and drag on either of the views to see what you object looks like at all 4 views! You can also Zoom and Move the view. (click on the picture to see a movie) Adventures in Animation

34. The curved arrow on the right is the camera’s tilt control. It is used to tilt the camera up or down, similarly to the way that you might tilt your head up or down. Camera Controls Adventures in Animation

35. The center control is a mixed control, to zoom and pan the camera. A camera can zoom in and zoom out, and pan left and pan right. Zooming in means the camera is moved in closer to get a tighter shot of something. Zooming out means the camera is moved out farther to get a longer shot of something, so that it becomes smaller on the screen. Panning means to turn the camera left or right without moving the position of the camera In Alice, you can pan and zoom at the same time. Camera Controls Adventures in Animation

36. The left set of arrows at the bottom of the world window is the move control, which provides controls to move the camera left and right, and up and down These controls move the position of the camera Camera Controls Adventures in Animation

37. Adding Sounds! • Most of the objects in Alice have the ability to play a sound! • Locate the method that says object.playSound • You can either play one of the sounds in the Alice library or import one of your own! Adventures in Animation

38. Importing Sounds! • Using the drop-down menu, select Import Sound. • Navigate to the sound file on your computer that you’d like to use. • You can only use .wav or .mp3 audio files in Alice animations. Adventures in Animation

39. Create An Animation! • For the rest of the day, you are to create your very first original animation in Alice. • Try to either tell a story, entertain your audience, or create an interactive movie. • Remember to be appropriate and spell your words correctly! • Save your animation often! Adventures in Animation