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Alice Tutorial: Overview and Concepts. Wayne Summers Columbus State U. 11/17/06. 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.
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Alice Tutorial: Overview and Concepts Wayne Summers Columbus State U. 11/17/06
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
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
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) Left 5) Forward 2) Down 4) Right 6) Backward
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
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
Getting Started • Open the “Alice” folder • Double-click “Alice” to start the program • You will see the Welcome to Alice! dialog box -
Tutorials • Run the Skater tutorial • Other tutorials • Bunny – create methods • Penguins – events • Space – create scenes
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
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
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?
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
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
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?
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)
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?
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.
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!
Resources • http://www.alice.org/ • 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