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Introduction to Alice

Introduction to Alice. Alice is named in honor of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. How This Class Will Work. General plan lecture/demonstrations tutorials lab exercises Out-of-class: complete any work not finished in lab work on assigned readings and projects. Overview.

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Introduction to Alice

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  1. Introduction to Alice Alice is named in honor of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

  2. How This Class Will Work • General plan • lecture/demonstrations • tutorials • lab exercises • Out-of-class: • complete any work not finished in lab • work on assigned readings and projects

  3. Overview • Why Alice? • Getting Started with Alice Programming • Where to find software and 3D models • Major goal: • to have you set up and run Alice so you can work with examples and lab exercises

  4. How To Get Your Free Copy • Can download from the web www.alice.org Note: downloading may take more than an hour over a phone/modem connection

  5. Why Alice? • A modern programming tool • 3-D graphics • 3-D models of objects • Animation • objects can be made to move around the virtual world (a video game or simulation implemented in 3-D)

  6. What does Alice run on? • Alice is written in Java -- this helps the software run on many popular systems • Right now, the software team is working to support only the PC version • Mac and Linux versions are soon to be released …keep checking the web site

  7. Fast Start Up • Can quickly learn to create • a simple animation in a matter of minutes • a non-trivial animation in a few lab sessions • Can learn to use the Alice interface in a couple of lab sessions

  8. The Power of Alice • Automatically keeps track of 3-D objects • what objects are in the virtual world • types of objects • positions of objects in the world

  9. Demo • Starting Alice • Running A World • How to Exit • What to do if Alice crashes

  10. Memory Management • Alice automatically manages memory • But, writing and testing an animation is an intense load on the computing system – a crash can occur. • Best solution: • save your world every 15 minutes • (Or at least every half hour) • also save to a backup system (for example, a zip disk)

  11. Object Position • Objects • are positioned in 3-D space • Have six degrees of freedom (directions of movement)

  12. Galleries of 3D Objects • Sources of 3D objects • the local gallery shipped with the software • Alice web gallery

  13. Assignment • Your assignment is to read • Chapter 1 – 1 Introduction to Alice • The reading assignment is to be completed before the next class session

  14. (In-class) Lab • Appendix A, Getting Started – Part I

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