Alice 3.0Alice 3.0A Guided TourA Guided Tour

Mike R-D

YRDSB

Agenda

General Walkthrough of Alice 3.0

Loops, Variables, Threads

Methods / Properties

Arrays

Misc

Warning!!

Alice 3.0 is still in Beta

http://bugs.alice.org:8080/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10000&status=1

Getting Alice 3.0

The beta and all updates can be found at:

http://kenai.com/projects/alice/

Just download, run, will install (need internet access)

Overview

Start UpEditorScene Set upCamera ControlWriting Programs

Start Alice: Editor Overview

DETAILS

Run Button

VIEW

EDITOR

Control Structures

Object Tree

Go to Scene Set Up

File: New…

Different Scene Templates

Template view

Initial backgrounds

File: Open…

Choose either My Projects or File System

Click on either tab (File System selected, here)

The 2 Views of Alice: Code Editor

Control Structures

Return toScene Editor

Editor

Objects public methods, procedures and properties

The 2 views of Alice: Scene Editor

VIEW

Object Tree

Return toEditor

Run Button

Add SimsAdd other objects

Camera Controls

Gallery

In Scene Set UpGeneric Alice Models

Looking Glass Characters

Looking Glass Scenery

Sims

NOTE: Single-click to navigate the gallery!

Add An Instance of a Class

Find the Class in the GallerySingle-click

Prompted with dialog boxChange name if you wish

Click OK

The instance (a particular object of the class) will be added to the scene

Tile added to the object tree

Add an instance of a Sim

Position of Instances in Scene

Click on the instanceWill see a yellow bounding box

Mouse ControlsClick + drag: position object horizontally

Click + ctrl + drag: turn object right and left

Click + shift + drag : Vertical

Future:Roll the object from top to bottom, side to side

Camera Placement

Be careful! Easy to get lost, no easy way to get back at the momentMouse

Right-click + drag: move camera horizontallyLeft, right, forward, back

Shift + right-click + dragMove camera vertically

Ctrl + right-click + dragTurn the camera

Mouse control wheelZoom the camera

Write a Program

In the Editor View

Select instance from the object tree

Select method in details pane and drag to the editor window

Drop in indicated position

Select parameter values if presented with choices

Copy / Delete

Delete instances from programRight-click on object in object tree

Select delete

Delete program statementsRight click on statement in editor

Select delete

Copy statementsAlt + click + drag to position for the new statement

Has some problems, use judiciously

Demo

Note the export feature

On your own

Launch Alice 3.0

Create a world with 1 sim, experiment with the different movements

Explore the functionality

For next part: Line up 5 sims in a row, have each do jumping jacks together, with a 5-second pause between each jack

On Your Own

The file OnYourOwn1.a3p has been placed at http://www.cheshire.ca/si2009

Alice 3.0

More Advanced Stuff

1) Loop, Variables, Threads

Alice has a built-in Threading mechanism to allow things to happen at the same time (same as Alice 2.0)

Alice has conditional and counting loops

Alice allows variables at the class and at the method level.

1) Threads, Loops and Variables

Demo - Astronaut

2) Create your own methods / properties

Considerably different from Alice 2.0

Allows access to constructor

Still has procedure-function split

2) Gravity Demo

Set-up scene withSim

Ball (Sports)

Create scene property called gravity

Create ball or scene method called drop

implement

3) Arrays

An array is a container object that holds a fixed number of values of a single Type.

Comic strip: an array of drawings

3) Arrays

1D only

Must create objects first, then create the array and add the objects into them

In Alice 2.0 and 3.0 this starts to stress your sanity

Try creating a pacman game!!

3) Arrays [1D only]

Alice ZombiesZombieDance.a3p

Array of 5 ZombiesArray of 5 Zombies

Indexing example

As in Java, indexing begins at 0.

The last zombie is at index 4.

Jasper the zombie will kick

his right leg

Jasper the zombie will kick

his right leg

0 1 2 3 4

Iterating through an array- Alice

In Alice, a for each loop can be used to access each object in an array, one at a time.

Each of you zombies, kick

your leg!

Each of you zombies, kick

your leg!

3) Your Turn!!

Let’s rehash our old demo

We want to use an array instead of individual variables

Create an array, add all the sims to it, change the code to use ‘each in x together’

Other Neat Stuff

Let’s take our demo and export as a movie or send to Youtube.

Capturing Mouse/Key events [work in progress]