Doogli
01-24-2007, 02:03 AM
Hi again!
I see there are lots of people contributing models to the the gallery. I'd like to get in on this too. Can someone tell me what authoring tools I can use to generate Alice compatible models? I had a dig in them and can make some sense of the XML, but don't know anything about the point and surface (.bin) files. The functions, properties, etc are embedded in the XML, which suggests that there is a proprietary tool for making Alice models, but I don't see such software at alice.org. Am I missing something?
DrJim
01-24-2007, 11:45 AM
Hi - glad you've discovered Alice. :) Think you will find it very useful for what you're trying to do, even though (or maybe because) it's main application is as a teaching tool for introductory object oriented programming, not 3D animation.
I suggest you look at the thread http://www.alice.org/community/showthread.php?t=384 for a start - it also references a lot of links that may be of use. Just a couple of quick notes:
1. The only way to import meshes into Alice is using the .ase format, which unfortunately isn't supported as an export format by most of the freeware 3D graphics program. Recently, some of us have been using Biturn, which seems to work fairly well unless the file is very large - although it nearly always gives a few errors. Often, the problem is in the export, not the conversion.
2. Alice wants any texture maps independent of the mesh file, but it’s fairly straightforward to import them from within the program - you can also adjust colors, etc. there. When you have what you want, you can then save the result (including any methods for the object) from Alice as an .a2c file, which is the XML file you referred to.
3. You can get the texture maps from an existing .a2c file just by extracting all of the compressed files and selecting the .png file(s) that are the textures. You can also edit some of the .html text. Haven't found a good way yet to recover the mesh data - as you note it is in some sort of binary(?) format.
4. If you are using the screen capture option to generate your sprites, try eliminating the ground, setting the world's "atmosphere" color to something easy to edit and setting the "speedMultiplier" (a "seldomUsedProperty") to something like 0.1.
Finally, be patient and remember that Alice was designed and is being developed as a programming training tool, not as a 3D animation programming, and the developers are (wisely in my opinion) staying focused on their primary goal.
Good Luck. :cool: