Frequently Asked Questions

We hope this document will answer some of the questions you have about Alice.
If you don't see the answer to a question you have, please let us know.

General:

Learning about Alice:

The Alice Gallery:

Technical / Troubleshooting:

 

What is and what can I do with Alice?

Alice is a modern programming environment designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn basic computer science while creating animated movies, simple video games, where students control the behavior of 3D objects and characters in a virtual world.

What have people built with Alice?

Lots of things! There are several examples of student worlds on our forums and we will be posting several projects that students created in classrooms teaching with Alice.

Do I need to be a programmer to use Alice?

Absolutely not! The interface is designed to provide an easy, intuitive interface for novice, experienced, and non-programmers alike.

Is Alice supported?

We have a small but hard-working staff working on providing Alice support, improving Alice, and managing our web pages. The best way to reach us is to post your inquiry or comment on the forums. The team and the Alice community will be glad to help! You can also contact us directly.

Why is Alice so slow on my machine?

Do you meet our recommended requirements?

Operating system requirements:

  • Windows Vista, XP or 2000
  • Macintosh OS X 10.3 or higher
  • Linux

Recommended PC hardware requirements:

  • Intel Pentium II or equivalent processor
  • A VGA graphics card capable of high (16 bit) color and 1024x768 resolution (3D video card recommended)
  • 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
  • A sound card

Recommended Mac hardware requirements:

  • PowerPC or Intel processor
  • A VGA graphics card capable of high (16 bit) color and 1024x768 resolution (3D video card recommended)
  • 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
  • A sound card

Is Alice "open source?" How can I contribute?

Yes, Alice is open source. That means you can download the source code, learn from it and modify it; however, we do not take contributions from the field for the development of Alice. We work solely in-house.

Why is Alice called Alice?

Check out this interview.

How do I install/uninstall Alice?

To install Alice, simply extract the contents of the Alice.zip file into the directory of you choice (for example, your desktop). That's all there is to it, as Alice does not install anything to the registry. To uninstall, drag the Alice directory to the trash/recycle bin. Alice is self-contained, so there is nothing else to delete.

How do I open an Alice world?

To open an Alice world (with file extension .a2w ), first you will need to start up the Alice application. Then, in the "Welcome to Alice!" dialog box, select the "Open a world" tab and navigate to your file. Click "Open." Alternatively, if the "Welcome to Alice" dialog box is closed, you can click File > Open World... and navigate to your file.

How do I view the Alice tutorial?

To view the Alice tutorial, launch Alice and click on the "Start the Tutorial" button in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. You can also jump to a specific tutorial by clicking on one of the tutorial worlds below the "Start the Tutorial" button.

Can I save my Alice world as a standalone application?

There are two methods for saving your world to view outside of the Alice programming environment. You can save your world as a webpage applet (File > Export as a Web Page...) or use an external video capture program to save your world as a movie.

I told a model to move forward but it moved left instead. Why?

The object axis is egocentric -- that is, from the point of view of the object. If you tell an object to move forward, it will move forward from its own point of view.

Why won't Alice always let me delete things?

If you have an object, parameter, variable, etc. referenced in your code, you will have to remove those references in order to delete said thing.

What does feature X do in Alice?

If you are confused as to how to do something in Alice or what something means, first run through the Alice interactive tutorial, built into the software (Help > Tutorial). If this does not answer your question, try searching the Alice forums or posting to it.

How can I add pictures to my Alice world?

Under the file menu is an option called "Make Billboard". This lets you select an image and bring it into Alice as a 3D object. You can also drag a picture from your desktop or a web browser into the 3D scene to do the same thing.

Does Alice support polymorphism?

polymorphism

Unfortunately, Alice does not support this sort of functionality directly. There are a few ways around this, but they aren't nearly as elegant as the solution you're looking for. The first way to do this is to write a method external to the objects in the list (off of world) that takes an object as a parameter. If then go to any object's questions and scroll down to "other", you'll find the question called "object"'s part named "key". This question lets you any part on an object--whether it's there or not (it will throw an error if you try to reference a part that doesn't exist, so be aware of that when using it). You can then write a generalize method that takes in any given chicken and has it look for food. If you don't want to deal with the "part named" question, then the other option is to write a similar function but use if/else statements to determine which chicken is passed in.

The Alice gallery doesn't have a(n) _____, can you make one for me?

The short answer: No. We are a small staff and while we would like to do everything to help our users, we have to make the best use of our resources in pushing ahead with the development of Alice.

How can I make my own textures for objects in Alice?

All of the objects in our gallery were modeled in 3D Studio Max. While other programs might work, this is what we recommend.

How do I save an object that I am working on?

In Alice, right-click on the object tile in the object tree. Select "save object..." from the drop-down list and click ok.

Alice won't unzip/run correctly. What do I do now?

The Alice download should be in the 115-120MB range when zipped, depending on the distribution. You can check the size by right-clicking on the file (ctrl-clicking on a Mac) and selecting Properties or Info from the drop-down menu. If the file is smaller than this, please try downloading again from our main server or our Google Code mirror.

Alice will never ask you for a password. If you are prompted for one, your download is corrupt. The best way to determine whether your download is correct is to verify the MD5/SHA1 checksum. Download the md5deep utility and extract it to a directory. Then, copy the compressed Alice archive into the same directory. Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory containing said files. Execute the command "md5deep " where is the Alice archive (sans brackets). The resulting number should match one of the numbers below:

[Windows]
     MD5: ebbdd350c93a9967abd2c75c5c156f47
     SHA1: 02ad7385d5769ecf73b555ac840540dbe4714d25
[10.4+]
     MD5: cd133b97b2ac871ffb9e22ccd67b49a1
     SHA1: f7192a9245faf13f75f6184e46d3bdd85c59f292
[10.3]
     MD5: b28888cf49ead38473e36577ea74b832
     SHA1: 9aa616ed6426110d4d722290457e932c05f611de
[Linux]
     MD5: 1a1eb35789ecf524f4a89df5d05e61c1
     SHA1: 6f494f27f61e4f08874426364c43df99e2f7f29a

How fast a machine do I need?

Operating system requirements:

  • Windows Vista, XP or 2000
  • Macintosh OS X 10.3 or higher
  • Linux

Recommended PC hardware requirements:

  • Intel Pentium II or equivalent processor
  • A VGA graphics card capable of high (16 bit) color and 1024x768 resolution (3D video card recommended)
  • 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
  • A sound card

Recommended Mac hardware requirements:

  • PowerPC or Intel processor
  • A VGA graphics card capable of high (16 bit) color and 1024x768 resolution (3D video card recommended)
  • 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
  • A sound card

Does Alice require 3D hardware to run?

No, 3D hardware is not require to run Alice, but it is strongly recommended.

Is Alice a CAD modeling program?

No. Alice is useful for describing 3D object behavior, not for creating 3D objects themselves. Alice comes with hundreds of pre-made objects, and you can also make your own objects in other modeling packages and then import them into Alice. You can also find free 3D objects on the web.

What 3D file formats does Alice support?

Right now Alice only supports its own files (*.a2c) and "ASCII Scene Export" (*.ASE) files. Here are the steps for saving out a model from 3DStudio MAX. There is a free ASE converter, Biturn, available. We have not tested it out ourselves, so please let us know your results if you try it out! You can post to our forums. Thank you, Malone, for the tip!

Does Alice use POV Ray files?

Alice does not use POV Ray files and there are no future plans to allow Alice to use POV Ray files.

Can Alice read or write VRML files?

Alice does not support VRML.

Can I save my world as a MOV/AVI?

This feature is not currently available in Alice v2.0. You can save your world as a video file, but it requires the use of a 3rd party capture program. Please see this thread from the Alice forums for more details.

What are the best display settings for Alice?

Alice runs best with the Display Properties set to High Color (16 bit) and the Desktop Area set to 1024x768 or greater. The easiest way to change your display settings (in Windows XP) is to click the right mouse button over the Desktop to bring up a pop-up menu and select Properties. This should bring up a dialog box entitled Display Properties. Click on the Settings tab at the top. Under Color Palette, select High Color (16-bit). Under Desktop Area, move the slider until 1024x768 or greater is displayed below the slider. Then click on the OK button at the bottom to accept these settings. You may need to restart Alice after you change the desktop size.

Will Alice run on a Mac or Linux machine?

Yes, Alice now runs on a Mac using OS 10.3 or higher, as well as Linux operating systems. Download it here.

What are the known bugs?

The searchable list of known Alice bugs is always here. (currently down)

Can I have access to the source code?

The Alice source code is available by scrolling to the bottom of the Alice download page.


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