Assignment 6

[cliftonb]

I had a shark jump out of the water and spin a number of times input by the user. Some of the animations are a little tricky, combining forward movement and rolls or turns, for instance...I'm going to have to keep working on these.

[chickentree]

Originally Posted by cliftonb

I had a shark jump out of the water and spin a number of times input by the user. Some of the animations are a little tricky, combining forward movement and rolls or turns, for instance...I'm going to have to keep working on these.

If you have a complex series of moves one way to accomplish it is using individual commands in a method. Another way to go about it is to use the Capture Pose button in the object's Properties tab.

Warning: If you are going to use poses or even move an objects parts around a lot, Capture a pose before you start. I usually call this pose something like "default" or "initial."

This is not a requirement, it is a sanity preservation measure.

Click the Add objects button to open the 3D view window and click on the object you want to pose.
You can move the object's parts around either using the object move buttons in the upper right and your mouse (make sure the affect subparts checkbox is checked.) or by right clicking on the object or subpart in the object tree, going to methods in the popup and selecting the method you want to use (i.e. turn, roll ...) Alice will prompt you for any required information and complete the move.
When the object is posed as you want it, Click on the "Capture Pose" button in the object's Properties tab and give it a descriptive name.

Accepting the default name of pose 1, pose 2 ... will work but if you have more than a couple of poses you will find yourself ripping your hair out trying to remember which pose is which.

One of the neat things about poses is that Alice does not just change from one pose to the next, she will make a series of changes to get to the final pose (aka morphing.) This will make the process a lot smoother.

Have fun with Alice!
Mark