Walk methods

Although people built with the heman/sheman builder have a few default methods (including a very useful walk method), the regular people models don't seem to have any of interesting methods pre-defined. Why not? Is there any way to import the walk method from a heman-built person into an Alice library person model?

[gabe]

Originally Posted by puzzler

Although people built with the heman/sheman builder have a few default methods (including a very useful walk method), the regular people models don't seem to have any of interesting methods pre-defined. Why not?

All of the models in our gallery were built by students who were very generous in donating them for our use. However, not all models were made including predefined methods.

Is there any way to import the walk method from a heman-built person into an Alice library person model?

Sadly, this is not possible with the current release of Alice.

I'm relatively new to Alice and just working through old postings. Both this one and the previous question on physics confuse me.

Re the walk method, I don't see why, from a program standpoint, it can't be used with any other object - doing it manually takes a bit of work (I'm not real great with the clipboard yet) but it does get the job done.

There is, of course, a basic problem in that if the second object doesn't have the part referred to in a program step, it obviously can't respond to that particular step - but, in a very brief trial, Alice just gave an error message and went on without stopping. It was easy to avoid the error message by deleting the offending steps - again this was only a brief try -but of course now the "walk" is pretty bad.

Am I missing something in the question and earlier answer? Looks to me like the problem is basically an object can't walk a certain way if it doesn't have the physical equipment to do that - which you can't fix with programming.

The physics question is relevant because, in my (unfortunately painfull) experience, timing is one of the first thing to trip you up in a walk animation. It is much better to work with real time as a variable - as Alice does - than to worry about frame rate, which you may not have control of anyway. (By Murphy's Law, you also won't realize you don't have that control until you are presenting the "finished" work on new equipment.)

When I time the total display time to execute a step as one second, that's what it is going to take regardless of frame rate - which the CODEC is going to determine for the hardware involved. If you try to code on a frame by frame basis, like classic animation, unless you're just working with one piece of display hardware, you're going to have to redo some things in the program each time you change displays or live with the built-in rate change compensation approach which is generally pretty dumb (my experience and from subsequent discussions, that of others as well).

The same holds true for say dropping a ball - a classic phyics example. If the physics in the real world cause the ball to take a second to drop - and the program is coded in real time units, the ball is going to drop on the screen in one second regardless of whether the frame rate is 10, 12, 24 or some higher number of frames/sec. Hopefully a higher frame rate will give a higher quailty of animation but the elapsed time for the event will be the same as in the real world.

Again - am I missing something in the question and earlier answer?

I noticed that the hebuilder/shebuilder uses poses rather than move/turn/roll methods to effect walking. Is there an easy way to create a pose? If so what is it, or what method do you suggest? Would it be possible to port over a pose from one object to a similar object? or is that sadly impossible?
Sorry to seem overly inquisitive, but I'm sick and tired of the complexity of just making a person walk! I can only imagine how much code it's going to take to write collisions or picking up objects!

I thought Alice was a 'tool' to help motivate young people learn, not to build the next Final Fantasy or to learn physics. I'm definitely missing something here !

As to the question "... is there any easy way to create a pose?" the answer is yes, and it requires NO, or very little, coding. Use the mouse and object methods to position the body parts into the desired pose. then click on the capture pose button in the object's Details panel. After you have the poses you need, drag them into a user method and simply go into a loop calling your method as often as needed to simulate the action.

To pick up an object be a little creative and use the vehicle property when you extend the arm and touch an object. [Edit] People viewing your program will be amazed that in a single line of code you were able to simulate picking up an object.

As far as becoming "... sick and tired...", well I still think Alice is a great learning tool! Good luck in using Alice as you learn how to program.

[hdixon]

I must admit I see a few threads that seem to indicate people are trying to go way beyond the intended scope of this fine product. I am using this (for the first time) in a beginning high school programming course as first exposure. The kids love it, I love it, and they are - gasp! - learning basic programming terminolgy/concepts. When I'm ready to move on to either Python and/or Java they wont be so clueless.
However I have used walking as a topic that focuses on discovering what they percieve as something that should be easy, to be a rather complex process. They get something semi-decent in the end - although the discovery along the way is FAR more important.

Huw

Originally Posted by lanceA

I thought Alice was a 'tool' to help motivate young people learn, not to build the next Final Fantasy or to learn physics. I'm definitely missing something here !

As to the question "... is there any easy way to create a pose?" the answer is yes, and it requires NO, or very little, coding. Use the mouse and object methods to position the body parts into the desired pose. then click on the capture pose button in the object's Details panel. After you have the poses you need, drag them into a user method and simply go into a loop calling your method as often as needed to simulate the action.

To pick up an object be a little creative and use the vehicle property when you extend the arm and touch an object. [Edit] People viewing your program will be amazed that in a single line of code you were able to simulate picking up an object.

As far as becoming "... sick and tired...", well I still think Alice is a great learning tool! Good luck in using Alice as you learn how to program.

if no one minds, I would like to put my 2 cents in. After quickly glancing through this thread, I have notice a couple of you were commenting about the intent for Alice. LanceA said...

I thought Alice was a 'tool' to help motivate young people learn, not to build the next Final Fantasy or to learn physics. I'm definitely missing something here !

and hdixon said...

I must admit I see a few threads that seem to indicate people are trying to go way beyond the intended scope of this fine product.


Before I comment, let me explain a little bit about myself to support my 2 cents.

I am a college student at CCC, (Camden County College), in NJ. I first majored in Computer Graphic Design Certificate, and now I am going for my Associates in Computer Graphic Game Design which requires students to take Fundmentals of Programming that uses Alice as a tool for learning programming structure. However, with myself knowing how professors teach the graphic design courses, they like to see students do more then the minimum requirements that are assigned to them for homework. So in other words, a professor in a course in say Animation 1 might say "I want you to use Maya 3D to model a coffee mug." In addition, he would also say "If you meet these requirements then that is worth a C grade, but if you go beond this requirement, like make the coffee mug have a liquid inside, then this would be worth up to an A"

So my point is, maybe the reason why students expect more is because they are graphic game design majors, or some sort of physic major that wishes alice would include collision detection etc, instead of just a standard computer sceince major where Alice would be best suited for.

I believe I understand where you are coming from and on that point I concur with you. And by the way, Camden Community College has a great ALICE program thinks to B. Taylor.

I on the other hand have a student that spends more time attempting to embellish his programs then he does on the basics. He believes the "basics" are too basic and yet it takes him 11-13 lines of code to write what should only require 4-5 lines. And he does this for the same reason - in hopes of getting an A+. His programs are GREAT but slow/jerky due to the processing time/number of instructions he writes. etc.

I can only assume that you have a complete and thorough understanding of the basics included with Alice and therefore you are now attempting to 'push the envelope' and I commend you.

Good luck,

Storytelling Alice has new characters as well as some old Characters
but all the 'local gallery' objects have the 'walk' method as a normal 'quick' command