Alice 2.0 features
 

Hello:

Is there any information describing Alice 2.0 features? Specifically, how is it different than Alice 99?

I am preparing a presentation about Alice for my Programming Languages class. Any input would be welcome.

Thank you.

Alice99 vs. Alice v2.0
 

Alice99 was a system where basic forms of your program could be written in a drag-and-drop style, but more complex part of the program needed to be written in a typed form of the underlying python language. Also, Alice99 provided the Teddy modelling package, written by Takeo Igarashi of the University of Japan, and a painting tool, so that users could model, paint, and then animate their 3d objects. The primary purpose of the system was to encourage students to author in the realm of 3d graphics.

Alice v2.0 focuses almost exclusively on the programming portion of the activity: all code can be written in the drag-and-drop editor, and there is no longer a bundled ability to model and paint objects (instead, objects built with modelling/painting packages such as 3d Studio max and Maya can be imported into Alice). Alice v2.0 is designed to help students learning to program in Java-like languages.

-- Randy Pausch
Director, Alice Project

Maya and Alice
 

We are thinking of teaching a course using Alice at our college. We also have the Animation department that uses Maya, but being from the cs department, I do not have Maya installed on my computer, so I'd like to ask you the following:

How easy is to import Maya models into Alice? Do I need to download any Maya plug-ins (I saw plug-ins for ASE format file export on the web) ? Also, what could be used to create the world templates?

Thanks!

Maya objects into Alice
 

In principle, if you can export an object from Maya in ASE format, then you can import that ASE file into Alice.

Three quick caveats:

This is not heavily tested, so I would not be surprised if it failed on many models.

The animations - if there are any - will not get imported into Alice; just the geometric description of the object.

The biggest problem is that many objects are modelled without hierarchy - so that you might find a nice ogre on the web in maya format, but that ogre's arms are not separate sub-parts, so in Alice, you end up with a statue where you can only move the ogre as a single unit.

So, you may get some of what you want, but not all of it - best of luck!

ALICE and Scripting
 

(1) As of today October 5, 2006, which ALICE version has scripting enabled?

(2) Which ALICE99 version has the following tabs on the control panel:

The printed Alice99 tutorial displays:
"Opening Scene, Script"
But the downloaded software displays:
"Opening Scene, Animation, Events"
In other words, the Alice99 tutorial does not match the downloaded Alice99 scripting tool.

Thanks.
-Kwamina

Importing from Maya
 

Brief steps for getting your Maya models into Alice:

Download the ActorX plugin from [URL="http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html"]here [/URL]and set it up with Maya, select the objects to save as an ASE file (only meshes are acceptable and they must be in a parented structure), then type "axmesh" in the MEL command box and hit enter.

A window should appear where you can select where to save the file. Then just use the import command in Alice. UV information comes with it, but you will have to apply the texture in Alice (you can still, of course, test the texture in Maya).
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