What is Squeak-Alice?

Alice (http://www.alice.org) is an authoring tool designed to allow people without programming experience to build interactive 3D worlds. The Stage 3 Research Group (Randy Pausch director) started the Alice project at the University of Virginia, and is continuing their work at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~stage). Squeak-Alice brings the ideas and the ideals of Alice to Squeak, with the goal of introducing even more people to 3D graphics and allowing them to author in the medium.

Wonderlands are the basic building blocks of Squeak-Alice; a Wonderland is an interactive 3D world.

To create a Wonderland, evaluate:

Wonderland new

This creates a script editor, a control panel, and a window into the 3D world. From here you're ready to start building your world.

Jeff Pierce
jpierce@cs.cmu.edu

	composite animations
	doInOrder: doTogether:

creating

createHierarchyFrom3DS: createSimpleActor:named:parent: duplicateActor: fixNameFrom: loadActor makeActor makeActorFrom3DS: makeActorFrom: makeActorFromVRML: makeActorFromVRML:named: makeActorNamed: makeBaseActorFrom: makeCamera makeCameraNamed: makeCameraNamed:parent: makeLight makeLight: makeLight:named: makePlaneNamed: makeScriptEditor makeTextureFrom: makeTextureFrom:flipping: protoClassFor: uniqueNameFrom:

	drawing
	renderWonderland:

	error handling
	reportErrorToUser:

	initialize-reset-release
	initialize objectForDataStream: prepareToBeSaved rectifyActorClassList release reset

	undo
	undo

	actor prototype mgmt
	rectifyActorPrototypeClasses removeActorPrototypesFromSystem

	class initialization
	initialize

	instance creation
	new

	accessing	top
	getActorClassList Return the list of actor classes
	getCameraList
	getDefaultCamera Returns a handle on the Wonderland's default camera.
	getEditor Return the editor for this wonderland
	getLights Return the list of lights in the Wonderland
	getNamespace Return the dictionary that comprises this Wonderland's namespace
	getScene Returns the current scene object.
	getScheduler Returns the Wonderland's scheduler.
	getSharedMeshDict Return the shared mesh dictionary
	getSharedTextureDict Return the shared texture dictionary
	getUndoStack Returns the Wonderland's undo stack.

	composite animations	top
	doInOrder: Create a new SequentialAnimation instance and pass it the child animations that make it up.
	doTogether: Create a new ParallelAnimation instance and pass it the child animations that make it up.

	creating	top
	createHierarchyFrom3DS:
	createSimpleActor:named:parent:
	duplicateActor: Creates a new actor without any geometry
	fixNameFrom: Fix the name to be a valid Smalltalk name (e.g., so that we can compile it as an inst var and accessor message)
	loadActor Why does this open the file? Hrmpf.
	makeActor Creates a new actor without any geometry
	makeActorFrom3DS: Creates a new actor using the specification from the given file
	makeActorFrom: Creates a new actor using the specification from the given file
	makeActorFromVRML: Creates a new actor using the specification from the given file
	makeActorFromVRML:named: Creates a new actor using the specification from the given file
	makeActorNamed: Creates a new actor without any geometry
	makeBaseActorFrom: First see if we need to create a prototype class for this model
	makeCamera Add a new camera to the Wonderland
	makeCameraNamed: Add a new camera to the Wonderland
	makeCameraNamed:parent: Add a new camera to the Wonderland
	makeLight Create a positional light and add it to the Wonderland
	makeLight: Create a light of the specified type and add it to the Wonderland
	makeLight:named: Create a light of the specified type and add it to the Wonderland
	makePlaneNamed: Create a simple plane
	makeScriptEditor Create a new script editor for this Wonderland
	makeTextureFrom: Create a texture from the given file name
	makeTextureFrom:flipping: Create a texture from the given file name and flip it in y if requested
	protoClassFor:
	uniqueNameFrom: If aName is unique to this wonderland's namespace, returns that name. Otherwise creates a unique variant and returns that.

	drawing	top
	renderWonderland: Tell all the objects in the Wonderland to render themselves.

	error handling	top
	reportErrorToUser: When any object in a Wonderland discovers an error it creates an error report and then calls this method to display the error to the user.

	initialize-reset-release	top
	initialize This method initializes the Wonderland.
	objectForDataStream: Return an object to store on an external data stream.
	prepareToBeSaved We are about to be written out. Release everything we don't want to carry around
	rectifyActorClassList Wonderland allInstancesDo: [:w | w rectifyActorClassList]
	release This method cleans up the Wonderland.
	reset Reset this Wonderland

	undo	top
	undo Undo the last action the user performed in the Wonderland. This pulls a block context off the animation stack and executes it.

	accessing	top
	wonderlandConstants

	actor prototype mgmt	top
	rectifyActorPrototypeClasses Wonderland rectifyActorPrototypeClasses
	removeActorPrototypesFromSystem Clean out all the actor prototypes - this involves removing those classes from the Smalltalk dictionary

	class initialization	top
	initialize Initialize the WonderlandClass by creating the ActorPrototypeClasses collection

	instance creation	top
	new Wonderland new