Tutorial: Making a billboard

By Deborah Nelson

Duke University, July 14, 2008

Under the direction of Professor Susan Rodger

As you follow the instructions below, click on an image to enlarge it.

Then use the'go back one page' arrow in your web browser to come back to this tutorial.

Loading the World

Open a new world, with the template of your choosing. Save it in a directory that you can find again, and then start Alice and open the world. NOTE: You cannot double-click the file to open it; Windows will not know what to use, and even if you select Alice from a list of programs, the loading will fail.

First: After you have opened the file, and set up your world, go into the "Layout" mode by clicking on the green button 'Add Objects' (toward the middle of screen)

Click 'more controls.' Click 'drop a dummy at the camera.' Rename the dummy 'originalPosition.' To leave the layout mode, click 'done' This is something you should always do when you make a world in case you need to return the camera to this view later. If you don't understand dummys,look at the camera control tutorial again.

Use of a Billboard

Billboards can be used to add a sign with customized text to your world
They can be made in

Paint
Power Point

In Paint

Open up a paint document
Click on the A to add text

Type the following into your text box:

Press the Up arrow to move forward
Press the space bar to jump
Press i to show the instructions

Paint: Increasing the size

Your text might be really small.
To increase the size:
Click on the select
Highlight your text, and drag the corner to enlarge your text

Save Paint & Open Alice

Now, save your document as type .bmp
In your Alice world, click on the file menu and select Make Billboard

Import paint billboard

Find your paint document in the directory that you saved it in
Click import

Reposition the billboard

Now, the billboard has appeared in the world:
Click on the Add Objects button
Enlarge the billboard with the resize button
Use the left/right to make the billboard face the camera
And use the mouse to bring it forward

Create a world method

Let’s write a method to make the instructions either visible or invisible:
Click on the world in the object tree
Select the method tab
Click create new method
Name it instr

Writing instr

Click on if/else and drag it into your method
In the drop down menu, select true

Click on your billboard in the object tree
Click on the properties tab
Drag isShowing into world.instr on top of true

Then, drag isShowing into the method again, on top of the first Do Nothing. In the drop down menu, select false.
Drag isShowing into the method again, on top of the Do Nothing that is underneath else. In the drop down menu, select true.
See the screenshot on the next slide for an illustration of what your method should look like now

Complete instr method:

Create new event

Click on the create new event
Select when a key is typed

Click on any key. Select letters, and select i

Click on Nothing and select instr

Play your world. Press i to make the billboard disappear and reappear

In PowerPoint

You can also use Power Point to make a billboard
Open up a Power Point document
Make one slide and type the text until your slide looks like this
I’ve added a border around the text

Saving the power point

When you save the Power Point, select the file type: .JPG

Click save (in a directory you can find again)
When this window pops up,

Click on current slide only
In order to import a file as a billboard, it must have an image file extension

Make Paint billboard invisible

Click on your paint billboard in the object tree.
Click on the properties tab and set isShowing to false.

Import power point billboard

Now in your Alice world, go to the file menu and select Make Billboard
Find your power point slide and import it into your world
Move and resize your billboard until it looks like this:

Write a method

In World details, create a new method
Name it question
Drag in the if statement and the isShowing instructions until your method looks like this:

Create a new event to alternate between billboards

Select the letter q; then select question
Your event should look like this

Now, play your world. Press i and q to alternate between the two billboards

Recap

You can make a billboard to give the user instructions, ask multiple choice questions, etc
Use either paint or power point to make the billboards
It is helpful to use an event to give the user the choice of making billboards appear or disappear
But, you can also just set isShowing to true or false in your method at the appropriate time