User manual ADOBE ATMOSPHERE

[. . . ] Adobe Atmosphere ® TM User Guide Adobe Atmosphere ® TM User Guide ©2003 Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe® AtmosphereTM User Guide for Windows® If this guide is distributed with software that includes an end user agreement, this guide, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. Except as permitted by any such license, no part of this guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Please note that the content in this guide is protected under copyright law even if it is not distributed with software that includes an end user license agreement. [. . . ] Programmers will be pleased to know that Atmosphere has a rich API that allows control of virtually every aspect of an Atmosphere world including its physics. Atmosphere supports JavaScript, the World-Wide Web's widely used and well-documented scripting language. i This chapter covers the basics of using scripts in Atmosphere. A more detailed tutorial is included in Appendix D, "JavaScript API Documentation, " and Appendix E, "JavaScript API Table of Modules. " Drag and Drop Scripting As mentioned, Atmosphere ships with a number of preset scripts that can easily be added to objects and scenes to enable a number of interesting and useful behaviors. You can find a complete list of script presets and their descriptions in Appendix C, "Preset Libraries. " Loading Scripts Scripts can be imported into Atmosphere using the File > Import > Scripts menu command. You can also place scripts in the Object Presets palette using the Add Script Preset command in the palette menu. Both of these options will open a file dialog box to locate and load the Script files which typically have a JS extension. Imported presets appear as Script icons in the Object Presets palette. You can load several script presets at once by Shift- or Control-selecting scripts in the Open File dialog box. Scripts can be added to the Object Presets palette. 182 CHAPTER 14 Placing Scripts Scripts that are loaded using the File > Import > Script command appear at the origin of a Scene. Scripts in the Object Presets palette are placed using the Scene Editor which allows scripts to be placed anywhere. To place a script, click on its icon in the Object Presets palette, then click in the Scene. i Some scripts will use the position of the Script icon in the Scene view as a parameter to control its function. For example, the rotateContinuous. js script uses the Script's position to define the point about which an object rotates. The script name and its path are displayed in the Scene Hierarchy palette. When a script is selected, the Inspector palette displays the Scripting tab where the script's properties' Names and Values are shown. ADOBE ATMOSPHERE 183 User Guide The Scripting tab of the Inspector palette appears when a script is selected in the scene. Tutorial: Adding Fog The fog. js script adds an adjustable fog effect and is an example of script behavior that affects an entire scene i Some effects such as fog will not be visible until the environment is published and loaded in the Player plug-in. To add fog to your scene, follow these steps. 1 Locate the Help\Tutorials\Bridge folder under the directory where Atmosphere was installed. It should be a path similar to c:\Program Files\Adobe\Atmosphere\Help\Tutorials\Bridge. After navigating to your folder in the open dialog, select the file bridge. atmo and press Open. 2 Select the Add Script Preset menu command in the palette menu of the Object Presets palette. 3 In the file dialog box, locate and select the fog. js script in the Extras\Scripts\Set_1_Basic directory where Atmosphere was installed. 4 Select the fog script in the Object Presets palette and click in the Scene Editor to place the script icon anywhere in the scene. 5 Select File > Publish > World (Ctrl+P) to see the fog in the environment. 184 CHAPTER 14 An Atmosphere environment with the fog script applied. The amount of fog can be set by adjusting the script's properties in the Inspector. Fog can be enabled in the scene simply by adding the fog. js script. Editing Scripts The Inspector palette includes a field that holds the path to the imported script. You can set the script's path by clicking the Browse for JavaScript File button to the right of the JavaScript URL. [. . . ] After that, the two objects will be constrained to act as if there is a ball-joint between them. It should be noted that for any of the physics based constraints or actions, it is necessary to assign reasonable mass values when creating the physical models so that physics processing does not become unstable (driven out of scope). The guidelines for mass and inertia are decribed in the method createPhysicalModel(). Properties strength The strength or stiffness of the constraint. 370 APPENDIX E tau The time constant for the constraint, similar to damping. [. . . ]