ALICE.NET 1.0 alpha

[Criptych]

At last, I've got a "playable demo" of ALICE.NET ready for testing. It's still lacking a great deal, but you can play with the layers and groups, and render images. Anyone who wants to put it through some paces and tell me about their experience can head over to the other end of the internet to download it. Thanks for your support!

[eezergoode]

Been playing with it a little, and I gotta say.. I love it! Now we just need for the program to be finished, and some of our excellent artists to make a few dozen dolls with a ton of goodies to go with them

Very well done so far, Criptych. I'm quite impressed.

I've been thinking about a similar concept for scenery.... have base unadorned rooms, and have objects and decorations in sets in layers so we can "decorate" each room for a unique look. Like have a base undecorated classroom, and have multiple desks, podiums, blackboards, etc. to choose from. Just a though, since I have trouble drawing a stick figure, but I figure it could probably done in a very similar fashion, maybe even with the same software as you are writing for the dolls.... /shrug. Maybe if nobody has come up with anything by the time I get some programming classes out of the way after school starts in the fall, I may take a stab at it. Might even make it one of my projects for class...

[Criptych]

Thanks! By the next release I plan to add the "Recolor" and "Save" features.

I've been thinking about a similar concept for scenery.... have base unadorned rooms, and have objects and decorations in sets in layers so we can "decorate" each room for a unique look.

Way back when-- maybe a year ago-- my original concept was this enormous all-in-one program with a character editor, scene editor, script editor, menu editor, theme editor.... Obviously, I was nuts. But it looked good on paper. Anyway, since you bring it up, ALICE.NET (and even the original ALICE) could do that just as easily, since they're based on layers.

[eezergoode]

Anyway, since you bring it up, ALICE.NET (and even the original ALICE) could do that just as easily, since they're based on layers.

Very true, although I'm considering that something more along the lines of a digital "stickerbook" setup might be cool too. Where you would load up your BG, then add sort of add "stickers" to the scene, so you could place them wherever you want instead of where the original artist thought was the best place for it..... that wouldn't work in all situations, of course.... and it's still just a vague idea. It would probably just be easier to do it like Alice, in all honesty, but since I'm eventually going to have a few graphics manipulation projects to do for school, I may take a stab at it later on down the line. <shrug>

[rioka]

@ eezergoode>> I know what you mean. They actually have those in children's games - they're "doll houses" basically. You can change the background, add or remove characters, furniture, items, colors, print them out, move it around, etc. It's a very neat idea and would be really great if there were a ton of assets.

Wohoo! It's out. I'll give it a whirl tomorrow. :3
Btw, I thought Ren's doll was called "Betty"? (Unless she was renamed...?)
Btw, what's the feed to your site? I'd like to keep up with updates. =)

[eezergoode]

Hehe back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, we had "Colorforms", that were non-digital little "static stickers" in many flavors, that would allow you to place the stickers onto various backgrounds and make your own scenes. I probably had EVERY superhero Colorforms set available in the '70s....

[rioka]

I remember those! They were "rad" as they said back in the 80s. XD

[Criptych]

Btw, I thought Ren's doll was called "Betty"? (Unless she was renamed...?)

So did I, that's how I'd always seen her called, but according to Ren:

Now, this might sound strange:I just noticed you call her Betty too in your code...if it wasn't too much disturb, could you go back to Alice if you're planning to release her with Alice.net once you're done?

So I changed it to Alice. n_n

Btw, what's the feed to your site? I'd like to keep up with updates. =)

Just add "/feed/" to the website URL: http://the-other.endoftheinternet.org/alicedotnet/feed/

Hmm... I wasn't around until the mid-80s, so I don't remember Colorforms, but in kindergarten we had these little felt character (more like faceless humanoid figure) cutouts that you stuck on a board. Now that's technology. [/sarcasm]

[eezergoode]

I remember those! They were "rad" as they said back in the 80s. XD

Yeah, I actually saw a few sets just a few years ago, and they have, or at least had, some colorforms software just a year or two back, almost bought it for my daughter, but we ended up going with the fisher price digital art studio instead.. I think I made a good choice, she totally loves it. Just glad I built her a pc before we got the studio.. I practically need a pry bar to get her off the box when it is bedtime

[rioka]

@ Criptych >> Ah. That explains it. :3

@ eezergoode>> Sounds like you have a future artist in the making! In a few years, you can ask for her to help Daddy out. ;D

[PyTom]

FWIW, I've just added a link to ALICE.NET from the original Alice's web page.

[eezergoode]

@ Eclipse - Yeah, last year she won first prize for her grade, school-wide. I'm really hoping she sticks with it, she shows a lot of potential. I'm more of a writer (when i actually have time), I can't even draw stick figures and have them come out.

[KAMINARI]

Um...is the ZIP file SUPPOSED to have only two files and be 96k?

Also, whenever I click "New Project", one of the VERY few buttons that it allows me to click, I always get this error message:

[x__sinister]

I got that same message.
Also, when I started it up, a text document appeared in the file.
It's titled as 'error', but it has nothing in it.

[KAMINARI]

Yeah, I got a blank "error.txt" file, too...