Looking for the rest of the "Make a Fish" demo and other questions...

I've been considering coming up to speed on croquet for some time,
and in order to force the issue I volunteered to provide a demo at
the Milwaukee Bar Camp/"Unconference" (barcampmilwaukee.com).

I'd like to simply walk through some existing demonstrations and
see if I can't get some other people excited about what croquet can
do.  I have two questions to start with:

* Is there someplace where I can get the rest of the "make a fish"
  tutorial, the instructions for "make your fish swim" are incomplete.

* Are there other simple demos that exist that I could borrow that
  involve *multiple* computers - I can run demo world, but I'd like
  to show off some of the computer-to-computer collaboration.

Finally, I've found the croquet to be fairly unstable (across all
three platforms I tried it on) *especially* when multiple computers
are involved.  I'm sorry that I haven't really had time to dig in
and characterize the problem yet, but given my (admittedly self
imposed) deadline, are there simple guidelines for staying out of
trouble, like avoiding linking to worlds of different types?

Thanks!

Mike

On Oct 1, 2007, at 9:50 AM, Michael D. Krajnak wrote:

This is a placeholder for work that had not made it into the SDK.

There are swimming fish in several of the demos: TDemoFish is an  
object used in the underwater world of the BDFMaster (aka "Demo  
(Master)" in the Object Browser) and RecurseWorld (the world through  
the portal in "Croquet (Master)").

However, there is no interactive, end-user way to turn swimming on  
and off in any of the demos, or to give a new behavior (e.g., "swim")  
to an existing object.

Two approaches to this have been scripting (which several people are  
working on in different ways ) and Brie (which demonstrated in the  
earlier Jasmine version of Croquet that a "Jump" behavior object  
could be dragged from one in-world object to another).

>
> * Are there other simple demos that exist that I could borrow that  
> involve *multiple* computers - I can run demo world, but I'd like
>  to show off some of the computer-to-computer collaboration.

All of the demos should work computer-to-computer.

See http://opencroquet.org/index.php/ 
Getting_Started#Connecting_to_Others as well as the links at the  
bottom of that section.

>
> Finally, I've found the croquet to be fairly unstable (across all
> three platforms I tried it on) *especially* when multiple computers
> are involved.  I'm sorry that I haven't really had time to dig in
> and characterize the problem yet, but given my (admittedly self
> imposed) deadline, are there simple guidelines for staying out of
> trouble, like avoiding linking to worlds of different types?

What problems have you had?

You do want to use the same .image/.changes pair on all computers.  
(E.g., Croquet.1.0.18 or Croquet.1.0.18.9)

Also, see http://www.wetmachine.com/itf/item/736. Frankly, the KAT  
isn't all that robust in the face of failures -- Qwaq Forums is MUCH  
more robust -- but the exposition of issues there is still valid, and  
it's worth realizing that the other SDK demos don't address these  
issues.  A good way to insulate yourself from other people's errors  
is to be your own "master" (i.e., don't try to connect to some  
machine in Minnesota) or be your own "continuity server" (i.e., don't  
try to connect to some machine Wisconsin).

>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike
>

Michael D. Krajnak wrote:

OK. This is, I believe, part of an ancient Apple Computer project called
Vivarium done on a supercomputer with small children evolving a
simulated ecosystem or at least that is the way I remember it. Google
vivarium and wikipedia might lead to something. I think it was
intentional that it was left open ended in case some of those children
wanted to remake it on the pc's that are supposed to be the
supercomputers of yesteryear.

>
> * Are there other simple demos that exist that I could borrow that
>  involve *multiple* computers - I can run demo world, but I'd like
>  to show off some of the computer-to-computer collaboration.

I have found that the over the internet stuff is unstable being made by
various groups of people evolving different operating system languages
to throw in the image, but not to worry.
My Apple Computer Store at Willowbend in Dallas, Texas let me see that I
could use it over their wifi experimenting with any store computer I
would please to get that rabbit to hop from one mac to another. When I
am down on my theoretical physics because those guys are too brilliant
to document to other than Oxford insiders, I read Americo on programming
in Croquet.

He is a beautiful humble genius confessing his bad English mentioned on
Monica's page to follow with movies for you to get quickstart demo's :
http://www.dmu.com/crb/

After you get over the initial terror of reading bad English, it's easy.
But it will take time, the tutorial movies offered in Monica's link
below are a quickfix for you. Beyond quickfixes, there are wierd terror
barriers to any victory, a feeling of being an orphan at the beginning;
push through man.

;-)

His first book took some time and I tried to document my adventures on
nabble on evolving using Macintosh Darwin gimp2 and blender so I could
build worlds for folks to visit if only the internet wouldn't crash.
But, there is a lot of other stuff to learn than simply showing off
virtual worlds with polygons in them. For example, you can get that the
output of blender can animate stuff in Croquet with calls. I didn't get
any rabbits dancing but I did get I think it was "Big John" give the
impression of walking if I scaled the mirror right or changed point of
view from just seeing his midsection front and read. That is on
searcable nabble archive somewhere.

http://www.nabble.com/Croquet---User-f14183.html

Nabble archives the stuff us blunderers blunder into.

;-)

Blundering can be fun if you don't let anyone put deadlines on you. You
need private space to blunder some of the time, other times challenge
yourself with deadlines.

You may notice nabble has a tree-like structure that will enable you to
search in larger and larger categories of people. I am afraid to go
often to the higher level where the developers are, as yet.

>
>
> Finally, I've found the croquet to be fairly unstable (across all
> three platforms I tried it on) *especially* when multiple computers
> are involved.  I'm sorry that I haven't really had time to dig in
> and characterize the problem yet, but given my (admittedly self
> imposed) deadline, are there simple guidelines for staying out of
> trouble, like avoiding linking to worlds of different types?

Just because you made yourself a deadline doesn't mean those of us who
work with deadlines meaning we'll get fired if we don't keep them will
help you.

I don't work. I might help a bit, but I am kind of naive as yet.

Deadlines can be embarrassing, but there are prepared demo movies that
Monica showed long ago that you could confirm on nabble, but I give you
her link and hope it helps.

http://opencroquet.org/index.php/Tutorials

Again I am not an expert on this stuff, but I am not employed and have a
whole lot of time to play with you (iChat crashed last I played trying
to get audio, but iChat theater is coming in October Leopard and we
could maybe both go to kind apple stores and not have to buy anything,
though I have two macs and wifi to play with alone). You got to find a
kind Apple Store, though and they seem to like me because I buy stuff or
maybe it is because I have this strange attitude of being grateful for
what I can get.

;-)

Well, I think that is as good as I have time amongst my daunting
adventures to get and I hope this helps. I'll try to respond to your
future posts as best as a naive person can.