A.Getting scripts

Director´s 3D technology is offering unlimited possibilities for creating animations and interactions. The key to this world is the script language Lingo.

The 3DPI will help you writing the correct script lines. The following descriptions will explain the possibilities, which scripts the 3DPI can offer, how to get them, and what to do with this scripts.

Overview

The script for one single Property

Understanding the script

Testing the script in the message window

Getting more scripts with the Trace-Buttow

The 3DPI offers 2 possibilities to get scriptlines:

• By clicking on the name of a property while keeping the option key pressed (or on PC with the right mouse button).
  
• By working with the "Trace" Button (right upper corner of the 3DPI window).

Because one can switch between 3 functions of the Trace Button, all together there are 4 different possibilities for getting scriptlines, depending on what you need:

1. The script for setting one single property.
   
2. The scripts for setting all properties, that are currently visible within the 3DPI, at once.
3. For advanced Lingo users property lists of all properties, that are currently visible within the 3DPI.
4. The scripts depending on the changes done with the 3DPI.

All scripts will appear in the message window, which can be copied and pasted into a scriptmember of the movie for further use.

Getting the script for one single property is quite simple:

Click on the name of the property, either while keeping the option key (= alt key) pressed, or on PC with the right mouse button.

Open the message window, the scriptLine for this property did appear.

Example:

Let´s say you would like to find the perfect lightning situation for your scene, by only changing the default directional light. You will select the Light-Tab of the 3DPI, select the "UIDirectional" light, which by default is a light of type #directional, and play around with its rotation by dragging the handle in the bottom part of the 3DPI window.

After you found the perfect lightning situation, you now would like to get the script for the rotation and its current values to restore the lights rotation whenever you would like to. Click on "rotation", the name of the property, while keeping the option key pressed, or on PC by clicking on it with the right mouse button.

Now take a look at the message window, where the scriptlines did appear.

In the last example, the 3DPI has put 2 scriptlines into the message window. Well in fact more lines did appear, but only 2 "real" scriptlines. Let´s have a look what all the text, that appeared in the message window, means:

-- "*********** 3DPI Tracing ***********

This line is only there to help identifying, where the last "3DPI Tracing" did start, in case your message window is already full of scripts.

theLight = member(1, 1).light("UIDirectional")

This is the first "real" scriptline. Here a reference to the light will be created, and it will be stored within a variable called "theLight".

member(1, 1) is the reference to the shockwave3D member.
In this example this member is placed in the first cast slot, which in Lingo can be written as "member(1)" or "member(1, 1)" or "(member 1 of castLib 1)".

light("UIDirectional") is the reference to the light with the name 'UIDirectional'.

This scriptline is necessary to make the following line working properly.
 

theLight.transform.rotation = vector( -17.0576, 24.7340, 0.0000 )

This line, the second "real" scriptline, sets the rotation of the light to the current values.

In Director a light (or any other Node) does not have its own #rotation property, but a #transform property, which keeps all informations about position, rotation and scale. Normally one will rather work with the transform functions "translate" and "rotate", but as this example demonstrates, sometimes it is also useful to set one of the transform properties directly. You have found the perfect lightning situation, which in this case is the rotation of the default direction light, and you would like to recreate it with Lingo quickly.

The 2 scriptlines can now be copied and pasted into a scriptMember of the movie.

To understand the 2 created scriptlines a little better, the most easiest way is to play with them directly in the message window.

First of all you need to understand, that the scriptlines within the message window are nothing but pure text and have "no meaning" after they have been created by the 3DPI. To make them working in the message window itself, it is necessary to click at the end of each line and press the RETURN key.

Click behind the end of the first scriptline, which creates a reference to the light, and press the RETURN key.
This is the way how the message window itself gets to know that the variable "theLight" is the reference to the light.
If you forget to do so and try to work with the next scriptline immediately, you would get a script error, because Director would not know yet, what "theLlight" means.

Change the rotation of the light again by dragging the handle in the bottom part of the 3DPI window.

Now click behind the end of the second scriptline in the message window, which sets the rotation, and press RETURN on the keyboard.
The light will be changed to the last situation again.

Change the values of the rotation within this scriptline, e.g. to
     theLight.transform.rotation = vector( 50, 0.0000, -130)
click behind the end of the line and press RETURN.
The rotation of the light will change, the models will be lightened from left above, and the rotation handle in the bottom part of the 3DPI window appears on a left-upper placement too.

With the help of the 3DPIs Trace-Button you can get scripts for all properties that are currently visible in the 3DPI, as well as the scripts depending on the changes you do with the 3DPI.

Please read more information about the Trace-Button in the chapter Trace-Button.