Animated Campus Vehicles

This page describes how EZScript was used to animate campus vehicles

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Project Description

The Animated Campus Vehicles project is a subproject of the Virtual BU project. This project's goals were to:

- Create a campus maintenance vehicle (Humvee golf cart)

- Build a program or script to have the vehicle follow a given path

EZScript Implementation

Implementing

The EZScript module is responsible for the vehicle movements within the world. EZScript cell-scripting allows for a JavaScript based script file to be executed on a cell. More documentation can be found here. For this motion to function, the vehicle which is being moved must have the motion module attached to it and all way point objects must have EZScrpit enabled so that they can be interacted with using commands from the vehicle. It is further essential that the latest version of EZScript build be used which can be accessed from the googlecode repository.

To create a path the user must place down a series of objects in the world and name them given a the scheme <Group_Name>-<WayPoint_Number>. WayPoint Numbers also start at 1 and not 0 (as would be conventional for an array). Using this scheme one can use basic string concatenation and a loop to iterate through all of the way points in a given group.

Where to download

Professor Steflik has been given a copy of EZScript compatible with the script written. However, openwonderland can be checked out via subversion from googlecode and built on linux using ant. Instructions can be found here.

Vehicle Development

The Binghamton University maintenance vehicle was developed using Google SketchUp 8. The vehicle was oriented in Sketchup such that positive motion on the Z-axis in OpenWonderland represents the vehicle driving straight (when there is no rotation on the Y-axis).

Bugs/Fixes

Bug found with EZScript when using the EZScript function GetCellRotation when used at a high rate. Jagwire, the creator of EZScript, continuously fixes and updates EZScript. All bugs and possible fixes we found have been reported to him.