Setting up Streaming Behaviors and Audio
When the project was finished, Alice had several long behaviors, each including very large audio files. In order to keep the file at a manageable size for quick download, the behaviors and audio were set up to be "Streaming Behaviors". This way, when Alice's webpage first loads, only Alice's geometry and texture maps need to be downloaded. All additional animation and audio data will stream into the file when triggered. If the audio files are sampled down to mono 16bit 8k resolution, the behaviors can stream over a 28.8 connection.
Pulse Creator uses a visual "Package" interface to manage what data will be pre-loaded and what data will stream. New packages can be created by clicking on the "New Package" button, and assets such as behaviors and audio can be easily dragged and dropped into these packages. Each time the file is saved, runtime files know as .PWC (Pulse Web Content) and .PWS (Pulse Web Stream) files are compiled. One PWS or PWC file is compiled for each package created in Pulse Creator.
Running the File in a Web Browser
Each time the file is saved in Pulse Creator, a special "Web" folder is created. In the Web folder, the compiled .PWC and .PWS are saved. In addition, a "Default.html" file is also generated. This html file contains links to the content as well as automatically generated buttons that trigger each behavior to play when clicked. If a new behavior is created, the next time the file is saved, a new button will be created in the default.html file that will trigger the new behavior. This default.html file is crucial for testing the content's performance in a web browser. Because this fully functional html file is automatically generated, 3D artists need not learn .html and JavaScript to use Pulse Creator and Pulse Producer. All the code required to run their content in a web browser is automatically generated for them each time they save the file.
Each of the links in the default.html file will play a specific behavior when clicked. Since "MouseYChar" class was used, dragging the mouse on the geometry at runtime will cause all the geometry to spin on its Y (up and down) axis.
Linking the Content to the Finished Web Page
After the final artwork for the web page is designed, each element in the web page can be used to trigger any event in the Pulse content. All the commands necessary have been automatically generated in the default.html file. These commands can be easily copied and pasted out of the default.html file and into the final html file. Pulse's simple command language is used to direct java and mouse events to specific objects in the Pulse content. The example below shows the command used to play the "Intro" behavior on Alice.
<a href="javascript://" onclick="DoCmd('play obj=CharacterParent pkg=IntroPkg.pwc transition=0.00 heading=yes behave=Intro');
More hands-on and in-depth tutorials can be viewed and downloaded from the Pulse 3D
web site (www.pulse3d.com/developers/prosup.asp).
We hope you've enjoyed this Pulse3D tutorial and thanks again to Dan Meblin and the folks at Pulse.
