1. Introduction

These lessons will take you step-by-step through the modification of a simple ExploreNet world. We've tried to follow the philosophy of "learn by doing", so you should be sitting at a computer with ExploreNet ready to run. Here are the ideas and outcomes for Lesson 1:

IDEAS: An ExploreNet 'world' consists of three kinds of things:-

scenes-
characters ("living things" - people, animals, etc.), and-
props ("objects") - furniture, books, plants, food, etc.

In lesson 1, we will learn how to modify scenes. In later lessons, you will learn how to create new scenes and add them to the world, and to make new characters and props.

OUTCOMES: At the end of this lesson, you will have changed one scene in the small (three-scene) world called DINO1.WLD. You will have changed the name of the world to DINO1xxx.WLD, where xxx is replaced by your initials.

ALSO, since this is a research project, you will write on a feedback form, any problems you found with our lesson plans or the software, and anything you particularly liked or disliked about the lesson. It's best to write down these items when you think of them. The feedback form is attached to the back of each lesson's set of work sheets.

WHAT YOU NEED: You should have this handout, a pencil, and your brain switched on. (Is it early in the morning where you are? Are kids allowed to drink coffee?) You also need the world named DINO1.WLD, which your teacher will have provided. FInally, the teacher should have handed you (or your group) a diskette.

Put your name on the diskette's label.

2. What's a World Made Of?

The ExploreNet directory looks like this:

EXPLORE.NET
         CODE
         UNIVERSE
                    HISTORY
                    DINO1.WLD
                              OBJECTS
                              SCENES
                              Dino1.BMP
                              Dino1.INF
                              Dino1.WLD
                    DINO2.WLD
                             OBJECTS
                             SCENES
                             Dino2.BMP
                             Dino2.INF
                             Dino2.WLD
                    et cetera (more worlds)
          WORK
          WORLDMAS

CODE is where the ExploreNet tool actually lives. UNIVERSE is where we keep our worlds. The first world we will work with is called DINO1.WLD. Worlds are made of OBJECTS (characters and props) and scenes, each in their own directories. The three files named "Dino1.BMP", "Dino1.INF" and "Dino1.WLD" are the setup files for this world. The Directory named HISTORY stores a kind of movie that can play back what you did in the various worlds. You saw a History in Lesson 0.

WORK is where you will keep individual pieces of your work, later.

WORLDMAS is where we keep clean master copies of the worlds. As you change a world from DINO1, you will rename it DINOxxx, with your initials where the xxx is. But if you ever need the original DINO1 (or any part of it), just copy it again from WORLDMAS.

Do not put anything into WORLDMAS, or change anything there! If you do, you won't have the clean originals when you need them.

2.2 Setting Up.

We will be using two programs - ExploreNet and a painting program, and hopping back and forth between them. Please do the following things now.

Start your computer, if it's not already on.

Find the ExploreNet icon and double-click it to start ExploreNet. This icon may be inside a "program group" which is also named ExploreNet.

ExploreNet will take a minute or so to load into the computer's memory. When the green screen appears, ExploreNet is ready.

Hold down CONTROL and press ESC to see the Task List. (On Windows 95, it's at the bottom of the screen and is called the Task Bar.) Select the Program Manager and Switch to it.

When the Program Manager screen comes up, find your Paint program. If you're using Paint Shop Pro (it may also be in the ExploreNet Group) and start it up too.

Now we're ready to go to work!

3. Our First World-Building Experience

You can change scenes by (a) painting on them, or (b) adding clip art from somewhere else. Let's begin with painting. You should be looking at your Paint program's work screen. If it's Paint Shop Pro, it looks like this:

                                         

We will now go visit Dino World One in ExploreNet; then we'll come back to Paint Shop Pro (PSP) and change the scene.

3.1 Hopping Back to ExploreNet.

Hold CONTROL and press ESC to see the Task List.

Click on ExploreNet, (then for WIN3.1, click "Switch To") to get back to the green screen.

Click on NO NETWORK.

If more than one World is currently loaded on your computer, you will then be given a "menu" with two or more pictures. Below each picture is the name of the world: DINO1, DINO2, etc. The text below says "To enter a world, click on the world's picture. To learn more about a world, click on the world's name."

Click on DINO1's name.

ExploreNet will chug away for a while, loading in three scenes and one dinosaur.
Then a scene will appear. This world is not networked (that is, each student has their own copy of the whole world.)

Experiment, move the dino around, etc. until you're familiar with the three scenes.

You will notice that IceT the Raptor is cunningly colored to blend into the
grass in this home scene. This might be an advantage later when IceT encounters unfriendly dinos.

Setting the Speed. Notice that the name of the scene you're in (Mountain, meadow, puddle) appears in a button at the top of the screen. If you find the dino to be moving too slow or too fast, click on this scene-name button USING THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON. A special window will open and ask you "Enter Delay Factor(0 100). Delay Factor=0 is the fastest, and 100 is the slowest.)

If you click on this same button with the left mouse button, you get information about this scene.

e the first scene, which is named "Mountain." When you're ready to do that, go to the next instruction.

Switch back to your paint program by pressing CONTROL-ESC and selecting the paint program from the Task List.

3.2 Changing the Mountain Scene

Well, to change the scene, we gotta see it.

If you don't use PSP, do the following things in whatever way your paint program does them.

In Paint Shop Pro:

Use the FILE menu; select OPEN.

Find the EXPLORE.NET directory, then UNIVERSE, then SCENES.

Open the scene named Mountain.

We're going to add a tree to this scene. Look at the two color-selection boxes in the SELECT menu. The top one tells you what color the brush will paint.

Grab the top-left brush (click on it.)

Notice down at the bottom of the screen - it tells you what the tool's name is, and what it can do for you. LOOK HERE whenever you wonder what something is!

Move the brush to the middle of the scene.

Hold the mouse button down and drag the brush, just once. Then release the mouse.

Makes a mess, doesn't it? Probably it isn't the right color or size or shape to begin drawing a tree, but that's OK. We have a way to UNDO it.

Open the EDIT menu and select UNDO.

Shazam! The painting of the mountain scene is back to its original form. UNDO in Paint Shop Pro will undo everything you have done with the current tool. Unfortunately (unlike some other paint programs) it won't REDO them if you click it again.

Now we move on to more painting tricks.

Double click on the same brush (upper left item in the PAINT menu.)

This opens a control where you can set the brush's shape and size. If you scroll up the SHAPE menu (it says "round" at first) you can select a square brush that's useful.

** Change the brush's size to 10. Then click the little 'put-away' box in the upper left corner of the control box. A window appears saying "Hide controls". Click this, and the control goes away.

Drawing a tree. Now let's get serious and try to draw a tree. One kind of tree that's easy to draw is a ball-and-stick. Or you may prefer to do a palm tree, or a triangle pine-tree. You're the artist. This is a practice session anyhow, so don't worry about messing up your Dino World.

Double click on the upper color block in the SELECT menu (it's called the 'foreground' color.)

Select a nice leafy color from the Color Palette and then clock OK.

Use your brush to draw the green part of a tree, anywhere you would like, in the Mountain scene. You can use multiple shades of green or other colors, if you'd like (maybe it's autumn in Dino World?)

Draw a brown trunk for your tree. You can experiment with other PSP tools such as the rectangular boxes, if you'd like. I expect you're all better computer artists than I am anyhow.

When you're satisfied with your test-tree (don't spend too long on it...)

Use the FILE menu to SAVE the scene, so we can see it in ExploreNet.

Testing the Tree. Do you remember how to get back to ExploreNet? Do it!

Press CTRL-ESC to get to the Task List.
Select ExploreNet and double click it. (** Note: Possible problem here.
ExploreNet may be invisible. Your teacher knows about it.**)
On the green screen, click NO NETWORK.

Did your tree make it into the Mountain scene? Congratulations! You're now a Master of The Universe ... or at least of trees and shrubbery and stuff. (Did you ever see the movie "Time Bandits?" If not, go rent it. It's marvelous. You'll find the connection to this lesson if you listen carefully.)

You can decorate the other two scenes of Dino World too. Paint away; brainstorm ideas for the story we will be building in the next few weeks. In that story, we'll need-

a volcano-
at least one swamp-
lots of trees of various kinds-
perhaps a lake or a beach or a waterfall

Also - explore the other painting tools. The eyedropper in the Select menu is a very useful gadget, for picking up colors from the scene. I bet you can discover lots of tools I don't know how to use, and teach me!

Renaming and Saving your World

When you have finished working with Dino1, use the File Manager or Windows Explorer to rename the subdirectory in UNIVERSE that is now called Dino1. If your name is Mary Evelyn Freeman, your initials are mef, so you should name your world DINO1mef.

Your teacher will show you how to ZIP the world so that it will take up only a small amount of space on your diskette. Make sure you have a copy of your personal DINO1mef (if you're Mary Evelyn Freeman) on your diskette.

ALSO, make a copy of any scene that you changed, and put it into your WORK directory. Change the name of that directory to WORKmef (if you're Mary Evelyn Freeman.) This directory is helpful later if you don't remember in which world you made that neat flower or mountain or whatever. It's always in WORKmef.

If somebody already renamed WORK, well, make a new WORK folder for yourself. Ask the person next to you, if you don't know how to make a new folder. Another name for a folder is a sub-directory.

Student Name:_____________________ Date:____________

1. Please list any problems you had with our lesson worksheets? Did we ask you to do anything that didn't work out as planned? (What page number? What action?)

2. Did the ExploreNet software work correctly? If not, tell us as exactly as possible what you were doing when things went wrong.

3. What did you like best about this lesson?

4. What did you like least about this lesson?

5. What should we add to this lesson to make it better?