[Squeakland] How can I make an object to follow a path?

[Scott Wallace]

Hi, Suna,

There are various ways of making an object behave in a manner that 
could be described as "following a path."

(1)  Here's a very simple way, which *might* suit your needs:

Bring up the halo on your object, and look in the "extras" submenu of 
the halo menu; you'll see three "path-related" items.  When you 
choose "define path", the cursor changes to a special "path-defining" 
cursor, and you're invited to drag your object in the path you wish 
it to follow; release the mouse button when you're through.

You can then get the object to re-traverse that path any time by 
choosing "follow existing path" from that same menu.  Or, to follow 
the path programmatically, deploy the "follow path" tile, which 
you'll find in the "miscellaneous" category of a Viewer.


(2)  If the path can be defined by a series of points in the x-y 
plane, another approach is to write a series of ticking scripts, each 
of which is in charge of getting the object from one of the reference 
points to the next; each such script, once it has accomplished its 
purpose, "stops" itself and starts the next script in the sequence to 
ticking.


Incidentally, the ideal place to post this kind of question is the 
Squeakland mailing list.  If you're not yet a subscriber, I encourage 
you to join :-)

If neither of the above suggestions fulfills your needs, please 
describe what you want in more detail, and most likely you'll receive 
more suggestions from readers of the Squeakland list.

Cheers,

  -- Scott

>From: "Suna Ryu" <sunaryu at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: How can I make an object to follow a path?
>Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:57:22 -0600
>
>To whom it may concern,
>
>I'm a student at UIUC, and I'm really wondering about how I can make 
>an object to follow a path.
>For example, I'd like to have 'a planet' follow a specific orbital.
>
>I tried ' the method of making smart car', which use test script but 
>it is not enough to meet my need.
>
>Thanks a lot,
>Suna
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