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Attitunes Studio

This How-to applies to: Any version.
This How-to is intended for: End User

Attitunes are a novel way to make robot animations for Tux. With a visual editor, called Attitunes Studio, you can easily create behavior files or Attitunes without having to write one single line of code. Besides motor actuations the editor also supports the use of Text-To-Speech and wave sounds. This how-to will help you with the first steps to make your own Attitunes.

 

Overview


The Attitunes Studio interface is made out of three major parts: the main part showing the 6 different behavior channels, the control and edit buttons, and the behavior block settings at the bottom of the window.

Att screen


1. Channels


    • LED's channel: Here you can make your Tux light up or flicker the LED lights in the eyes.

    • Mouth & eyes channel: Add behavior blocks to this channel to actuate the beak and eyes. Note that both can not be actuated simultaneously. Mouth behavior blocks are orange, eye behavior blocks are blue.

    • Wings channel: Adding behavior blocks here will make the wings flap.

    • Spinning channel: Adding behavior blocks here will make Tux spin to the left or right.

    • Sound channel: In this channel you can add wave files or play sounds stored locally in the audio flash of Tux.

    • Text-To-Speech channel: This channel is dedicated for adding TTS messages to your Attitune.

2. Control & edit buttons


Located just under the behavior channels you find the 'play' and 'stop' button to control your currently opened Attitune.

Next to it you have the 'create', 'delete', 'copy' and 'paste' buttons.The most important one is the 'create' button. To create a behavior block: first you have to click a behavior channel. You will see that the clicked channel is displayed in red. Also the cursor line (the red vertical line) will appear to indicate where you are in the time line. Now, when clicking the 'create' button a red block will appear next to the cursor line.

The magnifier glass icons on the right side are for zooming in and out. The third magnifier glass icon will bring back the default view. These functions will come in quite handy to adjust the timing of smaller behavior blocks.


3. Behavior settings


This part of the window displays the settings of the selected behavior block. Behavior blocks are selected by double-clicking them and will be displayed in red. In the shown screen above the sound behavior block is selected. In the behavior block settings you can choose the sound type or add a wave file.

Some additional explanation for the sound settings: You can choose to play sounds from two sources. You can play a sound locally stored in the Tux audio flash or you can add a wave file stored on your computer. Note that the wave format should be 8bits, 8khz, mono. Other formats will not work.

To test the settings of a behavior block you can click the 'Test' button on the right side of the window. When ok with the settings, click the 'Apply' button to store the settings for that block.



Making an Attitune


To create a new Attitune: Select 'new' in the 'Files' menu. Next you are prompted to give the Attitune a name. Enter any name you like. The .att extension will be added automatically.

Let's start with something simple: we are going to create a TTS block.

  • First click in the TTS channel where you want to create a TTS block. The TTS channel will be displayed in a red-ish color and the red cursor line will appear.
  • Next click on the create button. A red block will appear just next to the red vertical line.
  • In the behavior block settings change the text to "This is my first try with attitunes studio." And to get a more cartoon style voice increase the pitch a little.
  • Now click on the right side, in the parameter settings on the 'Test' button. If you like the result click on "Apply" next.

    Att screen2

Because talking with a closed beak looks a bit weird we are going to add some beak movement here.

  • Click on the very left on the 'mouth & eyes' icon. This will switch the active behavior channel.
  • Click the 'create' button again, and a new red block will appear in the mouth & eyes channel.
  • In the behavior block setting the beak is configured by default to make two movements: it will open and close again.
  • Let's click the 'Apply' button for now and check the end result by clicking the blue 'Play' button on the left.

Notice when playing the Attitune that the TTS block will increase in length. This is because the behavior block durations are not calculated beforehand but only after they have been played once. But now the actual duration is visual, so we can modify the beak movement to synchronize it with the TTS duration:
  • Double-click the beak movement block to select it.
  • Change the 'count' value from '2' to '10'
  • Click the 'Apply' button and play the Attitune again from the beginning by clicking the blue 'Play' button on the left.

To finish the Attitune we will add a spin movement and make the eye LED's blink:
  • Click in the spinning channel at the position of 3.75 seconds in the time line to get the cursor there.
  • Click the 'Create' button.
  • In the parameter settings for the spinning movement: Set rotation turns to '1' and quarter of turns to '0'.
  • Click 'Apply'.
  • Click on the 'Leds' icon on the very left of the channels. Like this the red cursor line will remain at the same location.
  • Click 'Create' again
  • In the parameter settings for the LED's: Change the command type to 'Leds blink' and set count to '20'
  • Click 'Apply'
  • In the Files menu, select 'Save' to store your Attitune.

The end result should look something like this:

Att screen3


Now click the blue 'Play' button on the left to play your Attitune in it's entirety.

For reference, get the attitune described above here.



by se — last modified 2008-05-26 13:18
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