@jeffreyrb03-gmail

Acknowledged. This will be fixed soon. Thanks

Introduction

 

When you need to explain how a project should work, the best way is to make a screen recording of the stage. This short article will explain which tools you can use to record the screen, and also how to share the gif file to get a URL for it.

 
 

Screen Recording on Windows

 

If you are using a Windows computer, we recommend a free tool named “ScreenToGif”, which you can download here: https://www.screentogif.com/

Here is a short video explaining how to use it: https://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=ELfCBzN1Mtc

 
 

Screen Recording on Macbook

 

If you are using a Macbook, you can use a free tool called “Giphy Capture”: https://giphy.com/apps/giphycapture

Here is a short video showing how to use it: https://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=m-4cJMBGfS4

 
 

Share your gif file

 

Once your gif file is ready, you can share it this way:

1. Go to the “My Stuff” page at https://play.creaticode.com/mystuff, and make sure you are logged in.

2. Select “My Files” tab on the bottom left

3. Click the “+Share a New File” button on the top right

4. In the pop up window, click “Click to upload file”, and then select the gif file from your computer.

5. Click the green button that says “upload and share with the CC Attribution license” at the bottom.

After that, you will see the new file in the list of files, and then you can click “Copy file URL” button for that file, which will copy the URL to the clipboard, which would look like this: https://ccdn.creaticode.com/user-files/BfemEPCxatY6MMAPs/castfireball.gif

If you are looking for a particular 3D model that is not in our library, please reply to this topic. If you can include an example picture of it, it would be more clear what you are looking for. We will try to fulfill these requests as best as we can. Please make sure you do not submit duplicate requests by searching for it first.

Thanks
CreatiCode Support

Hi all,

Sorry there was an outage on our platform earlier this morning. Sorry about the inconvenience. Now we are back online.

CreatiCode

Introduction

In MIT Scratch, you can already manage dates using the “days since 2000” block. However, if you need a more granular control of date and time, you can use this new block:

 

This block will return the number of seconds that have passed between the given timestamp and the beginning of 2000.01.01.

 
 

Input Format

 

The input is a timestamp, which contains the date, a “T”, and then the time. The date is represented as year:month:day. The time is represented as hour:minute:second. Each field has to be 2 digits, except that the year has to be 4 digits.

The timestamp is assumed to be the local time of the computer that’s running this program. If you want to use the UTC time, which is the same across the world, then append a “Z” at the end of the timestamp, such as “2024.01.01T10:00:00Z”.

If the input is left empty, then the current time is used:

 
 

Calculating Time Difference

 

With this new block, you can easily calculate how many seconds are between 2 timestamps. You just need to run this new block for both timestamps, then calculate the difference between them:

 
 

Converting to Date

 

You can also convert the number of seconds back to a Date object. For example, the program below first gets the number of seconds for a specific timestamp, then create a date object using that result, and we get the same timestamp as our input:

 

Introduction

 

You learned about Single-Point Particle Emitter, which generates particles from a single point in the 3D space.

In this article, we will discuss “shape-based” emitters, which generate particles from within a 3D shape like a box. They allow us to produce very different visual effects.

 
 

Box Emitters

 

The box emitter is simply a transparent 3D box, and it can generate new particles from any random point inside this box. We can not see this box since it is transparent, but we can indirectly see its shape by where the particles are generated.

To use the box emitter, we need 2 steps:

• Select the “Box” shape when creating the emitter
• Configure the size of the box by its minimum and maximum X/Y/Z positions

Here is a simple example:

 
This program creates a box emitter that is 400 units in each dimension. For example, in the X dimension, the minimum is -200 and the maximum is 200, so the x position of new particles can be any random value between -200 and 200. When you run this program, you can see the particles are all confined within this box-shaped region:

 
 

Sphere Emitters

 

The shape of the emitter can also be a sphere. When we configure the sphere shape, we can set its size using the “radius” parameter.

There is also a “range” parameter (between 0 and 1), which controls the range of possible values along the radius. You can think of “range” as “thickness”:

• When “range” is 0, the particles will only be generated on the surface of the sphere, and not inside it.
• When “range” is 1, the particles can be generated at any random point on the surface or inside the sphere.
• When “range” is between 0 and 1, the particles will not be generated near the center of the sphere, but can be generated on the surface or near the surface.

Here is an example program with a range of 0:

 
As shown, particles are only appearing on the surface of the sphere:

 
 

Hemisphere Emitters

 

Hemisphere emitters generate particles from a half-sphere shape. You can specify its radius and range the same way as the sphere emitters.

One thing special about hemisphere emitters is that we can rotate the half sphere to different directions. As shown below, when we rotate it around X-axis for 90 degrees, the new particles are all generated at the bottom half of the sphere:

 
 

Cylinder Emitters

 

The emitter can also take a cylinder shape. We can control the radius of the circle, and also the height of the cylinder.

The “range” parameter also works for cylinders. You can think of it as controling the “thickness” of the cylinder’s skin. For example, when radius 0.5, the thickness of the cylinder skin is half of the radius:

 
The cylinder shape also supports an additional parameter of “direction randomness”. This only matters when we set the particles to not face the camera all the time, and we will see the particles facing different random directions when we set “direction randomness” to 100:

 
Lastly, we can rotate the cylinder emitter as well. For example, we can make it “lie down”:

 
 

Cone Emitters

 

For the cone-shaped emitter, we can console these parameters:

• Radius: The radius of the bottom circle of the cone
• Angle: The opening angle of the cone. Note that the angle and the radius would imply the height of the cone, so we won’t need another “height” parameter.
• Radius Range: This range value applies along the radius direction. When it is 0, the particles will only be generated on the surface of the cone. When it is 1, the particles may come out from anywhere inside the cone or on its surface.
• Height Range: This range value applies along the height of the cone. When it is 0, the particles will only emerge from the bottom of the cone, and when it is 1, the entire height can generate particles.

We can rotate cone emitters as well.

@luna

Well, we are a small team, and we have many more urgent tasks on the list.

@tyller_

We are working on fixing the cloud blocks. Should be within next few days. Sorry about that.

 

Key Topics Covered

• Initializing 3D scenes
• Using spheres
• Updating textures
• Setting object speeds
• Highlighting objects

 
 

Introduction

In this tutorial, you will learn to create a spinning Earth:

 
 

Step 1 - Initialize An Empty Scene

First, create a new project, and load an empty scene using the “initialize 3D scene” block.

By default, it will create an empty scene with nothing but a blue background:

 
 

Step 2 - Set the Background Starfield

Next, use the “set sky” block to create a better-looking backdrop:

You should get a starfield with the Sun on the right.

 
 

Step 3 - Add a Big Sphere

Next, add a sphere with a large diameter of 10000 to the scene. Don’t worry about its color yet.

The sphere would look brighter on the side that faces the Sun.

 
 

Step 4 - Add Earth Texture

Now we need to update the sphere’s texture with the Earth. Add the “update texture” block, click the “Please select” input box, then search for “Earth” in the library window.

 
 

Step 5 - Flip the Earth Texture

You might have noticed an issue with the texture: the continents are upside-down. We need to flip the texture vertically to correct this issue. This can be done by changing the vertical repeat count from 1 to -1.

 
 

Step 6 - Make the Earth Spin

To make the Earth object spin, we can use the “set speed” block. Note that the Earth needs to be spinning from “left” to "right, so the “Z-rotation” speed needs to be negative.

Now your Earth object should be spinning slowly.

 
 

Step 7 - Highlight Around the Earth

Lastly, to make the Earth object glow in blue lights, we can create a new highlight layer, then add the sphere to that layer.

Now your Earth object should carry a blue light around it.

 

Next Steps

You can try to use a similar method to build other projects. Here are some example ideas:

• A Different Planet: You can change Earth to other planets like Mars;
• A Spinning Trophy: You can try to make a trophy object spin and shine.

@mathew139616-10db496a

Thanks for the suggestions.

For unpublished projects, the authors do not want it to be seen, so we can not let anyone see it, even the original author.

We can look into adding the notifications.

For forum, most of the questions are fairly specific to CreatiCode so ChatGPT can’t answer them well. Don’t worry, we have enough staff to answer questions, and there are also a few active users who often help out.

@tyller_

Can you please share the project link?

@ejrowberry09-12248f6d

Maybe you can try to use “OR” to combine multiple color sensing blocks?

@s9205307-810c679a

No problem. We will support both image formats.

Introduction

 

The map of all 50 states in the US is a handy tool for creating interactive projects for social studies or geography. In this tutorial, you will learn to build a very basic demo that shows all 50 states in different colors. You will practice using table variables and clones along the way.

 
 

Step 1 - Remix the Template

 

Please open the following project and remix it as your own project.

play.creaticode.com/projects/6787f4c3b71b8505f221326c

This project has only one sprite called “states”. It contains the costumes of all 50 states, in pure white color. It also includes a table with these columns about each state: state, x, y, shortname, color, saturation. You will learn how to use the costumes and this table in the steps below.

 
 

Step 2 - Use Clone to Display One State

 

Next, to keep it simple, we will first try to display one state. We will need to use a clone to represent that state, and hide the original sprite itself. This way, to show more states later, we just need to add more clones.

 
You can pick the costume of any state, such as “Florida”. When you run the project, you will see the map of that state at the center:

 
 

Step 3 - Specify the State Using Clone ID

 

In CreatiCode, when you create a clone, you can also specify a “clone ID”, which can be any text or number. This makes it easy to tell each clone to do something differently. In this step, we will set the clone ID to be 1. And when we select the costume, we will use the clone ID as the row number to read the state name from the “stateinfo” table. Since the clone ID is set to 1, we will get the first state in the table, which is “Alabama”:

 
The program will show the map of Alamaba now when we run it:

 
 

Step 4 - Move the clone to the given position

 

To show each state at its correct position, we need to read the x and y positions of that state from the table, then make the clone go there. Again, we are still using the “clone ID” as the row number to index into the table.

 
Now we see the Alabama state in the correct position:

 
 

Step 5 - Add Color to the State

 

We can also use color effects to change the “color” and “saturation” of the state, so that it is no longer white. We need to read these 2 columns from the table in a similar way, using clone ID as the row number:

 
And now the Alabama state has a nice color:

 
 

Step 6 - Print the Short name (Abbreviation) of the state

 

Next, we can read the “shortname” column to get the 2-letter abbreviation of the state, and then “print” them at the same x and y positions. Note that this block is too wide so it is shown as 2 rows below:

 
This is what we get now:

 
 

Step 7 - Make 50 Clones Using a For-loop

 

To add all 50 states, we just need to make 50 clones with clone ID going from 1 to 50. An easy way to do it is to use a for-loop like this:

 
This will give us a complete map:

 
 

Step 8 - Random Coloring

 

If you don’t like the default color/saturation that is given, you can color the states in other ways. For example, you can use 2 random numbers for the color and saturation effects. Note that the color effect takes any number between 1 and 200 (not 100), and the saturation is a number between 1 and 100. If you don’t want to use colors that are too “strong” or “light”, you can limit the saturation between 20 and 80 like this:

 
Now every time you run the project, you will get a new random color set:

 
 

Step 9 - Faster Drawing (Advanced)

 

You might have noticed that it takes a few seconds to draw all 50 states. This is because after adding each clone, the playground will update the stage to reflect that. If we just want to draw all 50 states quickly, we can use a common trick that disables “screen refresh”:

Define a new custom block named “add states”, and check “Run without screen refresh” on the left:

 
Next, move the for-loop inside the definition of this block:

 
Essentially, the program is running the same tasks, but the playground will not update the stage until all 50 states are added, so it is much faster:

 
 

Additional Challenges

 

You can build many interesting projects based on this template. Here are some ideas for you to try:

• Shift the short name: Currently the 2-letter abbreviation is printed at the center of each state. However, it does not look good for some states, such as Hawaii, Michigan, New York, Idaho, etc. You can add 2 new columns of “xshift” and “yshift” to the “stateinfo” table, and fill in how much you want to shift the 2 letters from the center of the state. For example, if you want the “HI” to be printed below the Hawaii map, you can set the yshift for the row of Hawaii to be -30, and when you print the “HI” onto the map, add the yshift to the y position of the letters.

• Interactive Map: You can make a state show a highlight whenever it touches the mouse pointer by changing its “brightness” color effect.

• Zoom-in: When a user clicks any state, you can show an enlarged version of that state and other states near by. You will not only need to change the “size” of the clone, but also scale its x and y positions.

@s9205307-810c679a

Can you be more specific? Which block you plan to use with the moderation block? Usually an image is either a URL or a costume in our playground.

@s9205307-810c679a

Thank you for the suggestion. Would the image be a costume of the sprite? In that case, how about a block that looks like this?

get moderation result for costume [COSTUME_NAME]

@tyller_

Reading range A1:Z999999 is definitely too large. How about trying to read a few rows at a time?

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

True. We can do it that way.

@tyller_

Thank you.

@s9205307-810c679a

That’s a good idea. We will provide a new block that can fetch the user’s profile picture as a new costume, then you can use that costume as the icon in the chat window.