Interpolators! Part 2

ColorInterpolator

BasicColInterpolator.java

This gave me a LOT of trouble! This does not appear to be well documented so you can benefit from my misery. I'm still having problems but I got a very basic one up. All it does is change from black to white. I had trouble working with other colors. Also, it has to mess with the Material object in the Appearance so I had to find this out the hard way. It was impossible to find how to do this so here is the code:

ColorInterpolator colInterp = new ColorInterpolator ( rotationTime, shape.getAppearance().getMaterial(),
new Color3f (0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), // start color
new Color3f (1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); // stop color

This is the constructor. I wanted this to be a basic constructor like the rest to demonstrate a basic ColorInterpolator but this was not possible. Notice the line shape.getAppearance().getMaterial(). This gives the ColorInterpolator the Material for the Appearance that was attached to the Geometry Box with the createAppearance() method. This appears to be necessary. Using a new Material() did not appear to work. Then, here's more of the tricky part, when you create the Appearance object set the Material object this way:

Material material = new Material ( white, green, white, green, 1.0f );

material.setCapability ( Material.ALLOW_COMPONENT_WRITE );

app.setMaterial ( material );

I create a material as in the other examples but YOU MUST SET THE WRITE CAPABILITY!! This makes sense when you think about it, but I didn't see it in the documentation. This was very frustrating.

Summary: For the ColorInterpolator keep an eye on that Material object for the Appearances in your Transform group!!

TransparencyInterpolator

BasicTraInterpolator.java

This was the worst of all! I stopped working on this one first. Then I came to ColorInterpolator and the horror started all over. Once I finished Color I came back to this. Didn't help much. I got an error that said I must set the capability to write but that meant nothing. Which capability? I left all the commented out code to show you what I went through. It is this reason that I now understand to set WRITE bits and also which WRITE bits to set. The TransparencyInterpolator does just what it says also. It uses an Appearance object just like ColorInterpolator. ColorInterpolator uses the Material object in the Appearance object while the TransparencyInterpolator uses the TransparencyAttributes object of the Appearance object. This is what gave me so much trouble. I had to use the TransparencyAttributes of the Appearance object. You may be saying DUH! Think of this. I didn't even know Appearance HAD a TransparencyAttributes object. I didn't know about the Materials object either. The documentation says NOTHING about getting these objects from the Appearance object. They make it sound like its just to be created for the sole purpose of existing as a parameter in the Interpolator's constructor. As with ColorInterpolator, I had trouble using colored objects. I set the cube to be green but it just kept going from white and fading out. Oh well. I'll look into this more later. The key code is:

TransparencyInterpolator transparency = new TransparencyInterpolator ( time, shape.getAppearance ( ).getTransparencyAttributes ( ), 0.0f, 1.0f );

This creates the Interpolator with the Alpha object, time, the TransparencyAttributes (which are part of Appearance like I said), shape.getAppearance ( ).getTransparencyAttributes ( )I, and the next 2 values are the beginning and ending transparency values.

TransparencyAttributes trAp = new TransparencyAttributes ( TransparencyAttributes.NICEST, 0.1f );

// trAp.setCapability ( TransparencyAttributes.ALLOW_MODE_WRITE );

// trAp.setCapability ( TransparencyAttributes.ALLOW_BLEND_FUNCTION_WRITE );

trAp.setCapability ( TransparencyAttributes.ALLOW_VALUE_WRITE );

// trAp.setCapability ( TransparencyAttributes.ALLOW_MODE_READ );

app.setMaterial ( new Material ( white, green, white, green, 1.0f ) );

app.setTransparencyAttributes ( trAp );

// app.setCapability ( Appearance.ALLOW_TRANSPARENCY_ATTRIBUTES_WRITE );

// app.setCapability ( Appearance.ALLOW_TRANSPARENCY_ATTRIBUTES_READ );

Look at all the commented out code! Blech! I left this in for a reason. There are a lot of cababilities to read and write. Sometimes ya just gotta play around with it. On the constructor for TransparencyAttributes I chose to use the NICEST mode with a 0.1f transparency value. Neither of these really appear to have much of an affect. I then set that TransparencyAttributes object capabilities to VALUE_WRITE which allows the transparency value to be writeable. I then set the Appearance TransparencyAttributes object to the one I just created with app.setTransparencyAttributes(trAp).

Conclusion