In this example we look at how a complex behavior can be generated on the fly using the java capability of Community Place. The example consists of our familiar ball, but now we want it to move off in a random direction every 10 steps. Now such behavior is clearly not definable through interpolators in advance. At this point routes to interpolators are not supported. If they were they could be changed dynamically but then the random directions would still have to be generated through the Java. This is just a small example of the complex behaviors Java can control.

The technique is simple - after every 10 steps we generate a new random direction unit vector. For the next 10 steps we move form the current position to the new position, then repeat.

This example consists of :

• A discussion of the source code,
• An active example of this world (must have CP installed as your default VRML browser), and
• Exercises for you to try on your own.