Creating Routes Between Events

on this page: a few terms | creating a route | removing a route | rules | displaying routes | multiple routes

When you create routes between events, things begin to happen in your scene. You can connect a touch sensor to a lamp to turn on a light, for example. You can also create routes between objects so that when the position, material, or texture of the first object changes, the attributes of the connected object change as well. Routes are created in the Outline Editor.

A Few Terms

Events are of two types: outgoing events send values, and incoming events receive values. Many fields have both an outgoing event (called an eventOut) and an incoming event (called an eventIn) associated with them. The Outline Editor uses a graphical shorthand to show these events:

The left-pointing arrow indicates the eventIn, and the right-pointing arrow indicates the eventOut.

When you connect an eventOut to an eventIn (or vice versa), the connection between them is called a route (also sometimes referred to as a wire).

Creating a Route

Here's an example of how to create a route:

  1. Click an outgoing event (the right-pointing triangle).

    This step puts the event into the well, the small window at the bottom of the Outline Editor. You've now identified the starting point for this route. If you change your mind, you need to click the Clear Well button at the bottom of the Outline Editor before you can start a new route.

  2. Test out routes. Potential routes highlight in blue when you move the cursor over the pointing triangle associated with the event. If you can't route to a particular event, its triangle is grayed out when you move the cursor over it.

  3. When you've decided on a route, click the incoming event (the left-pointing triangle).

    This step creates a route between the two events. The event triangles turn black to indicate that they are routed, and the well is cleared.
Tip: If you don't want the well cleared after the route is created, hold down the Shift key when you click the mouse in step 3. This action creates the route and leaves the original event in the well so that you can create other routes to that same event.

Removing a Route

To remove a route, hold down the Ctrl key and click the mouse over the event (the pointing triangle).

Rules for Routing

The Outline Editor does not let you make "illegal" routes. Here's a list of rules for routing events:

Displaying Route Information

If you have a lot of routes in your file, displaying all of them at one time may feel a bit tangled. You can click the tail of a route (the small circle on the line attached to the event) to toggle the display of the blue route between events.

To follow a route to its other end, hold down the Alt key and click the tail.

To view detailed information about a route, Shift-click the tail of the route.

Multiple Routes

An outgoing event can be connected to multiple incoming events (this is sometimes referred to as "fan out"). Similarly, an incoming event can be connected to multiple outgoing events (this is referred to as "fan in"). In the Outline Editor, both fan in and fan out are represented as thick black lines for the tail of the route. Here's an example of fan-in:

If you Alt-click a fan, the routes composing the fan are displayed individually so that you can choose which one to follow.

Jump to: Outline Editor Quick Reference