Tutorial #11: Artiste Outfit-Change

The Artiste started out as a tool to facilitate the removal and subsequently the addition of items that could be worn as layers or attached items to an avatar during a live show. The procedure started out as a manual one. Then one morning I got an epihnany to schedule the changes. Why become manually involved at all? That was when I began to think that everything that could be scheduled should be scheduled .

And thus the term “Auto” was born.

We started with removal of all items from a particular body part like say the “skull” or “pelvis”. Then was born the need to remove a single layer or attachment when several are worn on the same body part. This required the use of RLV. I had not heard of RLV being used in a way other than as a method to faciliate BDSM play. It was just an idea I had that it could facilitate non-sexual applications. It had a history of association of ‘bad’ as well as a ‘fear’ that it could be used against a persons wishes.

There is a lot of depth to the process of stripping and outfit-change. I treat the 2 topics separately. In fact there is a manual on AutoStripping and one on Outfit-Change. And they both have their own enable/disable lights on the face of the HUD.

There are many advanced disciplines to the Artiste. Each one should be seen as something special and worthy of concerted effort and time to master in order to maximize its feature set; like spending a week on nothing else but just exploring the discipline in depth and becoming deeply familiar with it. The motivation for mastering them is that they are empowering and either expand your abilities to control your performance beyond normal means or to solve performance issues and challenges…or both.

Advanced disciplines include but are not limited to:  Outfit-Change (with SmartChange), Artiste Rezzer, Advanced Mover, Adorning, Grouping, Particles, AutoCam, Formations(DanceDiva) , MasterPiece, to name a few.

You should add your own personal notes to yourself of important discoveries ore perferences of usage. You should also keep a folder of successful experiences including notecards, HUDs, Palettes, Rezzers, snapshots of inventory, or anything else that can help jog your memory as to how you were successful in the past. You want to be able to quickly repeat a discipline with confidence and without relearning or fear of remembering .

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One area of major concern with people is that of troubled outfit-changes during a live show. In fact I have heard from at least 2 people in the last week on major concerns on recent “fitting” issues  as well as expended effort to facilitate multiple outfit-changes in one routine. It seems good enough is no longer the case. People seem to want answers. Solutions.

We spent a LOT of time on the issue of the wearing and unwearing of outfits over the years. We even discovered certain SL issues years ago prior to LL acknowledging just recently what we had already surmised…that of items with a lot of links.

We had to address issues of: unrezzed, double-rezzed, or stuck (as in unremovable) costume-changes, especially during laggy conditions. We also addressed the issue of alphas.

There are many, many features at your disposal to control an outfit-change cycle. We provide for an automated way to micro-manage an outfit-change process and allow for up t0 5 of these micro-managed outfit-changes to occur  for a given HUD during a set.

WearUnwear 

We call an outfit-change WearUnwear, as a reminder of what is happening. We wear or add the new outfit prior to unwearing the the old outfit so as to minimize any embarrassment of unneeded skin-exposure. It also looks better aesthetically when performd in this order as opposed to unwearing prior to wearing. You can also perform a Wear and Unwear cycle separately. You can do them manually or scheduled via the AutoFX feature of the Artiste PerformanceHUD.

Simply add the items you want to wear in one RLV folder and the items you want to unwear in another RLV folder.

So WearUnwear are attached to events via AutoFX just like moves or fades or particles or any other special process.

There is also a Replace option for certain special situations (nocopy) but is not recommended if WearUnwear could be used…as it is not as controllable.

Anchoring

At this juncture you have the ability to Anchor certain body-parts so they are NOT removed.

Also Anchoring , avoids the unecessary step of removing the same layer or attachment if you are simply going to rewear it in the new outfit. This is performed automatically if you turn AutoAnchor to “on”. Example: The currently worn hair is the same as the new hair you are going wear. Why add an extra redundant step that could help clog the process?

You can anchor manually thru the menu for quick experimentation or via the main configuation notecard of the Artiste Performance HUD.

Also, by default, all HUD  areas on the screen are Anchored. So in order to replace a HUD you would have to un-anchor its screen area.  Usually you want to keep HUDS worn via an outfit change process which is why it is the default.

Exclusions

You can exclude certain bodyparts from being affected by removal or addtion. These are like Anchors only they are PERMANENT. Bra and panties for example insure that under NO conditions are these layers removed.

Retries

When attaching new items we found often that repeated attempts helped to vastly improve success. You can set the number of automatic attach-retries along with the amount of time to ‘wait’ in beween retries via the main configuration notecard. We even set the number of retries to 2 by default as insurance as we notice it is better to have it than not have it. We were able to improve 100% failure scenarios  down to about  20% failure rate by adding in auto-retries of high-link items (hair, jewelry).

SmartChange – troubled-Item wearing and unwearing

Over time we discovered that items with a lot of links as well as alphas and to a lesser degree, heavily scripted items, caused certain problems that were exacerbated as laggy conditions increased. These included: stuck items (unable to remove or detach), double-rezzed body-parts, failed rez layers, and alpha-related (also alpha-on-alpha) issues.

We created a process by which you have more granular control of WHEN certain body-parts were addressed during an outfit-change process to help unclog the process and space out activity.

UPDATE: SmartChange may well come in handy  when addressing the touchy issue of MESH, although not much has been done to explore how best to deal with MESH.

We made this process automated.

A WearUnwear process can be replaced by a SmartChange which does pre-processing prior to a normal WearUnwear cycle followed by post-processing that happens after the normal WearUnwear cycle.

You can have up to 5 SmartChange Sets.

You set them up on a special notecard.

You can execute them by number (1 thru 5) at the appropriate times in your routine.

AutoChange needs to be enabled as does AutoFX.

Each SmartChange Set will change an outfit with added special instructions to do pre and post processing targeting of body parts in certain folders with given delay times.

What you gain is the ability to PRE-WEAR, PRE-UNWEAR, POST-WEAR, and POST-UNWEAR specified trouble items so they are performed in a less clogged client-server communication. We give you 3 RLV folders to drop troubled items into.

They are named: Shoes, Hair, and Jewelry but you can put ANYTHING in them that you want as it does not check.

There are 3 folders that address the PRE WearUnwear cycle to the main WearUnwear cycle and 3 folders that address the POST WearUnwear cycle.

We found troubled items work best addressed in the PRE WearUnwear cycle  We found that alpha layers work best when addressed in the POST WearUnwear cycle.

You can also adjust the delay times up or down to allow these PRE and POST cycles to do their thing.

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ADVANCED

Tattoo Layers

You can address tattoo-layers separately and cause them to automatcially be removed and added in optimal order. They have been known to cause issues when not removed prior to everything else and not added back in after everything else.  We have automated this feature should you ‘turn it on’. It requires some minor preparation on your part regarding RLV folder loading.

ME folder

You can specify items that you ALWAYS wear to automatically be worn using the ME folder option. This way you dont have to always repeatedly add them to the WEAR folder. It requires some minor preparation on your part regarding RLV folder loading.

Invisibility Folder

You can cause your avatar to automatically go invisible as the result of an intentional effect by adding 1 or 2 special invisibility items in a special folder. It knows to perform this feature after an (optional) particle-effect emission. AutoInvis needs to be “on”. It requires some minor preparation on your part regarding RLV folder loading.

Rebake

Place a temporary body part that forces a rebake, like noob hair or skin into one Rebake  subfolder.  Place the real skin or hair you want to wear in a different Rebake subfolder. We found this process helped circumvent another type of outfit-change issuedwe came across. It is optional but recommended as a safety measure. It requires some minor preparation on your part regarding RLV folder loading.

Teleport

We have up to 5 entries that control teleporting out and back into a sim as we found this to sometimes be the only solution to extreme rez issues in super laggy sims.

It automates the procedure of masking the change, teleporting the avatar out to another sim, performing the outfit-change at a less-laggy sim and then returning them back to the same spot they lef.

This is where auto-particle effect-emission comes into play to help mask the outfit change procedure. You can specify where to teleport to, where to teleport back to (often a forced teleport landing spot) and then to the  2nd more specific onstage location to return you to the specific stage-spot where you left. All of this is  automatable as part of a SmartChange operation. This is extreme but is provided as an option. It requires some preparation on your part.

OuttifChange AnimationsDances

You can specify particular animations to  lead into an outfit-change and out of an outfit change, separate from other normal ways of  dancing via HUD animation-sequencing or Palette-based animation or Coupler animation. It requires some minor preparation on your part.

AutoEmission of Outfit-Change Masking via Particle-Effects

You can cause auto-generation of a few built-in particle effects to be generated during an outfit change. It requires some minor preparation on your part.

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Outfit-Change Cycles

The cycle of outfit-change process has been explored so in depth that we have itemized many  cycles that you can consider and control for advanced outfit-change situations.

The WearUnwear Cycle – tentative

1) Optionally BeginDance Into outfit-change
2) Optionally insures !Me1 folder contents are added
3) Optionally goes invisible if folder exists and AutoInvis is toggled
4) Optionally Rezzes a particle Effects Shield (if on)
5) Optionally Rezzes a rez object shield (if on)
6) Optionally Removes Tattoo Layers (if folder exists and removal is toggled on
7) Adds trouble items separately (Before phase — recommended)
8) Wears (adds) new outfit
9) Unwears (removes) old outfit
10) Wears new outfit
11) Optionally wears new outfit again x times
12) Optionally Adds trouble items separately (After phase)
13) Optionally Rebakes old then new body part
14) Optionally Removes Particle Effects (if exists)
15) Optionally Removes Shield (if exists)
16) Optionally Adds back in Tattoo layers if it applies
17) Optionally Animates EndDance if it applies
18) Optionally LAST THING Removes invisibility

Customizable Delays

SecondsAfterStartDance,5
SecondsAfterEndDance,3
SecondsAfterEffects,2
SecondsAfterMe1,4
SecondsAfterInvis,3
SecondsAfterRezObject,1
SecondsAfterUndress,5
SecondsBeforeRebake,1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial # 10: Dancing With The Artiste

We discovered (well I did late in the process) that the easiest thing to learn with the Artiste is ‘dancing’.  It is referred to as “sequencing” in the Artiste world. It is something most everyone who has performed before has done with other tools so it appears easiest to learn and transition into.

A question I get asked often is how many dances will it store? It cannot store 8,000 or anywhere near that amount nor is there intent in the foreseeable future to add mass storage-and-retrieval of SL animations  to its list of credits. It does not have a dance-recorder ability in the normal sense of the term. It does have its own approach to providing information about dances-played and associated times.

A couple of Artiste users have told me that they use other tools that do provide that standard dance-routine-building capability during the creative part of choreography and then migrate their dance choices to the Artiste for final sequencing, so I’ve been told. At least 2 dancers use the Artiste start to finish for building dance sequences and playing them.

How many dances can it hold? Well no-one has run into memory issues yet. Not to say it won’t happen in the future. Should that time come then I will address the issue.

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Number Of Sequences

The Artiste can hold up to 4 dance sequences at a time. A dance sequence is a list of line-entries on a notecard of animations followed by a separator bar followed by a time-to-play or duration.

Example:

DanceName1 | 24.1
DanceName2 | 19.8
DanceName3 | 28.7

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Number of Dancers

The Artiste Performance HUD can dance up to 9 dancers at a time. This can and has been extended to more dancers in a controlled fashion using Palette-based dancing. (example: couples dancing in the background)

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Read-Outs

The round circle in the star on the HUD menu when pressed will give out an elapsed time in an owner-only chat log, (when not used for solo-dance breakout dancing when DanceDiva is enabled)..

When DanceScriptTrace is on, then each dance name will print out with its elapsed time. This helps with timing dances.

Also, we now have (option) automatic ElapsedTime-to-Duration and Duration-to -Elapsed Time conversions upon HUD reset so you no longer need to do the math when converting from on to the other after making modifications to dance times.

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There are many ways to play animations:

1 – Immediate – Play-Sequenced and delayed. Immediately means at time zero upon pressing play.

2 – Play Sequence-Delayed means at least 1 second or more after pressing play triggered by the occurence of one or more events (up to 4, one for each of the 4 possible sequences. the PLAY_SEQ=? where ? is a number between 1 and 4 are used on the *autofx notecard to trigger the playing of a sequence tied to an event.

3 – Toggling the S-button on the face of the HUD, will cause the 1st sequence to start or stop playing.

4 – Pressing a button on the animation-menu page of the HUD that holds up to 11 dance-animations of which you can assign brief pseudonyms to.

5 – Palette-Based playing. You can sequence up to about 20 animations safely by putting them into a palette and associating each one with a move. The moves can then all be played in sequence or you can play any particular animation or you can play a specific-range of animations. If there is no movement associated with the animation as in the case of creating a ‘dummy move’, then you can play the moves in any order.

HUD sequences can also trigger all, one, or a range of moves which can themselves play animations. This is indicated by a command to play a Palette and it has its own duration just like a normal sequenced dance. It is triggered between dances in a sequence. This was inspired by MJ.

Advanced

Animations can now also be assigned to the turn-type move, pause-type move, as well as the move-type move. A Palette can trigger other Palettes to dance via Palette “actions” associated with real or “dummy” moves.

HUDs can chain to other HUDs causing their sequences to play either immediatley or upon waiting on operator action.

6 – Repeat

There is now a new Repeat command that allows all the moves and/or animations associated with them to ‘repeat’ until told to stop. This is handy for things like the running of background or atmosphere animations. Animals, birds, fish, people walking, etc. thruout a routine.

7 – Formations – (DanceDiva)

Dances can be played while changing custom-created formations by using the DanceDiva add-on that comes with the FULL A-250 GOLD package, has its own controller but is now built into the HUD and uses Follower-Relays.

NOTE: The FULL A-250 GOLD package includes 25 FREE Transfer/NoCopy Follower-Relays. These can be used to synchronize many things: Formation changes, stripping, outfit changes, Palette-2-Palette transfer

Includes 4-directional turns and break-away-and-return to formation dancing.

8 – Custom Grouping  – we often refer to this method of dancing by the slang term ofsimply “ABC”, don’t ask me how or why. You  actually can have up to 4 dance-groups called A,B ,C and D.

We have synchronous and asyncrhonous grouping using our Division method.

You can dynamically change group-sets at run-time.

Avatars or Palettes can be assigned to one or more groups.

9 – The Artiste Experience Option – Dance Leaders can offer the option to now provide for the ALLOWance of new Artiste Experience. This means dancers need no longer have to repeatedly accept dance invitations.

ALLOW once, and you are relieved as a ball-sitter. Dancers still need to be invited. They just are not saddled with having to accept an invite. This also helps mitigate failed dance-invites.

This is an option included in the Performance Dance HUD as well as the new Artiste Coupler.  There are some tolerable caveats but it HAS been tested successfully.

10 – The Auric Canon – (completed – testing)

11 – Couples Auto-Alignment and Compartmentalization (completed – testing)

12 – The Artiste MasterPiece – Animation Piecing – (completed – fixing a bug) – Allows for several animations (except the 1st) to start in the middle, played back-to-back.

13 – Segmentation – (in development)

14 – Auto-Dancing – (planned)

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I hope this lends some insight into how the Artiste is and can be used as a show-time dance tool.

Lat “Yummy” Lovenkraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial #9: Artiste Grouping

I have personally detected 6 major features for choreographers that dictate visually, movement and space centered around solo and group dancers that can be augmented by tool-featuers:

1. Dance Sequencing –  controls local dancer motion (dance-to-dance)
2. Formation Creation  and Transitioning – controls (non in-place associations)
3. Single-Dancer-Movement – controls global horizontal and vertical stage-space use of a single user
4. Grouping – controls local groupings (in-place associations)
5. Couples Pairing – control pairing and synching of 2 dancers
6. Segmentation

How these are chosen and combined seem to define the characteristics of choreography and level of sophistication. This, again, is just my own personal observation.

This tutorial discuses how the Artiste has chosed to address one of the elements. Grouping.

Grouping evolved in the Artiste from how I detected RL grouping…to how people have chosen to implement it in SL. From binary-grouping in real life to custom-multiple-grouping in SL.

Artiste Grouping

There are a maximum of 4 CORE groups in the Artiste.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D

NOTE: As soon as you provide more “types of something” than what you think anyone would need, someone comes along with a need for more. Aura wanted more groups for an idea she has but fortunately envisioned a solution of using Palettes to proxy new Groups.

Palettes can hold their own dance routines  up to about 20 dances. They can be triggered from autofx or from inside one of the 4 dance-sequences.

 So by naming Palettes with the same name, multiple Palettes can be triggered to dance their own “sequence of dances” disguised in moves that may or may not move anywhere. Triggering from inside a core sequence gives tighter sync control

An advanced method is a Palette triggering one or more other Palettes.

Meanwhile….back at the ranch…

Each group is assigned a dance sequence. 
Group A = Sequence1
Group B = Sequence2
Group C = Sequence3
Group D = Sequence4

Pretty basic.

Dancers are assigned to one group at a time

A particular assignment of groups to dancers is called a “set” or “division”; A division is simply a  series of Groups that will be assigned to dancers depending on the Grouping-Method.

An advanced feature of Grouping is that the set or division can be dynamically changed at showtime midway thru a performance.

So dancers could be assigned thusly (2 couples or boys vs girls)

Division/Set 1 (couples)
Archie  = A
Anne = A
Bob = B
Brenda = B

Division/Set 2 (gender)
Archie  = A
Anne = B
Bob = A
Brenda = B

There are currently a maximum of 9 dancers per HUD so you could assign groups in a division as an example:

From 2 dancers: AC
To 9 dancers:  ABABCABAB
Or in between:  CBABC

NOTE: For completeness  I want to address the issue of Artiste dancing large groups. Because we have employed HUD-2-HUD, a Master HUD can control, say, 11 Slave-HUDs. Each Slave-HUD could dance 9 dancers for a total of 9×11=99 dancers + the Master’s 9 dancers for a total of 108 dancers at a time. The most avatars I have seen on a sim is about 103 at one time.

A second method would be to embed the dance sequence into a Palette and rez 100 Palettes. This avoids the tedium of issuing and accepting invites.

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Meanwhile….back at the ranch…again…

There are 3 ways to assign groupings to avatars:

For simple small groups of 2 or 3 Invit-Order might be the preferred way:

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1 – Invite Order – this always assigns the HUD wearer to the 1st group. So for ecample if our Division is BAC then the HUD wearer would be assgined to Group B (sequence#2) and the 2nd person to accept an invite would be assigned to Group A (sequence#1), etc.

This is a quick and dirty method when you have 2 or 3 dancers in your group and say maybe only 2 groups, you the leader as group A and everyone else group B.  You can change the  Division assignment of the default assignment dynamcially by sending a Division command via *autofx

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2 – Troupe – this hard-assigns groups to avatars by their name/key. So if Mary is assgined Group D then she will perform sequence#4 until there is a GroupSetChange issued during mid-show. Mary can have more than one Group assigned but only ever one at a time.

Example:   Mary,(uuid),DBDA

Here we set an elaborate scheme to allow for 4 DivisionGroupChange alterations during our routine. Mary is assigned to Group D at the start then when DivisionGroupChange is 2, she will dance Group B. DivisionGroupChange 3 she would dance Group D again, and DivisionGroupChange 4 would be Group A. DivisionGroupChange is the command sent via *autofx to change the division assignments dynamically.

The good things about this method are:
1) Independent of invite-order
2) Does NOT require Palettes
3) If Palettes ARE used for other needs, Group assignments are unaffected. This allows for Sit-2-Sit Palette transfers without worry of dance-groups being affected.

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3 – Palette – this method is probably what you are used to. Group assignments based upon your relative position in the ‘line-up’. Each Palette has a letter in its name, A thru H. Divisions are assigned to those letters respectively. Assuming Palettes are laid out left to right A thru H.

So if you had 5 dancers and a Custom Group Division of say  CBABC, then Palette A would be assigned to Group C. Palette B would be assigned to Group B. Palette C would be assigned to Group A, etc.

ABCDE = Palettes
CBABC = Division

Here is a link to a video Aura: Easy As ABC – The Penguinettes
She uses CBABC as the Division and you can plainly see the 3 groups working independently mid-way thru the video.

And here is a write-up from Aura herself on the making of the video:
As Easy as ABC

did that demonstrates the Division CBABC. I forget which method, Troupe or Palette, that was used in this video but i recall we tested both in rehearsal satisfactorily.   UPDATE: She used the Troupe method.

You can change Palette-Division assignments dynamically for the Palette method as well by using the DivisionPaletteChange *autofx command.

 

There is another special command that simplifies group-swapping.

Advanced

ABOrder can flip the assignment of dance-sequences.

ABOrder = AB  (Default) means GroupA dances to Sequence1 and GroupB dances to Sequence2. But if you send an ABOrder dynamically in prior to the next dance change and its value is ABOrder= BA….then GroupA will dance sequence2 and GroupB will dance sequence1.

Same thing can ge done for Groups C & D.   ABOrder = CD and ABOrder = CD.  Of course you could accomplish the same by changing the division accordingly using the dynamic division commands learned above.

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Also new is a notification that an invite failed, even if the invitee accepted. It happens. While it won’t tell you who failed, you will know that you need to re-invite someone.

You can use the Rollcall to see who the HUD has successfully accepted and figure out who needs to be reinvited. There are also 2 other methods as double safety-checks as to which avatars the dancer-scripts believe the groups are assigned to. Rarely will you need this but they can be helpful diagnostics when an invitation fails.

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I hope you are now more comfortable knowing Artiste has a Grouping solution and are a bit more familiar with how it is implemented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial #8: The Artiste Turn

Definition
A turn, using the Artiste mover system, is its own entity. A turn describes the direction that an object or seated avatar will be facing. It has no bearing on the direction of movement of the ob ject or seated-avarar. Movement is always from one marker to the next in a straight line.

Turns are a continuous uinteruppted motion. You do not need to create a turn using several discrete partial turns.

A move takes up its very own line-entry on a notecard to describ it.
A turn ALSO takes up its very own line-entry on a notecard to describe it.

Defining Characteristics
Turns essentially have 2 defining characterictics:

1. Number of degrees to rotate
2. Direction (Clockwise or Counterclockwise

Those are inherent.

Additional Artiste-Added Characteristics:
  1. Duration – the longer the duration, the slower the turn.
  2. Animation for Turn (optional) – SL has turn-animations
that work well
  3. Pause-After-Turn – (optional) this is
number of seconds to rest after a turn just like Duration
  4. Animation for Pause-After-Turns – (optional)

Turn Elimination
Using the marker system (Method #2) the Artiste assumes you want to do a turn after every move. You can instruct it not to turn (as in… do 2 moves in a row) by simply setting the duration of the turn to zero.

Turn Creation
The easiest way to create a turn is to simply
1) Edit a marker and rotate it physically, eyeballing it. Something you are          probably already used to.
 2) You can type in a number of degrees in the Edit-Object tab

You can also click on the marker to bring up a menu and then choose:1) 3)   3) TurnLeft (counter-clockwise) or
4) TurnRight (clockwise)  or
5) Type in a specific number of degrees .

Or

6) Press AutoRotate – and every marker will immediately rotate in the direction of the next marker. A timesaver for the majority of cases. You can of course tweak any of the turn-info after the AutoRotate

Pre-Move and Post-Move
An important distinction is that with Artiste turns, they happen AFTER the move. You might be used to turns happening BEFORE the move.

Our logic is that if you walk down the street, you want to look forward while you are walking and only turn the corner when you get to the actual corner. Not better or worse…just different.

Turn-While-Moving

I also included a special type of turn for visual variety…at your discretion. It is a turn-while-moving, feature. The turn will be gradual over the duration of the move so that the turn is complete when the move ends.

It is an all-or-nothing switch for a given Palette(mover). All turns will behave that way or none will behave that way. In this case you would not have an explicit turn. The turn is embedded and implied.

Adjusting
You can use the marker-menu to adust turn-related information or you can edit the notecard directly that contains the move/turn information.

Relative vs Absolute
FYI: Turns or rotations are “relative” to where the markers prior rotation and are not absolute degrees.

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NOTE: The Controller does NOT serve as an anitial marker and plays no part in defining the route, unlike some other systems you might be familiar with so as not to be confused.

Scale
A reminder that you have control over the size of markers generated by the Controller using the Scale line-entry

Saving Moves and Turns Back Into the Palette

There are 2 ways to save your designed route, unlike the single standard method of Copy and Paste chat-output.

1) DumpMoves –  Pressing the DumpMoves button on the Controller will translate the markers movement and rotations into local owner-only chat so you can then copy and paste it into a notecard in the Palette. This is the standard way. You changes will be permanent after you save the notecard and will surive a Palette Reset. Simply Reset your Palette and then test it tracing your route with the press of one button.

2) UpdatePalett  – We have added as 2nd time-saver method of saving your moves and turns into the Palette. Press the UpdatePalett button and the moves and turns are sent directly tot he Palette. Same results as copying and pasting but without taxing your manual labor.

The only caveat is that your changes are temporary and last as long as the Palette is NOT Reset, else your changes revert back to what was hard-coded for moves prior, if any were at all. This speeds up testing quickly by saving time, allowing you to make several quick minor tweaks and testing them without extra labor and also reduces possible copy/paste errors.

Level of Effort

How Fast and Easy Can You Actually Create a New Route?

1) Press RezMarkers – Choose number of markers to rez
2) Press UpdatePalett
3) Done!

Test your route pressing one button on Palette.

OR

A more practical approach would be:

1) Press RezMarkers  – Choose number of markers to rez
or
1) Press AddMarker – reposition and rerotate each marker
2) Press AutoRotate
3) Adjust specific Durations of  the moves
4) Press UpdatePalett or press DumpMoves & Copy/Paste, save & reset
3) Done!

Test your route pressing one button on Palette.

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I think this is enough to wet your appetite and familiarize yourself enough with the Movement system so that you are not as intimidated by its ‘newness’ or ‘different-ness’.

There are 8 ways to learn or re-learn what has been presented in these tutorials as well as with new material not covered.

Ways to Learn
  1) This Ongoing Tutorial
2) Kat’s Classes – Tailored for new users & users from other systems
3) The Manuals – in-depth coverage
4) Demo Videos & Live Show Videos
5) Friendly User Group
6) BlogSite
7) WebSite
8) One-On-One assistance from me.

 

 

 

Tutorial #7: The Artiste Mover – Part 2 – Method #2

In Tutorial #6 I introduced you to our long-standing unique simplified approach to implementing object and avatar movement.

This tutorial will introduce you to our new Advanced Mover System.aka Method #2.

This method uses what we call “markers” to create a “route” of movement. It is meant to add visual acuity to lengthier routines as well as routines that include more than 1 route for either extra objects/avatars or for just 1 avatar traversing more than one route via sit-2-sit (Palette transfer);

Controller – You rez a Controller. The Controller controls creating, adding, and inserting markers plus other features. Controllers now match the color or their ‘”markers”.

There are 8 colors of Controllers and their matching Markers that match the Palette names(A-H). It is intended that colors be used to distinguish between object or avatar routes. But nothing prevents you from using more than 1 color to represent more than 1 route for a given object or avatar Palette(mover).

There are 3 types of Markers. as opposed to the traditional 1 type. I chose to distingusish the first and last marker with a different textured-face for easy locating. The maximum markers you can have is 11. This allows for 10 move-turn pairs for a given Controller. That is one Palettes(movers) worth of moves.

So you could have 1 First Marker, 1 Last Marker(at a minimum) and from 0 to 9 Normal Markers. You don’t have to worry about determining them. Their creation and choice is automatic when you create or add or insert markers.

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The following illustration shows how we can get an additiona 10 move-pairs for a total of 20 move-pairs using the same color. After 20, we would need to use an additonal color. 20 requires 2 Palettes(movers). We would use Sit-2-SIt Palette Transfer during runtime to seemlessly transition between the 2 Palettes thus creating an illusion of 20-move-turn pairs. Lets hope this more than suffices most of your needs but know that the number of possible moves is technically infinite using Sit-2-Sit.

I think I will keep this post short. And let these key elements sink in. I hope the visuals give you some idea of what your experience would be like as well as a more informed basis for which to consider whether it suits your current or future needs.

Next tutorial I will talk about the Artiste Turn. A seemingly unique feature to the Artiste Mover.

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Below are highlighted features that I feel, at this writing, uniquely identify the Artiste Mover System.

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1 – One of the  most  differentiating features is that the Artiste treats a Palette move as a special type of action that includes an optional move-type, a smooth rotation called a TURN, as opposed to a succession of short moves. Turns can have their own animation, duration, and pause-after time.

2 – Each move can have its own unique animation.

3 – Each move can trigger an associated ‘action‘ (like fading another palette) and as such a move can identify as a mini-event.

4 – A move-set (10 move-turn pairs) can be extended to subsequent move-sets via Sit-2-Sit.

5 – There is virtually no limit to the number of moves an object or avatar can make, nor is there a limit on distance.

6 – You can execute multiple move-ranges and are not limited to just one range.

7 – Moves can be triggered from the HUD at the beginning or end of a given dance when the HUD is used to sequence dances.

8 – Movers can be used for couples dancing via paired-palette naming as well as unique-palette naming..

9 – Movers can have 2 types of labels. One for the BallSitter if used as an avatar mover, and another called a NickName that indicates the purpose of a particular move in a set of moves.

10 – Artiste Movers can function as multiple type sof devices. Example: A mover could ALSO be a fader or a light or a host of other types of devices all while functioning as a mover.

11 – Movers can be part of our rezzer as our rezzer has special intelligence built in to handle the peculiarity of our mover.

12 – The Artiste Mover system has intelligence to augment reorientation between various direction-facing venues. This also facilitates the ability to MIRROR movers by using either EAST and WEST or NORTH and SOUTH oriented movers.AS WELL AS normal X and Y mirroring centering on the Anchor.

13 – There is a shortcut way of creating movers that doesn’t require the use of ‘breadcrumbs’ (Controller and Markers). Just pressing menu buttons then a copy/paste in the end. This is referred to as theMenu Method

14 – It is possible to avoid copy/paste when using the Marker Method of creating moves. This facilitates quick testing of changes to the routes for a given Palette-Mover.

15 – You can easily scale the size of the marker up or down via an entry in a notecard inside the Marker-Controller

16 – There exists the ability to REPEAT all moves for either: 1) a given number repeats, 2) a given length of time, or 3) the total length of the HUD events, 4) or when you specificially tell it to stop repeating..

17 – You can now move the root/first Marker and the others will follow using the new GroupOffset feature in design.

18 – You can reassign (Regroup) a Marker-Set to a different ArtisteID (color A-H)  along with its corresponding Controller. This allows you to easily offset dancers on different movers and then easily dump the move/turn vectors with new identifiers).

19 – Individual Color Coding of HoverText for each marker to more easily identify matching marker-points for different ArtisteIDs (Avatar-Movers)

20 – Marker HoverText now contains total  move times (move-time, pause-after-move-time, turn-time, and pause-after-turn-time)  and accumulated marker times.

21 – MarkerTrails – see markers light up and glow in order of execution. You can specify how long they remain lit and if you want all markers or just a particular group to light up. Odds glow white. (ACEG) and Even glow yellow (BDFH).

22 – Pauses can have their own animation

23 – Nearly completed is our new auto-alignment for couples-animation. No manual-intervention required.

Tutorial #6: The Artiste Mover – Part 1

The main motivator for a person to try the Artiste has been “if they have a friend who uses it”. That has been the leading buying pattern; a personal testimonial.

Such was one case where a person was somewhat impressed with the long laudtry list of features, although they candidly admitted that they didnt know what half the features did. They were cajoled to consider trying it out aided by a strong unrelenting recommendation from a long-time user. But the new potential user made an eerie remark to me, something to the affect of: “If your system does not have a mover, I will never use it…but if it has a does have a mover, then I know I will never use anything else”. The Artiste had a mover system at the time, albeit, simplistic, so I was not sure if it would suffice. Turns out it did the trick.

The topic of ‘mover’ is a very weighty one. It is so deep that I won’t even entertain the thought of covering it all in one blogpost. If it wasnt for the keen interest and existing wide base of user-awareness, I probably would not consider it as a topic for non-Artiste owners.

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The Artiste offers 2 primary ways to create object/avatar movers. I call them Method #1 (Palette Menu) and Method #2 (Marker-Controller).

There is an illustrated manual on the topic…the longest manual at 122 pages…but…I did gave a mock one-on-one familiarity class to Aura and I was able to cover the whole book in one hour, albeit without any hands-on or Q&A.

I suspect in reality that it might be broken up into 2 or 3 classes to allow for hands-on, Q&A, homework, etc.

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Method #1 just uses a single Artiste Palette and Artiste  Anchor.

Method #2 uses an Artiste Controller and Artiste Anchor and the Controller generates 2 to 11 Artiste Markers that define the route.

Method #1 was born during the video entitled The Battle . The Battle (video). I got the idea that it would be cool to have chess pieces move as part of the routine while it was in development. I wasnt sure it would work as envisioned but it did.

It was even at that point that I decided that this thing, at the time called an Artiste Gadget and later renamed to Artiste Palette, would do more than just ‘move’.  I didnt want to create a new ‘thing’ everytime I got a new idea or need.

Three videos later the need arose to plan and see a route visually identified at key points along the way during a video called Sisters Sisters (video). This need came from Aura and so I whisked up something quick to faciliate the mapping out of 2 mirrored routes. Each avatar route consisted of 6 or 7 moves including a turn and descension down stairs. And thus theMethod #2 (Controller-Marker) system was born, albeit crude in its design, it was the 1st and last time I believe that it was used.

(A sidenote: I had developed a moving system about 3 years ago back in 2012 while at Orchids, abeit clunky in its design, it worked, going up and down stairs with animated walk and turn and I was excited but didnt garner the enthusiasm from peers enough for me to make it a paramount endeavor at the time and so the idea died. Little did I know it would garner such interest later on)

Meanwhile, the Controller-Marker system sat on the shelf until summer of this year when I decided to revamp it and combine it with a couple of other features. I was able to kill 3 birds with one stone in the redesign. It took the whole summer but I managed to trudge thru it.

And thus was born the new Advanced Mover System. I don’t claim it as advanced over other systems. The adavanced moniker applies to being advanced over what we already had.

Method #1 covers the 1st 25 pages in the manual. Method #2 covers the next 97 pages.

Sounds scary I bet?

But…I am able to create a working moving object-mover Palette in 8 seconds using Method #2, albeit using default values.

I just like to go slow and spell things out and try not to leave any gaps in the learing process when I create manuals and it is very feature-rich compared to its former incarnation.

And those who have been using Method #1 don’t seem interested in the new Method #2 because they say Method #1 is so easy. But they posit that people coming from other mover systems would find Method #2 an easier transition.

I agree that Method #1 is easy and the way to go and recommended by me if you have about 3 or less moves of which I think covers 95% of mover situations. A beginning move followed by a turn and an ending move usually suffices most needs, from what I have seen.

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Method #1: Creating a single object-move

1) Rez Palette and Anchor. Move Palette to its  first position relative to the Anchor…press the  DumpInitial button

2)  Press  StartMove button, move the palette,  then press EndMove button. Then press DumpMove.

3) Copy and Paste the owner-only chat output into the *moves nc, change NoOfMoves from 0 to  1. Change Moveable,off to Moveable,on in *palette nc. Save nc and Reset the Palette. Palette will move and rotate to its home position and rotation orientation.

Done!

To test, press TestAllMoves. Your Palette will move

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Method #1: Creating a 2nd object-move

To add a 2nd move to the end of this 1st move

1) Press EditMove. Press the 2 button

2) Repeat steps 2 and 3 (change NoOfMoves to 2 and dont need to set Moveable because its already changed)

Done!

To test, press TestAllMoves. Your Palette will move 1st move then 2nd move.

Making it into an Avatar-Mover takes a few more steps.

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I kept this simple and short as I could. And yes it uses default values but it is easy to edit new values into the nc to change the duration or add a pause time at the end.

Adding a turn is as easy and will be covered  in another Tutorial. I just wanted to introduce you to how Artiste approaches moves and the level of effort involved.

Pressing buttons, moving the Palette, editing a nc, and copy/pasting are the 4 primary operations.

Lat “Yummy” Lovenkraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial #5: Artiste Events

I hope those who’ve been following my tutorials have come away knowing more than they knew before about the Artiste.

In real  life one could think of an event as a meanrngful, memorable, milestone in a persons life.  When you got married, , birth of a child, high-school graduation, major surgery, entering the military, getting engaged, your wedding, your honeymoon, an illicit affair, separation, divorce,  auto-accident, death, funeral, an arrest,  drunk-and-passed out, a physical altercation, your first-love, close-calls, fired-from-job, awards, etc.

I think we remember events more than dates. we can sort of put these in some sort of meaningful order…as to how they relate to each other…easier than we can assign exact dates or even years to them.  Example: I had to have surgery after my accident which was a day before Thanksgiving day. They brought me turkey from home.

We often express events in terms of other events. I plan to start a family 2 years after I am married. I plan to enter the military upon high-school graduation. I lost my job during the recession. I plan to take college-prep courses prior to entering college.

This is the  approach taken to demark when things are to happen in a performance of scheduled events. Its a different mindset but one I find more meaningful than an “arbitrary timeline of things”.

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Performance Events You Already Know

I first got the idea from Nottoo who blogged on usng song-structure changes to identify when dances should transition from one to another. Example: Song intro, chorus, verse, bridge, solo

For performing, those are good arbitrary event markers when nothing else comes to mind because we have already identified them as events, having  assigned names to them. We know when they happen relative to each other.

As you progress from song-changes, obvious other events come to mind…curtain open, curtain close, special lyrics or sound-fx embedded in a song. Song endings/beginnings from a medley of songs.

Artiste uses events at its core. Nothing that is sequenced can really happen without events. All the fun interesting stuff you do will be tied to events.

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The Artiste Event

Events are defined on a notecard. One event per line. Each HUD event has a number from 1 to 20 assigned to it.  You can use less than 20.

Each event has a name you give it.

And each event has a time value in seconds.

This can be duration or elapsed time.

The 2 examples below are identical but are 2 different ways to express the same sequence of events. If you can understand the difference then you know how to create events in the Artiste.  Event #1 happens 10 seconds after pressing PLAY. Event #2 happens 15 seconds after pressing play.  This about as technical as these Tutorials will get.

Example #1:

DURATION
1,”Event #1″,10.0
2,”Event #2″,5.0

Example #2:

ELAPSED
1,”Event #1″,10.0
2,”Event #2″,15.0

So now your HUD notecards (for emoting, adorning, stripping, auto-special-fx, audience-directed-camming, announcing, dance-sequencing, outfit-changes), that express when things are to happen, use the event number, (just 1 or 2) in this example, to tell when things will happen. The beauty is that by changing the event times (10 & 5  OR 10 & 15), all things attached to that event automatically move with it in time either forward or backward.

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The AutoFX Function and Notecard

Most notecards limit what you can do to one thing per line on a notecard (i.e. dances, emotes).

But for the special-FX notecard (we call it AutoFX), you can specify multiple things to happen at nearly the same time for a given event. AutoFX controls things external to the HUD like movers, Palettes, etc. Your only limit is 255 characters for a given notecard line. And using the special WAIT command, when you specify multiple things to happen at the same event, you can create fine  adjustments and offsets BETWEEN the  multiple things that happen for a given event so they all don’t have to happen at the exact same time.

In fact, a special defining feature of the Artiste is built-in redudancy that helps you get out of tight spots. Did you know that using our powerful AutoFX, you can emulate all of the other functions as well?

Yep!  This list includes: Playing a dance sequence, emoting, adorning, outfit-changes, audience-directed-camming, stripping, as well as…!!!ALL of the 80 to 90 action-features of the Palette!!!.

There are also other subtle features assignable to AutoFX, like singalling a change in choreagraphy-grouping, dance-formation changing, curtain control, HUD chaining….and the list goes on.

======================
Palette-based Mini-Events

One last notable ADVANCED feature on the topic of telling performance-stuff when to happen is…the Palette “action” or mini-event.

You already know you can have up to 20 major events per HUD and each major event can trigger one (or more) Palettes to move as well as do a zillion other things.

Well you can define about 20 moves inside of one Palette (not to be confused with the 20 HUD events). Each of those moves can serve as a mini-event meaning you can attach what we call an “action” to the move. And also realize that a move can be a dummy move or place-holder for an action. Each dummy move would ahve a duration associated with it  but no distance to travel or rotation to turn.

So when, say, HUD event #1 tells a given Palette (or more) to perform all (or a range) of its moves, then that Palette can begin to perform mini-events in the form of actions attached to moves,  one-after-the other and do actions and not just moves, or actions in concert with moves.

What this offers is finer granularity as well as being economcial with your 20 major events by passing off extra event-work to a Palette.

This Action can be any of the 80-90 cool action-feature thingys that  Palette can do. So this means that within one HUD event, you can have several Palette-based-mini events that do things. And, a palette-action can and often does contol what other Palettes do.

20×20 = 400 major and minor events so this ability could address the needs of someone who wanted to put on an uninterrupted hour long presentation…theoretically. And by using HUD chaining, you can introduce manual intervention where you could have manual control over say a few different major acts within a given hour-long show.

Of course you probally wouldnt start ouit this advanced.

Keep it simple.

Grow slowly.

One event talks to one palette and tells it to perform just one move and then graduate and tell it to perforam all of its moves. Then graduate to telling it to do a ‘range of moves‘. And then graduate to Palette-actions.

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I hope I didnt overwhelm you. There are a few more nice features that I didn’t cover.  What I covered here are the basics.

We have a manual on events that goes over what I just talked about here and classes will go over events as well. And you can ask for one-on-one help on top of the manual and classes.

Artiste events are powerful, flexible, precise, and are at the core of  how Artiste operates best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial #4: The Artiste Palette

What is it?

The Artiste Palette, simply stated, is a unique concept, and methodology for “extending” the reach and ability of the Artiste Performance HUD.

It came into being after satisfying multiple requests to friends for special one-time scripts to do this and special one-time scripts to do that. I simply gathered up all th contrubitions that myself and Jemma, a fellow scriptor, have provided over the years, and then added what i felt was a full compliment of anything else that people might and would ask for in the future. Everything except the kitchen sink.

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Inside a Palette

As of this writing, it is comprised of 10 scripts, (2 of them optional), and 5 notecards (3 of them optional).  Anything that is modifiable can be a Palette. Just copy the scripts and notecards into its root prim.  Special handling and consideration should be taken when turning a multi-prim object into a Palette.

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Friends

So imagine that you know you could accomplish a special task if only you knew how to script, but you cannot script yourself. So you go to a friend and ask them to script the solution for you. And then you ask another friend the next time. Then you ask friends if they have a script to do such-and-such.

And you really want it to perform a little bit different than the last time you used it but you don’t know how to modify it so you try and find someone to modify it . You may find someone or you give up and ‘settle’ for how it works.

The Palette was created to address people who have ‘imagined needs’ that are able to ‘follow a recipe of instructions’ and can edit a notecard.

It requires attention to ‘sets of instructions’ and an ability or determination to find and fix typos.

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Illustrated Manual

There is a 70-plus-page illustrated intellibook on the features of the Palette. You learn how to ‘make it do stuff‘ by changing parameters on the 5 notecards.

The 5 notecards inside of the Palette tell it “what” it can do and become.

The instructions you write on 2 notecards in the HUD tell it “when” to execute.

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Horizontal vs. Vertical Thinking

Up until now, you may have had a tool that does cool things and may specialize in a few cool things. And once you learned how to make it do a cool thing, you made it to that same cool thing many times. The more times you made it do that same thing, the better and more able and proficient you felt. I compare that to “vertical” creation.

The Artiste focuses on “horizontal” creation. The goal is to do many different things one time each. Like adding more colors to a graduating from black-and-white to color. The more colors, used creatively, the more vibrant is the creative expression.

I don’t posit it as ‘better than’, just a different approach, an additonal choice, an extra tool in your tool-box,  that offers more variety and options and allows one’s creativity to ‘stand-alone’. Once you have become adept at vertical-creation, horizontal-creation may be a logical next step to unleash your more of your creative energies.

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Compound vs Complex

The Palette lends it self to compound as well as complex construction.

Compound means that it can be “more than one thing at the” same time’. You saw an example of that in the beginning  State-Of-Shock video State-Of-Shock video when it shows one Palette serving as a “mover” a “light”, and an “animated texture”. It had to be first imagined that combining them would produce a desired result.

As of this writing, there are in excess of  80 “things that a Palette can become and/or do”. I call them “action-features”.

Complex means that when 2 ‘action-features’ happen in succession and careful order of executio, they tell a mini-story by their very association an. I present 2 examples.

1st example: Letters From the Sky

At the beginning of this video, Aura falls over backwards over a cliff and then continues to fall down a cliff. Those are 2 different action-features, tip and move of the Palette that occur 1 after the other. They convey a mini-story when presented in close proximity to one another. But it had to be ‘imagined first’. The Palette does not come with pre-ordered sets of compound creations.

2nd example: Stink

Here is an idea I had and then implemented it. A foul odor in a room that i want to get rid of. The window opens and the stink exits the room thru the window, changing its color as it does to imply its composition is affected by the onset of fresh-air. It is, again, a one-after-the-other sequence of 2 actions, that tells a mini-story, that of clearing a room of an undesired odor.  By themselves the 2 events, window opening and stink moving don’t say as much as the 2 together.

I am suggestiong that the constant presence of the 80+ action-features AND your ability to make your own personal adjustments helps empower you to create using manageable building blocks.
You can change not just the color of the stink dynamically but also any other particle-parameter(s).  And I even provide the notecards I used to  create this mini-story. This is how many unique mini-stories still to be told. 7.156946e+118  (over ‘7 followed by 119 zeros’) using the Artiste system.

The window is just one of 50 easily-controllable binary-state objects that come as part of a complimentary package I call Set-Responders. (There is an additional charge for this package and is not part of any Artiste offering). You can of course find your own very inexpensive or free binary-state items that accept chat commands and then substiture appropriately.

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Customizable

It is important to note that the action-features are not static. Each has been intimately addressed as to how best to offer adjustable notecard-parameters to change and expand its behavior and presentation.

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Owning It

With the adoption of the Artiste Palette, you would transition from “No big, deal. I can do that too” …to…”I did this, my own creation that I had personally not seen done before”.

Enjoy the experience of peers and/or audience members coming up to you asking you ‘How did you do that?” Or all of a sudden seeing a lot of copycatting of your invention.

I think the fact that the 80+ action-features, plus the dozen or so Palette abilities, which I have not discussed yet, plus the several HUD functions, all in combination and ever-present in your face, constantly remind you of what different mixture of Artiste-colors you can blend either in a compound or complex way or combinations of the both.

What is a Palette Ability?

There are currently 15 abilities. Abilities are like light-switches either on or off. If off, then action-features requirding it cannot be performed. Example: A palette cannot be a mover if the ability “moveable” is not on, even though it has all the moves defined. They help narrow or filter what a Palette can and cannot do or be as well as help limit interference.

Well you have already glimpsed at some of them:
You know about:

Moveable (State-Of-Shock)
Texturable (State-Of-Shock)
Lightable (State-Of-Shock)
Sittable (State-Of-Shock)
Animatable (State-Of-Shock)
Throwable (State-Of-Shock ending)
Particles (State-Of-Shock ending)
Collidable (State-Of-Shock ending)
Attachable (State-Of-Shock ending)

So you now already know half of them and probably how they were applied.

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Imagine Then Do

It is like seeing a random spread of scrabble letters and imagining what words you can make from the letters. Letters in close proximity to each other give you clues as to what words can be made. The Artiste is like that cause you are always seeing letters that could make up words.

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And so lastly I will list some of the features of the action-features of the Palette, many of which you have seen in action:

Object Mover
Avatar Mover
Thrower – Throw, catch, roll, drop, dribble, boomerang, sail,
ricochet, matrix, stop-motion, kick, and more
While the thrower is briefly covered in the Palette book, it is so
intricate and advanced that it has its own 50-page book.

Animated Texture – (you can start and stop as well as animate for a set
number of times)

Tip
Fader – (many customizable controls)
Oscillator
Collider
Rezzer
Die
Light
Sit-2-Sit – Palette Transfer
FollowSpot
Glow
Control
Particles
Flash

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I hope this tutorial on the Artiste Palette and the previous tutorial on the Artiste Performance HUD will help you make a more informed decision on whether or not to adopt one of the reduced-price package offerings good thru the month of December 2015.

In case you missed the prior tutorials, here are convenient links:

Tutorial #1

Tutorial #2

Tutorial #3

Lat “Yummy” Lovenkraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tutorial #3: The Artiste Performance HUD

The Artiste Performance HUD is the centerpiece of the Artiste Performance Suite. Let us familiarize with some of its basics.

The HUD “functions”.

On the face of the HUD are buttons that can toggle red and green
except for the yellow button that does not toggle. It is always
active. Clickin the yellow button brings up a menu.

The purpose of the buttons, that represent the primary “functions”
of the Artiste, is to be able to jointly test different combinations of funtionality while at the same time excluding other functionality.

The idea being to simplify creation and testing scenarious by temporarily
suppressing functionaly that might other wise muddle the waters, so to speak.

Once you have an area of functionaly tested, then suppress it by toggling it RED.

Now focus on a new area.

To start the HUD playing all of your “enabled functional instructions“,  press the GREEN PLAY button that looks like a triangle pointing right.

To stop the HUD from playing your set of instructions prior to it reaching its normal end, press the RED SQUARE button.

 

Artiste Primary Functions

The Functions are now listed with the most used functions at the top.

1 – AutoFX – This function essentially allows you to control devices that are ‘external’ to the HUD. It uses chat commands to start, modify, and stop various devices, the most prevalanet being the Artiste Palette. This is the most used notecard because if its wide flexibility.

There is a nc called *autofx. Each line on it corresponds to 1 of 20 events or points in time after pressing start that you want to be able to specify 1 or more funtions to occur. More about events in a  subsequent tutorial.

And you can have multiple actions on a given line. So you can instruct multiple actions to have for a given event, limited to 255 characters.

External devices other than the Artiste Palette include but are not limited to: Artise Camera Controller, Artiste Curtain, Artiste DanceDiva, Artiste SetRezzer, and devices made by other creators that accept chat control.

Unlike most systems that exclusively communicate via chat-channel numbers, the Artiste HUD communicates  not only via channel numbers but ‘names‘ at certain situations for easier identification.

2 – AutoSequence – This controls wether you will be dancing animation sequences.  There are 2 ways to ‘dance’. Immediately upon pressing PLAY. This is handy when you want to start dancing when you first hear music.
The other is to start a sequence playing in sync with one of the 20 events that you will define. The Artiste allows for up to 4 sequences per HUD. Each Sequence can have 1 or more animations in it.

One important attribute of a sequence of animations is the ability to instruct one or more Palettes to ‘do something‘, moving being just one of the things you could tell a Palette to do. Just like an animation, you tell it how long you want it to perform it before continuing to the next
animation. This allows you to easily synchronize Palette features to occur at precise moments just before or after a given animation.

3 – AutoAdorn – This is the function used to add props, make props appear attached, to the HUD wearer. There is now also a ‘negative adorn‘ which allows for the removal of a prop. This can also apply to a layer of clothing.

And a new feature is the Adorn Swap that allows for a simultaneous exchange of props attached to 2 different body parts. This is how a Hat-from-Head-to-Hand or Hat-in-Hand-to-Head can be more easily performed in one command rather than using an add and a remove.

There is now some overlap in functionality between AutoAdorn and AutoStrip. But this flexibility allows ways for you get out of tight jams.
Giving you extra events to accomplish prop/clothing removal.
AutoAdorn also has the ability to occur at a given offset in time to an event as opposed to
exactly on the event. This has proven invaluable in tight-timing-synchronization situations.

4 – AutoStrip – The Artiste started out solely as a tool to aid burlesque dancers in helping to streamline the process of removing items of clothing so a lot of work has been put into this one area. There is aA lot of flexiblity.

AutoStrip allows for the removal of layers of clothing or attachments …either a single layer or attachment from several layers or attachments to the same body part…or ALL layers and attachments for a given body part.

It is one of few areas that can work manually as well as sequenced.
The Standard A-250 package comes with 25 NOCOPY but TRANSFER/MOD FREE relays. These are to be worn by members in group performances so performers can perform functions in sync with each other  like Adorning, Negative-Adorning, Stripping, Swapping, etc.

5 – AutoEmote – this function is pretty straight forward. You control whether the HUD will send emotes to local chat. You caan also send the HUD wearer ‘warnings’. Other options include name spoofing. You are allowed 1 emote per event for a maximum of about 20 emotes per HUD, using just AutoEmote. Recently we enabled AutoAnnounce to also produce emotes in local chat, so now yo have an additional 20 for a total of 40 chat lines per HUD. And on top of that, if that is not enough, since AutoEmote and AutoAnnounce are tied to events….Palettes can produce local chat emotes…So essentially an unlimited amount of chats per HUD.

And is Palette-based emoting is over-bearing for you, there is HUD chaining to more easily extend 40 chats with another 40.  40 for each new chained HUD.

And yes you can use /ME in your chat line There is also an entry that simultaneously delivers a chat to a chat-extender or shouter on a channel you choose.

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What has been presented is a lot to absorb for those new to the Artiste so I will cut this tutorial short. I will briefly identify the other areas but not in as much depth.

6 – AutoChange – this is for outfit/costume changes

7 – AutoAccess – this was born from the need to quickly get to and control common show-time functions like: Curtain Open/Close, logging in and out,  showing and hiding palettes, hovertext control on palettes, group-dance assignments, dance invites, resetting of palettes, homing them, etc

One in-demand feature is the ability to send ‘all sittable‘ palettes
to their 2nd move and then wait for the HUD-wearerto press PLAY. This allows for easy sending of people below stage or above stage or elsewhere hidden in preparation for actual show-start

8 – AutoAnnounce – much like AutoEmote, only it sends to a different channel

9 – AutoCam – controls automated controlled-camera viewing to the audience. There is Also has built-in StageSight that allows the HUD-wearer to quickly see the stage and themselves and/or group as the audience sees them and instant angle-change to the tipjar.

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I hope this has shed enough light on most of the key functionality of the Artiste Performance HUD for those considering purchase. Up next will be a more in-depth look at what the Palette can do.

In case you missed the prior tutorials, here are convenient links:

Tutorial #1

Tutorial #2

Lat “Yummy” Lovenkraft

Tutorial #2 – Artiste Suite Overview

Trying to wrap one’s mind around the Artiste can be challenging so hopefully this will help you see the bigger picture. The main 2 pieces to understand at this point is the Artiste Performance HUD and the Palette. Not listed in the chart, for brevity sake, are other entities like the Master Rezzer (for sets) and the Artiste Curtain, and something HUGE coming in 2016..

As you can see, the HUD can communicate to many entities, not the least of which is that it can communicate to another Artiste Performance HUD.
It has 2 ways to talk to itself. By loading another HUD and then waiting for the HUD wearer to tell the newly loaded HUD to run. Or…it can autorun the new HUD without any operator-interevention and then old HUD and deatch itself. We call this HUD-chaining.

HUD-chaining allows for an infinite number of control stages when one runs out of HUD resources: like events, emotes, dances, etc. This is handy for those 1 hour-plus productions.

99%  of the time you can get by with extending a HUD’s capabilities by using one or more Palettes. While the HUD has about a dozen or more primary funtions, its abilities are extended to about 100 more what I call, action-features, by using a Palette.

Think of a Palette as the friend or source you go to when you need a special script. Maybe a fader script, as an example. Well now you can bypass the friend and the need to acquire a script .

The Palette can be that fader, one of the 100 or so things it can be or do.

You no longer need to settle for a fader scripts fixed settings. You can customize your fader using the Palette notecards. Oscillation, transparency limits, intervals, single-shot (credit to little Zed from whom I got the idea) …to name a few.

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A Palette is copyable so you can have a HUD control more than 1 Palette.

A Palette can can control another Palette.

A Palette can create another Palette.

A Palette can communicate back to the HUD.

A Palette can talk to products from other creators.

Anything that is modifiable can be a Palette. It is not restricted to the object you get that is a single-prim box. No linking required although it is not prohibited from linking.

Many of you are now familiar  with movers. The Palette is what becomes a mover in the Artiste world. It can be an Object-Mover. It can be an Avatar-Mover.

The Artiste Palette can be a mover AND other things (if that is your choice)  at the same time. And you can tweak the characteristics of the ‘other things’ it can be.

Here is a link to a video where 12 Palettes are in use. I wish to to direct your attention to the opening. A Palette is: An avatar-mover AND an animated-texture AND an Artiste-Light.  Later on in this video, the same Palette-based-Avatar-Mover morphs into an Palette-based- Object-Mover and is instructed at precise times, from the HUD, to follow the moves of the animation. Insane. More crazy stuff happens near the end of the video but for now focus on its ability to: 1) behave like multiple items and 2) to change what it is and how it behaves dynamically. NOTE: A Palette as a mover can perform different selected ranges of moves from a given move-sequence and is not restricted to all-or-nothing execution of all-moves.

Credit to Aura Fitzgerald (auricrose Resident) for: Concept, Choreography, Design, and Execution

State-Of-Shock Video (compound Palette)

For a more in-depth analysis of the techniques, see this link:

State-Of-Shock (Behind the Scenes)

and scroll down to where it says: “STATE OF SHOCK –  Video  – Watch the video ==>“

It goes without saying that this is an advanced adaptation of Artiste technology and not something one could expect to master over-night or even a few nights but it does show what is possible with “imagination” and perserverance married with technological innovation.

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One person told me after hearing of the wide berth of offerings, “wow, you’d better have good support“.

That is an understatement with the weight of this offering. Thats why support doesnt end with a website, manuals, and videos.  So very key is ‘attitude‘. So very key is ‘patience‘. So very key is ‘availability‘. As are ‘product knowledge‘ and ‘product experience‘.

You will ask what you feel are stupid questions. Its ok. Not to me. Fine by me. Used to it. There are no stupid questions because that is the state of a new person learning.

You may ask the same question over and over. Its ok. Fine by me. I am us used to it.  I will answer you again.

In fact, I dont feel users elicit personal one-on-one help often enough. It is often pride or fear of feeling stupid or a determination to figure things out on their own. But this can lead to wasteful hours especially if its a simple thing like a typo, systax, or a rule they may be unaware of. I have seen and solved so many issues. Even issues that are not the fault of the Artiste but are an anomaly of SL. I still try to offer a solution. Quite a few Artiste abilities are the result of overcoming SL limitations and anomalies. I go out of my way not rely on “It’s SL, live with it”.

And yes, sometimes you will be doing everything right and its really a bug. That’s why its important not to ‘beat yourself up’ needlessly. I am very attentive to fixing bugs and 95% are solved same day, Often within the 1st hour.

And the best time to ask questions is in the beginning when you are trying to get a foothold and gain confidence.

You can ask anything you want in group from other users. I encourage people helping people. Our users are very eager to lend assistance.

 

I will keep this 2nd in a series of tutorials short and brief and let this material sink in. Hope you gained some insight.

Lat “Yummy” Lovenkraft

P.S.

I don’t want to overwhelm people with a myriad of information about the Artiste. The purpose of the tutorial series is to deliver byte-sized and digestable portions of information and ease people into the Artiste. But at the suggestion of a few others,  I will provide a link to our blog-site that has more information, however I would hope you would try your best to hold off going there unless you are unable to contain your curiosity.

The Artiste Blogsite