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 #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 #1: Introduction to the Artiste Performance HUD & Suite for Non-Owners

Attitudes seem to be changing about the Artiste or maybe attitudes towards interest in ‘new dance-community technology’. There was a time when few knew or seemed to want to know about the Artiste or the applicability of modernized-dance-tools. I take partial responsibility because 1) its steep price-tag and 2) it not having a store presence or MP presence like my other products. However a store presence does not always insure a safety-blanket of support, as in the case of the Huddles and a few other dance HUDs. I have been in SL 8 years daily, missing only a few  days due to illness or internet availability. I am approachable, helpful, and very patient .

Due to its price and intricacy, it is preferred to have a short casual Q&A interview with prospective buyers to make sure the product has a fair chance to meet their expectations as opposed to people buying it off the shelf without having their questions  answered and have some confidence that their specific needs are cared for.

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Times have changed and people seem accustomed to a ‘process’ of using one or more tools, sometimes tools in concert with each other, to help aid in  presenting a cohesive and more professional solo or group stage performance.

Also there are so many new performers in SL that were not here a year or more ago so this is a good time to introduce the Artiste to the ‘new’ as well as reintroduce it to those who were or are vaguely familiar with it.

The goal is, of course, in presenting a comprehensive tool is to witness  and enable people to simply do cool, great, fun, and creative things via technological ingenuity!

I think there is currently an ongoing hunger for something new or a ‘next new(big?) thing’ as has been hinted in several interactions with people in the dance community.

Kat and I discussed what seemed to be a prevailing malaise of creative energy for many, but of course not everyone.

There are so many venues and so many acts and performers that there are a lot of recurring themes, sets, costumes, dances, songs…and all justifiable because they are learning firsts for those newcomers who have just as much right to travel down the roads of  discovery as their forebearers. It is hoped that a new tool might go a long ways to invigorating the creative process. I like to think of the Artiste as a tool able to help unleash the creative-centers  and amplify a person’s ideas to new heights and expanses. Something to kickstart one’s imagination.

We also shared the view that although new-technology is good and a timely ‘new shiny’, that without a passionate creative-center, few if any new cool-tools will make a person a ‘next performing-wonder’ nor bring a modicum of self-satisfaction.

And people also seem very amenable to learning new things as well as relearning what they think they already know, with the sudden explosion of training and classes on a wide variety of dance-related topics.

It seems the time is right for a ‘something else’. Not  necessarily a replacement but an adjunct to the tools one is already successful with.

Some have asked that I offer a class on Artiste along-side of other product offerings taught in classes that have been offered as well as future classes.

Others have offered to help teach the Artiste.

And more than a few people have suggested that I present an on-going digestible tutorial on the Artiste for non-owners who wonder what it is all about.

It appears all signs point to an emergence of information presented to help close the gap of knowledge about it.

And that is what this series of articles will be about. A presentation specially tailored for the non-owner of the Artiste.

So that means that it will be much less technical than previous offerings and more general.

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PRODUCT PRICING

GREAT NEWS!

First let me announce that there are now 4 NEW price-tier offerings lest you turn off now due to its former prohibitive lofty single price tag. More than a few people have requested partial-product offerings.

A-50: 1 NOCOPY/NOTRANS/MOD HUD      5,000L
A-75: 1 NOCOPY/NOTRANS/MOD HUD & COPY/MOD Palette      7,500L
A-100: 2 NOCOPY/NOTRANS/MOD HUDs & COPY/MOD Palette  10,000L

A-250: The Standard Artiste Performer Series. 25,000 L

The A-50, A-75, and A-100 are only guaranteed valid From December 1st, 2015 thru December 31st, 2015.

I will expand on the differences in a subsequent post.

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NOTE: The Palette is required in order to create object-movers and avatar-movers as well as all of the special-extended show-effects.

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The new pared-down package offerings are meant to be entry-level affordable and provide accessible and practical learning models. The HUDs and Palettes are fully functional and are not intentionally crippled in functionality. The Standard package may be more than what many people need. These product offerings allow people to ease-in to the Artiste mind-set.

You also get the same level of support, access to all information and educational sources including our: group, blog, website, classes, and unlimited one-on-one support.

All future upgrades are FREE.

And YES, what you pay for the 3 low-tier offerings are 100% applicable should you decide to upgrade to a higher tier-level at a later date. And YES, your upgrade offers survive the 2016 deadlin.e

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Who is the Artiste targeted for?

1) Advanced Choreographers/Performers who are ready to take that ‘next step’. Those looking for ‘a next big thing’. Those who like to position themselves on a leading edge.

2) Those who are patient and determined

3) Those who are reasonably technically savvy.

4) I don’t recommend the Artiste to someone who has never used any dance-hud prior and/or never edited a note-card unless you are very tech-savvy and accustomed to picking up new technoligies with ease and acumen.

5) Those accustomed to scheduling their in-show activities to occur at specific pre-planned times. This means everything is sequenced.

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The Artiste

Ok so what can be said about the Artiste to those new to it or unfamiliar that it even exists? The following descriptives come to mind:

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HUD-Centric

It is an all-encompassing precision performance suite for burlesque and cabaret stage soloists and groups, the heart of which is the Artiste Performance HUD. The HUD tells the other parts of the suite what to do, how to do it, where to do it, and when to do it.

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Features-List

The Artiste has an ungodly amount of features so I won’t even attempt to enumerate them as it would serve no good purpose now and likely do more harm than good.

I will attempt to highlight the most important and popular ones in coming tutorials.

The good news is you can do a lot with just a few features and pick and choose which of the various other features you want to focus your energies on.

Many are easy to use. You dont need to learn or master all of them or even most of them in order to find utility and usefulness from the product.

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Analogies

The Artiste Suite can be likened to:

– a science laboratory kit-experimrent with mixing chemicals

– a Lego-kit, with the Palette likened to a transformer-toy that can be a say, a robot or car or weapon.

– an iceberg. Only maybe 25% of its capabilities have been tapped, 3/4ths of it abilites remain unchartered.

– the difference between power-steering and the gas pedal in car. Some tools you may be familiar and comfortable with you expend very little effort, comparatively speaking, and get a many times the results, albeit that you are not moving forward but side to side. The Artiste is like a gas pedal.. The more pressure you apply the faster it goes and the farther it goes …but you need to keep applying pressure to keep going.

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Discovery

It is a discovery tool. You can make unique personal discoveries using imagination, experimentation, perseverance, and patience.

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Identifying Strategy

You can combine more than 2 or more features to create a new hybrid feature.

By imaginative ordering of the execution of 2 or more features, you can also create dynamic run-time cause-and-effects. I will demonstrate in a subsequent tutorial.

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Pre-Scheduler/Sequencer

While it does have some ‘press-this-button, make-this-happen-now‘ features it was engineered to pre-schedule a wide variety of activities in close coordination with one another. This is familiar with the way you sequence dances to occur one afte ther other by pressing a button. THe idea with Artiste is to sequence everything else as well, emotes, special-fx, outfit-modifications, etc.

To the dismay of some, it is not a primary-support-tool for those who like to dynamically make things happen during show-time, though there are some measures that can be taken to accomplish immediacy with some imaginative effort.

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Reminder

It is an all-in-one-tool by choice. The reason being that from the layout of the HUD to the concept of ‘Palette abilities‘ to the simple long laundry list of features and Palette-Actions, it is meant to be a constant reminder of ‘other things it can do‘. Its ever-present array of offerings is meant to help stimulate you into being more creative.

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Dedication

I strongly do not recommend it for someone ladened with having to put out 1 or more shows a week as others have fallen into the trap of thinking they can learn a cool new Artiste-technique and implement it in one weeks time ready for their upcoming show as an adjunct to what they were are already doing with other tools.

While it does have a history of playing well with some others, I would not expect to inject new coolness quickly. Allow time to learn and make way for typical growing pains. Give your self time for trial-and-error without the pressures of having to be productive almost over-night.  Patience.

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Familiaity

You will find many things simple (emoting)…

..and familiar like the way an animation is identified:

Example:
name-of-animation1 | time
name-of-animation2 | time

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Reliable Timing Engine

It has a pretty tight timing-engine that seems to perform consistently and reliably as you can see from some of the many show and demo videos. Many cool-things depend on reliable close-proximity-executions of various tasks in conjunction with one another.

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Plays Well With Others

It has been show-tested to have worked successfully with some other popular tools.

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Single-HUD Solution

One popular attraction is that those used to having a screen full of HUDs have found a lot of screen-space freed up because the Artiste presents as a one-HUD solution.

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Optimized Work-Flow

Our note-cards are grouped into sections so you only ever reload just the section you’ve made changes to. (i.e. dances, emotes, stripping, outfit changes, special fx, etc). This provides for very fast reload work-flow as we call it. (reading the notecard info into the HUD.

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Selective Testing

Using the buttons on the HUD face you can enable and disable functions so that you confine your testing to a limited set of features at a time…allowing you to focus with simplification and isolation of functionality.

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Time-Tested

The Artiste 5 years in the making.
The SILVER version, two-and-a-half years in test and live usage.
The GOLD version, just celebrated one-year live-usage.

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Built-In Redundancy

Users have found there are usually multiple ways to accomplish a given task or challenge which provides for flexibility when you run into a dead-end.

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Challenge

The Artiste is an advanced-performance-tool ideal for those who are
ready to ‘push boundaries‘ to paraphrase how Kat has characterized it.

It reportedly has a steep learning curve and I won’t argue with that majority opinion from actual users.

It is not a magic bullet. It requires imagination and perseverance to make it jump thru hoops so to speak.  However, it is an enabling suite of tools.

It is important to take baby steps, take pride in small accomplishments, and to persevere.

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FUN!

I really think its FUN to use and create with. Its a joy if you like experiment, solve  puzzles, and come up with solutions to your creative dilemmas.

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ACTION!

If at some point during these ongoing tutorials you find your interested peeked enough to take action in acquiring or at least investigating into an Artiste product offering as part of your creative compliment then send me an IM or notecard conveying your interest and/or concerns.

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Open Source Fail – Barre HUD News

Image Source: http://www.darrickbynum.com

An intriguing post from Rachael Young, developer of the Barre HUD.

It will be interesting to see what happens, given her open source announcement in February of this year.

Source: Open Source Fail

So You Want To Dance?

Image Source: http://www.pinterest.com

I’m always amazed by how many people are unaware of the show dance scene in SL.

If you ask most people about dancing, they immediately think of clubs, socializing, or ballroom/couples dancing.

For over 5 years now (eek!), I have been involved in ‘show’ dancing in SL.

I went from being a ball-warmer (not that kind!) to being a lead dancer to being a choreographer to being a solo artist. 😀

Show dancing is a ton of fun, but there are some things you need to know before you jump in.

(Please – jump in – new victims, err . . . dancers are always nice!)

If you’ve never seen a dance show in SL, hop over to my calendar page for a listing of regular weekly shows (with SLURL’s) and check one out.

Animations

The first thing you’ll need to be a show dancer/choreographer is dance animations.

I recommend buying only copy animations to protect yourself in case of loss (i.e. – SL eats your stuff 😛 ).

There are a lot of great dance animation stores (see my list here), but I highly recommend Abranimations and A&M Mocap.

Dance HUD

The next item you’ll need is a dance HUD that will let you ‘sequence’ your dances, so that you can make your own choreography using animations you’ve purchased.

There are a ton of HUDs available, but most serious show dancers use one of 4 HUDs:

• HUDDLES EZAnimator Deluxe
• Barre HUD
• SpotOn Performance Director HUD
• Artiste HUD

Both the HUDDLES and Barre are available on MP only, as both in-world stores have closed.

Additionally, there is no customer support for either HUD, though both have user groups you can join for help.

Any of the HUDs above will let you animate other dancers for a performance.

The HUDDLES, however, does not have the capability to do ‘group’ dances, where different dancers do different sequences during a routine.

Product Suites

As show dancing has evolved, so has the equipment.

What you’ll find now, instead of stand-alone dance HUDs, are ‘suites’ of products all made to work together seamlessly.

There have been avatar/object mover systems in SL for quite a while, but when the SpotOn Choreography Design System was released, it was an instant hit.

It’s pretty simple to use and set up, and it works with most any dance HUD.

Following the success of the designer, SpotOn has released a number of products – Group Formation system, Performance Director HUD, Costume Assistant, Smooth Dancer HUD, and most recently, the Stage Manager.

SpotOn products are all sold separately, so you can choose which products you want to purchase.

The Artiste HUD is another suite of products.

Included in the Artiste GOLD Performer Series are the following: the Artiste GOLD Dance HUD, the Palette (mover/special fx), the Set Rezzer, the Director, the Stage Sight (a directed camera HUD), the Stage HUD, the Dance Diva (a group formation system), the Follower Relay (for use with the Dance Diva), and the Message Board.

Everything is included in one package and is available for purchase from the creator, Lat ‘Yummy’ Lovenkraft.

Final Thoughts

Show dancing in SL is not an inexpensive undertaking.

Just for tools (like those mentioned above), you can spend anywhere from $1200L to $25000L on equipment.

Though you can make a nice income in tips, it will rarely (if ever) equal the amount you spend on props, textures, animations, costumes, and everything else you need for a routine.

If you’re unsure whether show dancing is for you, you can join a troupe as a chorus member (otherwise known as a ball-warmer) to learn the ropes.

I love putting a routine together and then performing it in front of an audience.

Dancing is one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in SL.

See you on stage!

An All Artiste Show

I had the pleasure of dancing this weekend at a show at MJ’s Burlesque Review.

I used to dance regularly with these lovely ladies and it was a joy to get the opportunity to dance with them again.

They are talented, creative, and always entertaining.

And for the first time (to my knowledge), the show was an ‘all Artiste’ show.

MJ was one of the first dancers to adopt the Artiste system.

She and Nancy have been using it for a while now and doing amazing things with it.

I am just learning, but I was able to make movers, rezz my sets, crossfade my sets, run my dance sequence, my emotes, and my costume changes – all through my HUD.

One click and I was off. 🙂

The shows went very well and if you missed them, you missed out.

I started off the show as the guest dancer and was introduced by one of the funniest MC’s on the grid.

Zed has a terrific (or is that twisted?) sense of humor and she always keeps me in stitches.

If you’re interested in dancing, contact MJ (Imajica Wonder) or Nancy (Nancy Toocool) for more information.

They are looking for guest dancers for upcoming shows.

You’ll have a terrific time – the ladies are amazing, and the crowds are as well.

After me was MJ, dancing in her lonely apartment after a masquerade party.

I love the little touches on their sets – notice the mask on the piano bench.

MJ’s always has emotes, and I love the stories that each dance tells.

Following MJ, was Nancy, who always leaves the audience picking up their jaws off the floor.

She did an amazing number about self-love (not that kind . . . well, maybe).

The set was very well done – the rising columns, the words scrawled on the pillars – I have no idea where her creative ideas come from, but I am sooo jealous.

She rose, she fell, she rotated, she stripped – and left the audience begging for more.

MJ’s is an adult venue, so if nudity offends, it’s not the place for you.

If you like it, don’t miss the next show!

MJ did a second number about flower girls who dance alone in the woods – I was so entranced I forgot to take a photo of it.

Which was probably just as well, because I don’t think there was an angle that wouldn’t be considered NSFW. 😛

The last act of the show was Nancy in an adorable number as the Ramen noodle girl.

I have no idea where she finds her music, but that song will be stuck in my head for days!

It was a terrific show as usual.

Hope to see you at the next one!

*wanders off singing, ‘Miso, Shoyu, da da da ta da, Ramen!’*

HUD Preferences

Image Source: marketplace.secondlife.com

While surfing my twitter feed the other day, I saw a post with someone’s screen shot.

It had a ton of windows open, but what caught my eye was the placement of the dance HUD.

It was floating around the middle right area of the screen.

I thought, ‘Wow – that is totally not at all where I would park my dance (or other) HUD.”

I like to have as much screen space open as possible, so I generally park my HUD’s off to the side of the screen, as out of the way as I can get them.

But then I got to wondering – where do other dancers put their HUD’s?

This is how my screen generally looks (although I don’t normally have 3 HUD’s attached at once!).

So I can have my HUDs accessible, but they are enough out of the way that I can still see what I’m doing.

Is there a reason you place your HUD where you do?

Do you just use the default location and never move it?

Breakthrough!

Image Source: lornawellness.com

On Day 17 of my adventures with the Artiste HUD (17 has always been a lucky number for me), I had a breakthrough.

I had been fussing and futzing and fighting with the stupid curtain fade.

I wanted the curtain to fade, then my other object, and then my other events to start happening.  I couldn’t seem to get the curtain to fade fast enough.  I would have just changed the fade script to make it fade faster, but the curtain was no-mod.  So, what to do?

I began playing with the timings of event 0, trying to make it last longer, so the curtain would fade out completely before the next event happened.

I made it bigger.  I made it smaller.

Nothing worked.

And then, I remembered something from the manuals.

When you use an event 0, it causes an anomaly with the timing.  Whatever the time of your event 0 is (say 2 secs) then 2 times your event duration (2 secs) is the amount (which would be 4 secs here) your timings will be off for the rest of your events.

AHA!

So because I was using an event 0, and my next event (#1) was only 2 secs long, I was confusing the poor HUD.  Because my event 0 lasted for 2 secs, my timings would be off by 4 secs for the rest of the events.  With event 1 only being 2 secs long, no wonder things weren’t happening in the order I wanted them to!

I felt like I was on the verge of finally understanding how all these different pieces fit together.  Ever cautious, I sent a message to Yummy to clarify that I understood how events fired.  So that would mean with an event #1 of 2 secs, and an event #2 of 3 secs, I press play, 2 secs later event #1 fires, and 3 secs after that (5 secs after pressing play), my event #2 would fire.

She verified that my understanding was correct.

Eureka!

So, with my new-found understanding, I deleted my pesky event #0.  I realized that I had been constrained because of the way all other systems work in SL.

Normally, when you design a routine, you base everything off your audio cue – the start of the music.  You press play when the music starts, and everything needs to fall into place from there.

However, because I can choose when to start the music by playing it through the Director, I didn’t have that constraint anymore.

With no need for an event #0, I reworked my events timeline.  The curtain fade would be the first event, then my second fade, then my other actions would follow.

After making all the changes, I reset my palettes and my HUD.

With baited breath, I pressed play and waited to see what would happen.

IT WORKED!!!!!

Everything happened in the order I wanted it to, and the pesky curtain faded out completely prior to everything else.

I was so elated! I felt as though I had had a major breakthrough, and certain that I now had a firm grasp of how everything worked, I immediately began working on the rest of the routine.

The failure and the frustrations of Day 16 melted away and I was energized and excited to not only finish this routine, but to start working on more!

Day Two with the Artiste

After a restful night of sleep (not!), I logged back in, anxious to dive back in to learning the Artiste.

I had a notecard waiting for me with Yummy’s answers to my endless questions.  After being so frustrated with the Palette, it turned out that I had put the lines for the moves in the wrong place on the *palettes notecard (What? Me make a mistake? Surely not!), I fixed the notecard and – Voilá!  The palette worked as a mover!  Woohoo!

When you use the palette as a mover, there are two ways you can generate the information you need for the notecard.  You can simply move the palette from point A to point B and then use the built in menu to generate the information.  Or you can use the controller method, where you rezz a controller and then generate placeholders for each point.  Once you have your moves set up, the controller will generate the information you need for the palette.  Both methods work equally well, it’s just a matter of what method you find easier/more comfortable.  For my first time, I used the palette method.

As I was working through my route, with Yummy’s help, I asked about the ability to ‘pause’ at a point in the route.  When I was working through it, I had to manually add the ‘pause’ times on the *palettes notecard.  Since then, I believe, Yummy has added an update which allows you to add those through the palette menu.  Progress!

Once you have your route set up, you can test your route.  You can run through the whole route, or you can use ‘quicktest.’  QuickTest allows you to quickly run through each move (point A to point B, point B to point C, etc.) to ensure the route is set up the way you want.  When I was running through the quick test, it also included the ‘pause’ times, which I wasn’t expecting.  I’m not sure if that is something that is still that way, or if that is something Yummy changed.  (I can’t find anything in my piles of notes, anyway!)

As I was working through the various steps, I realized that I had certain expectations for the palettes as movers, because of my experiences with other systems.  For example, the palette does not come loaded with a default stand animation.  The reason for this (I think) is because the palettes can be used for so many different things, not just as an avatar mover.  When you use a palette, you specify what you want that palette to do.  So, for example, if I want to use the palette as a mover, I have to make sure that the *palette notecard reflects that the palette needs to be moveable (obvious, I know), sittable (because you need to have an avatar sit on it), and animatable (because you will likely want a default stand in it – or at least I did).

(Another note here – when you make the palette sittable, you may have to adjust the position of your avatar.  You do this through the palette menu.)  Once you sit up your initial palette/mover, you can save the palette as a ‘baseline’ and use it the next time you go to design a mover route.  That way, half of the set up is already done and you save yourself a lot of time!

One cool feature of the palette I discovered while working with it was that you can use it to turn/spin.  While I am sure you can do this with other systems, it isn’t really something I’d thought about.  With the Artiste, using a palette, you can make a move, a stop, a turn, and a none (this all makes sense later, I promise).  I did some testing and the max for the turn is 180 degrees.  However, you can add several 180 turns in a row, which ends up looking like you are spinning around.  It opens up a lot of possibilities, so I’m planning to incorporate some turns into my next routine.

So after all of Yummy’s help, I felt confident enough to try and work on my own to finish setting up my route.  After I got it all set up, I tried adding the command to the *autofx notecard in the HUD to make it play.  For some reason (another dumb mistake on my part, I am sure), it didn’t work.

However, I felt like I made some real progress on day two, and I’m raring to go for day three!