Using the Artiste

I’ve been busily working away on routines for the last several days.

Several months ago, I began using the Artiste products exclusively to dance, so that I could force myself to learn more about it.

I knew that I had only scratched the surface of what it can do, and it’s been a really fun ride learning more and more.

The last couple of routines I did with it, I heard “That’s amazing!” and “Wow!” and “Fantastic!”

So I am pretty happy with how things are going. 😛

My original goal was to learn/re-learn some basic palette abilities so that I could offer some one-off classes on them.  Since there are currently about 70-some abilities, I figured that would keep me busy.

And it has!

Some of the abilities are things that you can do with many other systems, like tipping an object (or person), or raise/lower (via mover or object-mover).

However, my latest breakthrough had nothing to do with the abilities of the palette itself, and everything to do with making my life easier. 😀

When I first learned to use the Artiste, I learned to create my mover route and trigger it to begin when I pressed play (like every other system out there).

There was an option to have the sequence start after pressing play (a delay), but that seemed tedious and a lot of extra work.  So I would trigger my palette to start moving when I pressed play, and to continue through its series of moves.

This meant figuring out not only my moves (from A to B, B to C, etc.), but also figuring out wait/sleep times (times that my mover would stay in the same position before moving to the next point).  Now, I’m good at math, but I don’t like it.  I did it simply because there was no other way.

No system that I owned (or am familiar with) allowed me to pause/stop my mover after pressing play (without also causing a bunch of other issues that usually involved more math). So, I planned my routes, did the math (yuck!), and went on.

Because I had taught a class on using  the Artiste palette as a mover, I figured I should experiment with some of the options.  One of those options is to trigger your mover/palette via the sequence.  Great, I was already doing that!

But you can also trigger your mover/palette to do only 1 move OR a range of moves, not just the entire route.

Mind blown.

This meant that I could tell the palette to do move 1. Then dance. Then, when I wanted to, tell the palette to do move 2. Or to do moves 2-4.  Then dance some more.  And since you can specify PER MOVE a specific animation that you want to play (not just one default walk, for example), I can, when triggering my moves, have the palette activate a walk I have specified for THAT move.

So I can skip walk on to the stage, dance, use a second walk to move, dance some more, and use a third walk for a subsequent move.  All with the same mover/palette!

And as with all things Artiste, there is always more than one way to do something. I can trigger my moves via my sequence if I wish.  Or I can trigger them via my chat commands.  Having so many options means that I can accomplish more in less time. And best of all?

Less math!!!! 😀

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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Days 11-16 with the Artiste

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

This will be my last post about my first days with the Artiste.

I’ve learned a ton, but there are still hundreds of features I haven’t even touched on yet.

I hope to be posting some videos in the coming weeks to demonstrate what I’ve accomplished so far and what I hope to accomplish as time goes on.

Day 12:

I learned how to use the Director to control the curtain.  Also learned how to add the command into my autofx nc.  Decided to make an event 0 so I can fade the curtain at the beginning of the routine.  When you use an event 0, you also have to turn on AutoPrePostAutoFx in the *config nc.

Again, ran out of time to do much else.

Days 13 and 14:

I was so busy with various projects that when I snuck a few moments to work with the Artiste, I forgot to keep notes.  Sigh.

Day 15:

After realizing I forgot to keep any notes from the previous days, I sat down to try and remember all the stuff I learned.  I started working on another routine after scrapping my original idea.  I need to fade another object at the beginning of the routine, so put that fade and the curtain on event 0.  Because I added an event 0, I changed SeqOnPlay from 1 to 0 so the sequence won’t start immediately when I press play.

The routine I am working on is a duet, so I need to have each dancer doing a separate sequence.  I read through the grouping manual and figured out what command I needed on the autofx to make each dancer dance a different sequence.  The only mistake I made was to leave the number of dancers at 6, because I had the division set as HALF.  So in that case, 3 dancers do sequence A, 3 dancers do sequence B.  So I need ALT as the division with only 2 dancers.

Started discussing with Yummy things I could ‘add’ to the routine.  I wanted to add some lighting and had tried making a few lights with some palettes.  However, I ended up frustrated because it wouldn’t stay the color I was setting it to, and I couldn’t figure out why.  Turns out there is a default color setting parameter in the palette nc – once I changed that to ‘none,’ it worked perfectly.

I had also tried to make smoke using the palette’s built-in function.  I couldn’t get it to work.  After talking to Yummy, there was a problem in the code somewhere, so she found it and fixed it.  An updated palette later – voilá – smoke.  🙂  After reading through the updated manual, I also discovered that I could use one palette for both fire and smoke.  The fire is an animated texture (also built-in to the palette), and the smoke is a particle effect, so I can do both with only one palette.  Nifty!

When I couldn’t get the built-in smoke effect to work, I decided to make some myself.  Part of the Performer Series is a coupon for a free particle generator.  I have tried several, but this one is pretty easy to use/learn.  It also has a few ready-to-go effects, including smoke.  So I got the script, and dropped it in the palette (I deleted the 11-01B particle script in the palette, because it’s no-mod, and substituted my script).  Did the same thing with a fire particle effect, and added the start/stop commands to my autofx.

I tried to show Yummy what I was trying to do, but I couldn’t get the particle effects to fire.  Apparently there was a another bug, so she headed off to fix that.

I decided to go back to the palette manual and see what other ‘tricks’ I could add to the routine.  Decided to add in a ‘tip’ it.  I still need to go back and work on the events timing, because everything isn’t gelling the way I want it to.  The curtain is a slow fade, and other things are happening before it completely fades out, which isn’t what I want.

Day 16:

Today was a very frustrating day.  I added in my ‘tip’ command.  For some reason, it tipped me 180 degrees instead of 90.  So, I reset the palettes, and it worked fine.  I decided to try and film some short, quick, how-to videos on using the palettes to make smoke and fire.  I was filming on a platform and kept getting a weird script error.  Turns out it was because I had the anchor rezzed below – it was trying to let me know the palettes were too far away.  Doh!

Got the smoke video made.  Tried to film the fire one, but was having no luck.  So Yummy came to trouble-shoot.  While she was doing that, I decided to work on the routine again.  After about 20 failed attempts to get the curtain to fade, I am ready to pull my hair out and throw the HUD across the room.

Yummy to the rescue – again.  She realized that I had a problem with my events.  After reviewing my events and autofx, discovered I was giving the HUD conflicting commands.  So I deleted one of the commands and tried again.

No curtain fade.

It worked yesterday, what I have done since then to screw it up?  Then Yummy asked if I was logged into the Director.  Sigh.

No.  So, I logged into the Director and crossed my fingers it would work this time.

Nope.

I was getting so frustrated, so Yummy said to give her some time to see if there was a bug.  After a day of failures, I decided to log out and work on other projects.

However, I was determined to figure it out, so I logged back in several hours later to try again.  Yummy had left a message that she had found the problem and was working on a fix.  I will need an updated HUD, so I will wait until tomorrow.  I am going to get this!!

Day Three – Onward!

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

It’s day three with my new Artiste HUD, and my enthusiasm hasn’t waned yet.  🙂  So, I contacted Yummy to see if she could troubleshoot why I couldn’t get the palette to work with the HUD.

(Side note here – I don’t intend to explain all the ins and outs of using the HUD in these posts.  There are simply sooo many things you can do, that it would be silly to think I could cover them all.

If you’re really interested in the possibilities, take a jog over to Yummy’s blog and check out all the demo videos she’s made about things you can do with the Performer’s Series of products.  Also, some of the things I talk about may not make sense to you unless you own the products. 😛 )

When you use the HUD, you use it to play your dance sequence (obviously).  However, with the Artiste, there are two different ways to play your sequence.  You can do it via the *autofx notecard, but in looking through the documentation, it states NOT to use that method if you want the sequence to play immediately (which I did).  So the other method is to play the sequence via the *config nc in the HUD.

After trying both methods, I got the palette to work, but there was a weird delay.  My sequence started playing immediately, but I didn’t start moving immediately.  (This is where having expectations based on previous experiences can sometimes cause issues.)  As Yummy and I were talking, trying to figure out the problem, she realized it was the events.

Doh!

I totally spaced looking at my events.

Events are central to the way the Artiste HUD works.  You tell the HUD how many events you want (up to 22 events) for your routine.  Events can be based on things like – a change in tempo in the music, a place where you want to remove or add clothing (or objects), a time when you want a special effect to fire, etc.  Because I had been so focused on learning the palette, I had ignored events.

The HUD comes with several examples already set up for you in the various notecards – so that you can ‘wear and go.’  The *events notecard has three or four events listed, including the timing (duration) of each event.  Events need to be at least 2 seconds long.  Which normally wouldn’t be an issue, except that I had my first palette move set to begin at 0.2 seconds.  So when I pressed play on the HUD, I would start dancing immediately, but the palette wouldn’t get the command to move for at least 2 seconds.

Leave it to me to make things difficult!  If I had started out my palette/mover onstage, the 2 second delay would probably never have been an issue.  However, since I am in the habit of rezzing my movers backstage and then having them jump onstage when I start a routine, it was.  So – how to fix it?

We came up with several solutions.  One – I could just change my mover route to begin onstage, and then my first move wouldn’t happen until about 7 seconds into the routine.  Two – I could add 2 seconds to the beginning animation of the sequence.  However, that throws the whole sequence off, and I didn’t want to have to redo all the choreography.  Three – Yummy realized I could add a command line directly into my sequence (in the *sequence notecard) to trigger the palette to move.

So I did that and success!  The palette began moving immediately, the same as my sequence.  So, I can continue starting the movers backstage with this method.  Which I probably will, because it’s become a habit.  Then I can have dancers sit on the movers and cache the animations while someone else is onstage.  It helps cut down on the time you need between acts.

As I continued to work with the palette route (which included ‘pauses’ at various points), I was having trouble.  If I stopped the routine before it completed, the palette seemed to get confused.  Pressing GoHome didn’t always work, and neither did GoToStart.  Even resetting the palette didn’t seem to help.  After contacting Yummy and asking some questions, she thought perhaps the ‘pause’ feature would just confuse people.  I didn’t think so, and I wanted to be able to use that feature.

Then I realized that since I had put the move command in the sequence notecard, I no longer needed that command line in the *autofx notecard in the HUD.  So I was essentially issuing two different commands to the palette – no wonder it was confused.  So I took the command line out of the *autofx notecard and boom!  The palette mover worked perfectly. 🙂

At this point, I decided to make a mover route using the controller method.  (Why?  Glutton for punishment, I suppose.  I want to really learn the use of the Artiste products, so that I can get the most out of them in performances.  The more I know, the more I can do!).

The controller method probably has a more familiar feel to it, as it is similar to other mover systems.  There are a few minor differences, but setting up the route went pretty quickly.  The biggest difference I noticed is in the turns (something I mentioned briefly in my Day Two post).  With other systems, your avatar turns immediately and faces the direction of your move.  With the Artiste, it’s more of a gradual turn, so it can look a little odd, depending on how your route is laid out.  However, with the ability to add in specific turns, this is easily adjusted.

So yay!  Another day of successes (with a few issues), so I am ready to move on.  For day four, I am planning to try adding turns and rotations into a mover route, adding emotes, and perhaps, if I am feeling ambitious, trying out a couple of special effects!