dance hud

[BabyLove Hammill]

it is getting so frustration to go to a dance club and find a dance in their huds.

so I decided to make my own.  My problem is I have never had one before

any suggestion or help would be appreciated.

do they sell huds with dances already in it, do I buy a hud and add dances to it, where can i purchase these?

Ive been to akeyo I like their dances but the price are rediculous especially if I am not 100% on what to expect, does it come in a hud or do I buy it sepertaly.

any help I really need it.

thank you

[Orwar]

   There are a multitude of dance HUDs on the market, ranging from ones built for putting your own dances into, to ones that come with themed sets of dances in them. 

   Personally I prefer using the Firestorm AO. I've got one prepared where I just have dances instead of the regular AO animations - it's free, and it doesn't add any scripts or textures on your end as a HUD does (although not much, unless it comes with a bunch of unnecessary extras, as many dance HUDs do).

   Firestorm's wiki on the Firestorm AO: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/animation_overrider

[Claireschen Hesten]

21 minutes ago, BabyLove Hammill said:

Ive been to akeyo I like their dances but the price are rediculous especially if I am not 100% on what to expect, does it come in a hud or do I buy it sepertaly.

Akeyo dances don't come in a HUD however if you buy one of their AO's they include a dance section in their HUD that allows you to invite people to dance via it some dances are included in the HUD if you are wearing it whilst purchasing one of the dances they are automatically loaded in to the HUD if you have dances from elsewhere rezz the HUD somewhere such as a sandbox in edit mode drop the dance in the contents section and it will be configured automatically 

[Rowan Amore]

42 minutes ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

Akeyo dances don't come in a HUD however if you buy one of their AO's they include a dance section in their HUD that allows you to invite people to dance via it some dances are included in the HUD if you are wearing it whilst purchasing one of the dances they are automatically loaded in to the HUD if you have dances from elsewhere rezz the HUD somewhere such as a sandbox in edit mode drop the dance in the contents section and it will be configured automatically 

I purchased the cheap AO from Akeyo, took out most of the animations already in it and use it for animations and dances I buy.  It is literally the easiest one I've found beside the built in one on firestorm.  No note card to edit.  Yay!!

It's drag and drop or like you said, automatic if you're wearing it and buy at Akeyo.

He used to have an empty on available but I haven't seen it since he went to a web based AO which I disliked.

[BabyLove Hammill]

8 hours ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

Akeyo dances don't come in a HUD however if you buy one of their AO's they include a dance section in their HUD that allows you to invite people to dance via it some dances are included in the HUD if you are wearing it whilst purchasing one of the dances they are automatically loaded in to the HUD if you have dances from elsewhere rezz the HUD somewhere such as a sandbox in edit mode drop the dance in the contents section and it will be configured automatically 

gREAT THANK YOU SO MUCH

[Pussycat Catnap]

Quality dances do tend to be expensive - so Akeyo's price for a loaded up AO is likely not that high once you consider what's in it.

I didn't like how large the scripts in some of these things are. Not sure how big Akeyo is now, back when they first went to that web thing it was over 3mbs and using a huge amount of script time - enough that some regions gave me warnings on teleporting.

 

I put a FREE chat based AO out a few months back. It's on my marketplace. You put the dances and the script and a config notecard into any editable prim you are wearing or have as a HUD (I keep it in a HUD attached prim dragged off of my screen, as it's chat based and so nothing to click).

- It is a full AO script, that also includes the ability to load multiple dance styles with full lists of dances each. In my own copy I have about 100 dances in there and am only using 58kb and nearly no script time.

If you like clicking buttons you wouldn't like this, everything is run with commands to a chosen chat channel.

The firestorm built in AO is also great - just make an 'AO' you name 'Dance - style' and put dances into the 'stand' section. Firestorm's AO has some glitches as it plays animations rather than sets your state's animation - so it can 'hiccup' sometimes. But otherwise it's better than a high script thing blocking part of your screen.

 

Are you also looking for quality dances? I highly recommend 'Paragon' - I think they show up monthly at one of the popular events, that one with a name that always reminds me of uber...? But you can probably find them inworld too just searching 'paragon'.

- Just keep in mind that dances are pricey... Most shops are 300-500L per individual dance, with a discount when bought in packs. If you go cheap - it often looks cheap... (I have found very good dances from a chop before that was selling them for about 15L each - but that was before Bento...)

 

My AO that I have for free does NOT come with dances or animations - or it wouldn't be free... 😉

- It's whole goal is to help convince animation sellers to stop using old style 'play animation' scripts and update to 'animation state' scripts... which is a technical point that seriously impacts quality of experience for the end user... but the explanation is... outside of most people's knowledge of how SL works.

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Lindal Kidd]

You can get free, empty dance HUDs.  Some of them will let you invite other people to share your dance, which is an advantage that Firestorm's built in AO doesn't have.

Dance animations, especially good ones, are expensive.  This is because it takes quite an investment in time and equipment to create good dance animations...several thousand RL dollars.  Dances should be bought in world, not on the Marketplace.  Stores selling dance animations have demos that you can use to preview the dance.  I spent around $L20,000 recently to fully equip a dance machine with singles and couples dance animations.

Look for dances that are advertised as "Bento".  These make use of hand and finger motions, and possibly even facial expressions, making the dance more fluid and realistic.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Lindal Kidd

[Pussycat Catnap]

14 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Dance animations, especially good ones, are expensive.  This is because it takes quite an investment in time and equipment to create good dance animations...several thousand RL dollars.

This is a good point.

When you shop dances - at higher end brands you will often see information on the actual dancer that did the motion capture performance. Some even link to the social media of that dancer so you can see them in action. Some shops even link to videos of them doing the motion capture. That's not always final proof of a good end product - but it's a heavy weight towards quality.

- Look for that kind of information when shopping for dance brands.

 

There are huge catalogs of free and discount dances out there... this is why so many of the clubs you go to have a danceball with the same poor quality animations in them. A lot of these dances are older than my account - and were made 'by hand' with tools to move the avatar or by manually posing a 3D model in something like Poser (because many of them are even older than Daz3d Studio - which is also a way some are manually made now). Ie: no humans actually ever did those dances - and now that we have motion capture... it starts looking obvious. You can notice if you watch that some of the most common male dances, have the male 'at an angle' to the ground... like he's about 5-10 degrees 'off' of standing up straight... Once you see this, you cannot unsee it...

- I'm extremely visually and motion triggered... I find myself often moving my camera to keep males out of camera view when dancing because those old animations disturb my 'sense of place' so much... It's always a super welcome sight when I see someone on a motion capture dance and can keep them in view. 😉

 

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap