Monday, March 12, 2012

Repeating a Dance in Huddles

Repeating a Dance in Huddles 120312

Here is a little problem that you may have with Huddles and probably any other HUD that uses notecards. I removed the name of the person and put in ABC in the conversation about it:

[09:46:31] ABC: Hey Lady... I"ve got a problem, maybe you can help me with?
[09:46:46] Nottoo Wise: hi ABC xxx
[09:46:47] Nottoo Wise: sure
[09:46:58] ABC: Hi xo
[09:47:19] ABC: I am trying to have one section of a sequence play twice... and it won't do it consistently
[09:47:49] ABC: when u put the same anim in a sequence
[09:47:58] Nottoo Wise: it continues the anim
[09:48:01] Nottoo Wise: to solve it
[09:48:07] Nottoo Wise: put another anim in between
[09:48:11] Nottoo Wise: with a very short time
[09:48:16] Nottoo Wise: like 0.1 sec
[09:48:27] ABC: ah... ok
[09:48:47] ABC: I tried making a split in the sequence using the go command but that didn't even help
[09:49:09] Nottoo Wise: it just continues it
[09:49:15] ABC: yes
[09:49:27] ABC: and leaves out the second run of the dance in the sequence
[09:49:49] Nottoo Wise: well it continues for the entire time but does not restart the dance
[09:49:50] ABC: whew... I knew you would know what to do... ;)
[09:50:19] ABC: in my case it didn't even do that... it ran it once... and then I just stood there for the duration of the second run... until the end anim
[09:50:44] Nottoo Wise: hmm
[09:50:52] Nottoo Wise: well try the 0.1 sec idea
[09:51:07] ABC: I will... thank you so much xxx
[09:51:48] Nottoo Wise: let me know if it does not work
[09:51:56] ABC: kk.. trying it now
[10:01:07] ABC: works perfectly :)
[10:01:12] ABC: thanks sweets
[10:01:46] Nottoo Wise: were u trying to restart the dance at the beginning
[10:02:13] ABC: yes... I wanted it to play twice at the end... and then go into the end pose
[10:02:27] Nottoo Wise: but not let it loop?
[10:03:07] ABC: no because it left a funny gap... and cutting it short left me in the wrong position
[10:03:24] Nottoo Wise: ok
[10:03:34] ABC: i will put something on the blog about this
[10:03:39] Nottoo Wise: but not mention ur name
[10:03:58] ABC: oh no problem... I'm just glad you knew what to do...
[10:04:05] Nottoo Wise: good me too
[10:04:06] Nottoo Wise: hahahah


When you make a sequence with the XPOSE or DanceMaster this feature of SL becomes important. Often with these dance management programs you are working with several dancers at once. You may want dancer 1 to continue dancing Dance A while dancer 2 switches dances from Dance B to Dance C. Repeating Dance A for dancer 1 means that Dance A continues without interruption.

The solution provided in the conversation above forces the HUD to switch dances. Since most dances have an ease in time of 0.3 seconds, putting a second dance in for only 0.1 seconds is not noticeable. Then again entering the first dance starts the first dance at the beginning.

Here is an example with Dance A having a loop time of 10.0 seconds and Dance B having a loop time of 5.0 seconds. You want to have Dance A repeat after 8.0 seconds. If you use:

Dance A|8.0|Dance A

the result will be Dance A looping at 10 seconds. To make it loop at 8.0 seconds you have to insert another dance for 0.1 seconds:

Dance A|8.0|Dance B|0.1|Dance A

:-)