Animation Timings and Dance Sequences
Beyond simple animation lists, you can also use notecards to time your animations precisely. For instance, you can add times to all of the animations on your Dances notecard like this:
Sugarlicious|20.2
Crazy Dance|23
backflip|1.5
If this were the first three lines on your dance card, when you clicked Dance mode, you would play Sugarlicious for 20.2 seconds, then Crazy Dance for 23 seconds, then play a backflip animation for 1.5 seconds and it would repeat, going back to Sugarlicious. Notice that you can add decimal places to the timing, but you don’t have to do that. Also notice that the | symbol is used to separate the name of the dance from the timing.
You don’t have to add specific timings for all your dances, you might only add it for some like this:
Sugarlicious|20.2
Crazy Dance|23
backflip|1.5
Blackberry Grind
Chocolate Dipped Roses|180
In this example, when Dance mode got to “Blackberry Grind” it would use the default Dance Time Interval. Normally this is 20 seconds unless you have set another time.
You could put all three animations into a single macro which repeats like this:
Sugarlicious|20.2|Crazy Dance|23|backflip|1.5|[REPEAT]
Then when you clicked on the button (it would be named “Sugarlicious”), it would play those three animations with those timings and repeat over and over again.
Please note that the [REPEAT] command would be ignored in Dance or Random mode.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:25 am
[...] I added a new page to help on how to set specific timings for animations and dance sequences. [...]
April 9th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
This does not work please help me maybe i am doing something wrong
April 9th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Diana, I’d have to see an example of what you are trying to do. Could you post an example here or IM me in world.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:36 am
How do I find out how long 1 loop of my dances lasts?
May 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I suppose I would use a watch or stop watch and just time it, Mith.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Ok does this work for animations for you ao. I have tried to use it on a standing up animation but when i load the notecard it says you can only have one animation for standing up. It seems to think the time is another animation. The problem is that when i land from a jump for example the stand animation is cuts my stand up animation short. I have tried switching the animaitions around but always get the same problem. The stand cuts in befor the stand up animation has finished. Do you know a way around this or am i being blonde?
August 13th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
No, this applies to regular notecards only, not AO configurations. The EZAD uses the ZHAO II script as it’s AO and that script does not support timings. I’m guessing you are using the Landing from Sine Wave?
August 13th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Yes Keiki i seem to have issues with most of the sine wave animations in the EZAD all with the same problem apart from the stands. I took most of them out and put in my vista animations but was hopeing i could keep the landing as its very cool lol. Do you know if there is any way around this ?
August 13th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Sine Wave apparently made their AO animations without testing them in standard AOs, or maybe they did and didn’t care that they weren’t compatible. They made their landing too long and they didn’t loop their stands. There is a work around for the stands–basically playing them simultaneously with a standing pose that is looped–but there is not a workaround for the landing short of editing the ZHAO II script inside the HUD.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:52 am
does the huddles AO work in non scripting zones? i too have the same problem with the sine wave stands. and my only choice so far is to have animations that run 25 seconds shorter than the rest of my animations or bite the bullet and spend 5 hours setting up a crappy sine wave AO that doesnt run in non scripting areas jsut so i can use 3 animations.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:04 am
It has limited use in non-scripted areas. If you have your AO running and you enter a no script area, it works fine. In other words, it keeps running if it’s set up and on before you enter, but the buttons don’t really work once you inside a no script zone.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Is it supposed to work if u have non-dance stuff in the list also (like LM for example), cause whatever i do, it only plays my dances with the default dance timing…
October 5th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
My fault, forgot to reload the note
Sorry
November 30th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Is their anyway to have no time set for the dances so a dance plays all the way through then onto the next dance when the other has finished?
December 15th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Kaboom, there isn’t a way for a script to figure out the length of a looped dance, so the only way to do what you want is to time the dance yourself and use the timing feature described in this post.
January 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I just bought the Deluxe and am trying to grasp it all
One thing though, i thought i had read hast AO will autmatically stop when dancing. A big plus having this one-in-all tool. This does happen when hitting the ‘dancing person icon’, but then it plays all he dances. And when i only want one dance (mostly used) and hit the ‘run icon’ this does NOT happen. And after a few moves the dance stops. I will have to disable AO manually agai. Am i doing something wrong?
January 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Tanya, there are various reasons why I did not do it like that, the most important is that there are plenty of reasons why someone might not want to turn off the AO when they play an animation. So there is a way to do it though. On the notecard, instead of just using the name of the dance, do this:
Name of Dance|[AO_OFF]|30|[STOP]|[AO_ON]
This macro will play the dance, turn the AO off, wait 30 seconds, stop the dance and then turn the AO back on.
Another thought would be to change the Dance time interval to 0, start dance mode and then choose the dance you want to play. Since the dance time interval is 0, it will never go on to the next dance. Let me know if that works for you.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:33 am
is there a way to specify “me” function on note card?
January 28th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
You stumped me Sahara. I don’t know what you mean. The “Me” button is to turn your own animations on or off.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
yes. I’m talking about he button that turns off the owners animation.
if I want to put all the timing of how long I want to animate myself and other dancers, and want to turn off only my animation, and let the other dancers keep dancing. is there a way to do it automatically using macro instead of pressing the “me” button manually.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
No, there is no macro command for turning Self Animation on or off.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for the answer Keiki, but it’s not completely working as it won’t accept any other value below 1. Besides that, although that last option seemed to be closest to what i want, it still would always play the first dance, and then i would have to enter my dances again and select the right one. Would be a hussle anyway. I just will get used to select and disable the AO.
One other question though. I bought some couple danceball’s and put them in the huddles. The only problem is that it’s not copy. So, rezzing a copy is not possible. Still it would be handy to have all my dances at one handy to reach place, namely the huddle. Wouldn’t it possible to rezz not a copy, but the original, and after use put it back? And perhaps via a button which rezzes the orig or copy.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
necesito saber como puedo sincronizar un baile con otro con tiempos especificos..se que se hace una note que escribes en ella los bailes y tiempos ,despues la arrastras a tu hud,pero cuando cargo el dance no me figura,porfa si alguien me puede dar paso a paso las instrucciones lo agradecere ,,,otra puedo dejar programados efectos de luces simultaniamente con los bailes??
April 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I just tried to time my dances and add the [Repeat]. The dance did not repeat but still went to the next dance. Specifically I did
hula|120|[rrepeat]
what did I do wrong?
I did not hit the dance button first, rather, I loaded the dance notecard and just hit the name of the dance. I think it may have done the 120, but it did not repeat?
BT
April 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I’d have to look at it to make sure. The macro you have there, repeat is misspelled. I’m assuming it’s right on the notecard though. Are you sure you weren’t in “Dance Mode” because [repeat] tags are disregarded in Dance mode.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Hi Keiki!
I´ve read the post about Sine Wave stands but didn´understand how u get 2 stand animations playing at the same time so it loops.
What i intend to do is using a stand called mp3 stand as a dance.
I tried timing it and repeating but there´s always a gap between anims where i go linden stand. I wanted to try using a looped stand as you recommended but don´t know how to do it.
i have bought a few ceaser stands aswell which i want to use as my stand anims. Can u teach me a way to do it please
Much appreciated.
NN
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:44 pm
@Night, for this kind of question, I think you should contact Connor Trudeau directly for help. I’m not sure what you are wanting to do, and he is my customer service guy.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
hi keiki ,gots some questions….
1-Is there a trick to make a dance ensamble perfectly to the next one?
2-Can I put in sync some lights and effects with the dances?
3-how can I link the dances to an especific music and give them play with only one button?
…im trying to make a dancer teem for a live preformance ,am i with the correct hud?
please,answer this one…
May 21st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Hi all!
I’ve never done a dance card so much of my question has been answered just reading through the posts.. My question is… I’ve noticed that on sims with lag, the dances don’t meld together easily and sometimes the avi moves back to “position one” before moving to the next dance. If there is lag when running a dance card, will this happen then as well??
Shaylin
May 25th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
@Shaylin
As for the delay between dances in dance mode, this again is not a lag caused by the scripts. The first time you play a dance (especially a long dance), there is a lag as SL’s server downloads the dance to your local computer. Only when the dance is fully downloaded does your avatar begin the dance. You will notice that the second time you play a dance, you shouldn’t get the same delay.
Is this what you are experiencing? or does the lag happen at other times too?
June 14th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
@Lenny: Sadly, it isn’t possible to make dances PERFECTLY mesh. For that to work, the avatar starting position (both location and the positioning of your body) would have to be identical in both dances, and it never is. Some combinations of dances will work better than others; you may need to experiment with the sequence to get the best results.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
a question works that for a normal ani also?
i have a crazy landing animation…but the ani is maby 8sec long.
do chante the NC to: [ Landing ]look_everyone_landing1|8.0
after the new loading from the female ani NC i become the message:
[11:28] EZ Animator: Cannot have multiple animations for [ Landing ]. Please correct the notecard and try again.
January 20th, 2010 at 4:30 am
i had a sequence of 17 dances meshed together. the hud only added 14 out of the 17. I was told there was a character limit to each sequence. What is the character limit? im really too lazy to try to find the answer…easier to just ask! lol…
January 20th, 2010 at 4:31 am
ps…i was able to rename most of the dances to cut down on the characters and then it worked…but for future id like to know the maximum limit
June 5th, 2012 at 12:29 am
Is there a way to start a dance sequence at a certain time? like 10 sec into it and stop 5 sec after that?
June 26th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
@Henriette, You can add pauses into your dances by stopping the current animation and then adding a pause of 10 seconds or 5 seconds before starting the next animation. It would look like this:
[STOP]|10|Dance1This would stop the current animation, then wait 10 seconds and then play the animation, “Dance1″