Shakespere acting troupe

Okay, based on the inspiration in the Hamlet thread, which (as it turns out) has nothing to do with The Bard, I want to form a new endeavour:

I want to build a scripting and animation system that lets us perform plays.

Yes, a script to read a script.

My basic idea is to use something like the Dance box you see at parties and clubs (if you haven't seen one yet, go to the Raging Waters club next to Avarice. Avarice is in the Find Places list).

Essentially, the controller would run the anims, and we could all sit back and watch the show. Somebody mentioned "Machinimation", which is an apt way of putting what I have in mind.

For starters, I thought about using what I'm going to call "Neo-Shakespere" for the initial testing and demonstrating. In other words, we'll shorten and badly mangle Shakespere's plays to present in some modern, yet still poetic, fashion.

I'll need help. I think I can do the scripting, but I will need assistance with various things: writing the play cards, figuring out how to present the plays, and even simple things like costuming and prop/set design. (In the spirit of Shakespere, I want to keep the props and sets to a minimum.)

Post comments or suggestions. Please, if you're not interested, or don't like the idea, just don't post. I'd like this to be constructive conversation, not a debate.

To make this a true collaborative venture, we'll also need some land to store the cards and items that we work on so that we can collaborate. If I get my Landless pot any time soon, I'll donate the needed space. If someone else has a few m2 of space, that would be helpful. I don't expect to need more than a few prims, just enough to store a crate or two of working documents and scripts.

This will get confusing, so I'm going to define two words right now: Plays and Programs

Plays are the written scripts with dialog and actions. In other words, What Willaiam Shakespere wrote.
Progams will be the scripts we write in SL to perform actions.

Let's avoid using the word script anywhere in this conversation. Since we're writing scripts and reading scripts, it's going to be hard to tell which script we're scripting. They're all "Plays" and "Programs" now.

By the way: ownership of anything created by this venture will be maintained by the group we create. The group will be a corporation, for all intents and purposes. The folks who create the content will each receive a share of the "stock", and will be eligible to receive a share of the proceeds based on their share.

To protect our investment in time and L$, I think we might want to create a mailing list or a private forum on MSN or Yahoo Groups. First, though, let's see how many of you are interested in the idea!

Wraith, I used what you described in my Thriller animation video. I wanted to warn you that you should avoid doing it this way for plays.

Here's my summary of the problems associated having a series of animations control actors:

1. Animations take a very long time to make.
   My 60 second sequence took about 40 hours to animate. While Shakespeare animations will not be as time intensive, if you throw in all the actors and the length of the play, the project becomes impossible to animate.
   
   The solutions is to rely on actors instead of making completely animated mannequins. What you'd need to do is create a set of default acting animations with a few special ones for each scene. The actors would then activate the appropriate gestures for a given scene and animate themselves as they talked. Here's an example, where "/holdskull" triggers a gesture and replaces the text with nothing so the audience doesn't see it.
   
   Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well. /holdskull
   
   This has the benefit of investing in actors and adding spontaneity to a scene. It also allows animation reuse so that the time spent animating becomes manageable.
   
2. Animations can only be 60 seconds in length.
   If you animate everyone completely, you'll need the same script I used. It works by starting and stopping animations on many people in parallel. Because it works on a timer, every animation for every actor will need to be exactly the same length if they're going to be controlled from a single device. This will lead to animations which are broken at unnatural places for some actors.
   

If I've convinced you that a set of acting gestures is preferable, let's talk. This is something I suggested a while ago and would like to implement.

Further, to create individual characteristics, a version of the animation override script will have to be made, tailored for actors. It's currently closed source but I will reverse engineer it if there's enough excitement behind this project.

~Ulrika~

I agree with Ulrika - I've thought about this a lot and I feel that automating it completly removes the "human" element that would make it so interesting. However, as I'm sure you aware, if you do allow human controll then you need rehearsal and lots of it. Its also going ot be a tremendous amount of work - just scripting one fight scene will probably take a considerable amount of someone's time and energy.

One additional suggestion I have is to have the theater stretch over a sim boundary - put the audience on one sim and the actors on the other. That way the actors won't have to deal with as much lag if they turn their draw distance down.

I've done computer animation and streaming playback already (kind of a black box for flight simulators)

Well, my idea goes like this:

Create a meta language. This language would have 5 basic elements:
Say
Move
Anim
Wait
Hold

Say is obvious: the actor says his line.
Anim triggers an animation
Wait is a simple "sleep for so many seconds" command
Move will direct an actor to a specific position and orientation
Hold basically waits for all the actors to finish their lines and animations. The person directing the play would touch the control box to continue the scene. IF you wanted to, actors could recite lines during sync breaks, or the control script could push the lines.

I don't want to animate every single lime in the play, but rather trigger standard (and a few non-standard) animations to do what I want. For example, a swordfight scene would look like this:

Pirate: Avast ye! @SwordPirate
Officer: Die, Pirate scum!! @SwordOfficer
#10 //wait 10 seconds while the animation runs
~ //hold. wait for the director to press k"continue"

Why the weird syntax? Well, it means that you could write the play just like any script you've ever seen.

Each actor in the show will be designated by scripted objects that they touch beforehand. For example, if I was the pirate, I'd touch the ball labelled "Pirate". Likewise, you might touch the one labelled "Officer".

The meta-commands would be stored on a notecard that would be read through as the play progresses.

Does that make sense?


and OMG, Ulrika. I would LOVE to work with you on something like this!!

Osemab Kothari's Globe Theatre in DarkWood is built in two sims for this and other reasons, but thanks to sitting camera angles the theatre is, unfortunately, pretty much useless as a venue for plays.If you have not seen the theatre, it's well worth a look.

Great idea-- tell us how it works out, as the production progresses!

AWESOME! I may or may not have a theatre going up, and I would LOVE to have Shakespeare in it. Fantastic idea!

Wraith,

You are more than welcome to use Nowall for your productions. I can move things around to make as much space as you would need to put on a play. It’s also relatively lag free. And Darwin, any time you want to place your theatre down for a production let me know.

I may have already mentioned to you that I am interested in pre-programmed theatre as well. While I understand some of the concern in removing the human aspect from the play as well as the technical challenges, there are unique benefits from presenting theatre in this way. Rather than dividing the world into performer and audience, this type of production allows the latter to be the former and visa versa. The narrative structure is reconfigured from 3rd person (we watch) to first person (we do). In this way, one would not watch Othello murder Desdemona, one would be Othello…or Gertrude, or Puck, or Lear or… The more fully programmed the character, the more one could participate in the play and let the drama unfold at the same time.

Partially (or not) programming the roles may be better if the audience is a separate entity.