Newbie Question - dancing without a pose ball?

Really new here, sorry if this is answered somewhere or super obvious, but my search only came up with adverts for clubs and events.

Sometimes I see people dancing in places I know there are no pose balls. What do I need to do to make it so my avatar can do this?

Do I need to find an AO HUD that has dancing animations in it?
- I've figured out the basics of Xstreet, so if that's what I need, I can find one. But if the answer is something much simpler, or different, or whatever, please let me know.

They may be using a dance ball that's in the club, instead of poseballs that you sit on. Or, yes, they may be using a dance HUD that they've put together themselves. Your best bet, if you want to find dances, is to go to some of the stores that sell them and actually try them out. Try Henmations, Sine Wave, Akeyo and 3FX to start with (although be warned: these places can get very busy and very laggy).

You don't even need a HUD to play dances; you can simply play them as normal animations if you want to. But if you want a HUD then the one that the majority seem to opt for is a Huddles.

I just go to someplace like Sine Wave or Henmations and buy some dances. I play them from my inventory. No dance ball is required.

Try keying "dance animations" into the classified tab of search. Caution - this can mount up some heavy spending quickly.

This is a good question.

Poseballs are useful for animating an avatar *and* putting them in a specific position--so you "sit" on them, even if the animation is a dance.

Without poseballs there are several other ways to animate an avatar. Your AO is one way; it chooses an animation for your avatar based on what the avatar is doing (walking, standing, sitting, etc.).

Or you can just play animations directly from inventory. "Play in world" lets everybody see the animation, not just you. There are HUDs that help organize and automate this process. But if you play an animation from inventory or from a HUD attachment, only your own avatar is animated by it.

If you want to share the animations with others--so multiple people can dance from the same animation, you could use an attachment that is commonly called a "chimera" or "chim" which you wear not as a HUD but rather on your avatar so others can touch it.

But most commonly: almost all clubs have a "danceball" or some other object that you can touch and it will animate your avatar, too--essentially like a freestanding, unattached chim. A possible downside is that you're limited to whatever dances the club owner stocked into the danceball.

There are also a number of free "Dance Bracelets" and other attachments that allow an avatar to dance wherever they want.

Thanks for the advice folks.

What got me asking was watching in my favorite spot, and noticing (by being there long enough to see crowds come and go... ) that there were no dance balls other than some unused slow dance ones off to the side of the floor.

Now I've got some window shopping to do - try a few things out and find the set that fits me most.

don't forget to check the place you go dancing for an object (disguised as decoration or otherwise) you can click on and start being animated