How to Time Dance Anims

heyas;

i want to make some dance animations for tinies; i was wondering if there were any trick or procedure to keep the timing on the beat? or just use 4 frames per beat or something? or a particular frame rate/ frames per beat to do like 120 bpm or whatever is the standard?

thanks guys!

I have a preference for using 24 fps because of this - then a quarter of a second = 6 frames. The poser default of 30 fps is hopeless as you can't have 7.5 frames!

I'd use 12 fps or 24.

(I sing to my animations a lot!)

Some time ago, i looked at the possible methods one could "feedback" the bpm and audio frequencies, ( for sound to light, ie bass middle and treble) from ones own PC, since that is where one recieves the sound and reproduces it, back into an SL script function, to get some idea of the bpm one could hear, as a value one could use in SL and therfore choose a specific dance, or actuate a particular sound to light animation.

Sadly, though i could make a simple piece of hardware to do that, using the same method one uses to control robotics from ones PC, it just isnt practical, since all involved would have to have that hardware. What i did was monitor the audio coming out on an audio channel and turn that into a value for bpm, bass middle and treble, and give that back to ones PC, via the standard method of using the printer port. then get that info, sent to my web page interactive script and get that info sent to and made available at my place in SL.

Its a long and drawn out method, the only one i could do myself, to get the four values i wanted actually into SL.


Something missing from SL is the ability to use real life events like sound to trigger SL scripts.

Second Life doesnt use interctive real life functions like audio, its just an agent, passing the information it has no knowledge of,other than the address, to ones PC,and ones PC does all the work.


The consequence of not being able to easily use the information, means i use audio like radio stations that have a common BPM, and then i create visual anims that work with that.

Its a knack one develops, and though its not hard for adults to understand, its not easy for youngsters, even if they have music and art as an intrinsic aptitude, knowing what does what, is still more about technology than what one can see or hear.

Its an SL drawback, not yet really addressed and considered by Linden Labs, i guess because total web integration is not what Linden seek, since they loose control?

if you're looking to time it to a specific BPM, and not a variable one at runtime, first divide you bpm by 60, to get BPS, (so at 120 bpm, you get 2 bps) then take you prefered animation speed (30, 24 or whatever) and divide it by that number.... (we'll use 24, which gives us 12) and THAT will be the key frame that you action starts, ends, or changes on. (in our example every 12 frames)

now if you are wanting to retime an already made dance, you would find out the frame count between actions, mark all those frames as key frames, and depending on the software method, insert tween frames to get your preferred timing (then go through and clean up any bad movements)

depending on the beat timing (3/4, 4/4, etc) you can actually skip beats (say only key frame every 3rd for a 3/4, or ever other, or every fourth) which is helpful for songs that change from fast to slow or vice versa... and will often help the dance be usable for a wider range of BPM (the same works by multiplying for very slow bpms)

thanks guys!

i'll try beats on frame 6... im not good at counting seconds while acting out animations. i guess i will see how it looks, then adjust the speed. ;D

I thiink some sort of API for variable rates on an animation would be great. Also one that stops dancing between songs, or even one that selects animations that sort of match the music (even as simple as slow/fast animation for slow/fast song.

There are readily available BPM counters available, use google and one will get things like this:
http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm

and there are many more.

My objection to youngsters using such method, is because it requires additional and complicated forethought, its not complete, its a method not a way.

That objection does not exclude the method, it just contains it.