Weclome

This thread is for discussing how to use the current system to get the most out of a dancer. Please do not post requests for new features here. There are two guides posted here. The first is a short one page dance school to get you started quickly (it's the very next post after this one). The second is an advanced guide that is scatterd trhoughout the discussion here. To find it simply scan for the header Sultrina's Dance Academy these are one page lessons that can be completed by a dancer of any level (including a novice entertainer).

Quick Start

Message Edited by Sultrina on 04-29-2004 04:44 AM

                                             Welcome to Sultrina's dance school.

Novice course:
So you just got your dancing shoes and are eager to try them out?

/startdance will bring up a list of dance styles at this point you have Basic and Rhythmic click one and you will start dancing.

Under the commands menu/other add the flourish 1-8 commands to your quick bar.

Now it's boogie time, have fun play with your flourishes!

TIP: Start making a dance card now, list all your flourishes and a brief description of what they do so you can find that special move for a special customer easily.

Intermidiate course:
Click on the bottom of your short cut bar and drag it down so you have two sets of bars.
Now make the following macros (if you don’t know how to this read the manual)

This macro gets you dancing basic fast.
/startdance basic;

This macro alows you to shift gears fast make one for each of your styles.
/changedance <dancestyle>;

Example:
/changedance rhythmic;

I can not emphasize this enough PLAY with your dancing and have fun with it there are tons of little goodies and secrets to discover and the more fun your having the more fun your customers will have.

Advanced course:
Now lets talk about /bandflourish
What does it do?
For a dancer it works like this: anyone currently dancing and using /bandflourish <1-8> will cause all dancers that are not already doing a flourish and do not have their /bandflouish off to do that flourish.
EXAMPLE: If all dancers are doing Basic and you do /bandflourish 7 all dancers will suddenly moonwalk in unison. If a dancer is doing another style they will still do flourish 7 but from that style.
How can I use it?
/bandflourish should only be used to enhance the show. With that in mind it’s a good idea to work with other dancers on putting together routines and not just start /bandflurishing them without warning. As with all dancing timing is the keys to making it look good. Any dancers who have not completed their last flourish will be left behind on a new flourish so you will have to watch all members of your troupe to time things corectly.
Can I turn it off?
Yes you can simply /bandflourish off. I recommend a macro for this comand because every time you stop dancing the flag will reset to on when you start again.

 
Professional dancing tips:
Flourish, chat and change outfits often. The first thing on your mind always should be how do I entertain these people?

Second thing on your mind is healing customers, why not the first?
1. Some customers aren’t there to be healed they are there to have fun.
2. No matter how good your healing skill customers heal over time so they deserve some entertainment
3. Flourishes boost your healing and your entertainment value.
Do look at your customers blue bar and see that it is going up (we cant see their fatigue) if it’s not patiently explain how the healing works

Last thing on your mind is your tips, XP and finding new clothes too wear. That’s right it is dead last, if your not doing the first two things on the list your not earning the goodies!

Never beg for tips, it's a good idea for one of the band members to have a macro instructing people on how to use the healing and how to tip though.

Should I macro my dance routines? No not really, I have one routine macroed so I can keep the boogie on if I’m bogged down in chat or a trade but that’s it.

sample dance card(its best to get all the dances on one page by using landscape layout:

            Basic                                                  Rhythmic
1. boogie turn                                   1.

2. crouch wipe/boogie/spin              2.

3. hop turn/hip action                        3.

4. knee pump/big arms                     4.

5. knee lift/torso bot                           5.

6. mime/knee drop                            6.

7. Moon walk  lft 3/rgt 6/lft 3               7.

8. side to side arm pump                   8.

Drifting:
   Ah that unsightly drifting! We’ve all seen it some poor dancer with dreams of stardom suddenly finds themselves in the middle of a chair, table or plowing over other dancers. This problem shows up most often in Lyrical and Formal, but in fact all dances drift. Correcting drift is a simple mater of timing and timing is the building block for every dirty trick hidden inside the dance code. Ok let’s get started.

  I call the dance animation that loops when flourishes are not performed “base” dances. It is in fact the base dance and NOT the flourish that causes drift. The reason is that a flourish always returns us to the spot we started the flourish from and not the point we started the dance from. This is actually a really good thing, but I won’t go into that now. Let’s pretend for a moment that we have a base dance that is a jump to the left and then a step to the right <giggle> now if we start a flourish on the jump to the left our dancer will return to that position at the end of the flourish. This leaves us drifted one step to the left. In this case we can prevent drift with timing but we can’t correct it because the base dance doesn’t allow for it, but if we always flourish on the step to the right we will never drift in the first place!

 Ok Sultrina so what? Well try this experiment, find a nice quiet spot and pick a spot on the floor. I like two use the nice + where cantina tiles meet. Fire up the ole formal or lyrical and watch your dancer stray all over the place moving back n forth over your starting point. Now try to start a flourish when your dancer is exactly on that spot and watch your flourish. When it ends your back to the same spot you started your flourish and if your timing was good you right back where you started your dance with no drift. Keep doing this until you mess up and get off your “mark” now the fun begins watch the base dance and until you cross back over your mark then bam hit a flourish! When that flourish finishes you should be back on yoru mark. Of course if you get to far off mark you will have get as close as you can and drift tword your mark then hit it the second tiem around.

The other cause of drift is certain emotes /smile being a good example because it forces you to auto face your target and “warps” the flourish. There are ways to fix this, but I’m not getting into that in this lesson. The only way for you to be sure to avoid this type of drift is do untargeted emotes.

Thanks for reading,
Sultrina

P.S.
I am an entertainer and therefore an egomaniac. If you want this thread to live let me know this stuff is useful to you. Otherwise I’ll just keep it to myself.

Thanks so much Sultrina, this is so helpful to a new dancer.  Much appreciated

Thank you Sultrina.

I would like to add my dance tip in here as well.

Ceta's dancing tip of the day.

 Moving about the floor can add a nice touch to any routine. By using the tools available to us we can in fact do this without stopping. The best way i know how to do this is by using dances that have "wide" flourishes i.e. those with the most movement across the floor. Mainly formal and Lyrical, but Poplock works as well.

In an earlier post Sultrina pointed out the /changedance command

If you are able to do Lyrical here is an example of how to move to a new posistion on the dance floor.

Make a hotkey for /changedance Lyrical 1 or 2 and one for /changedance popular 1 or 2 whichever you may have.

Begin dancing by using /startdance popular2...or whatever dance you choose to start on. Tap that flourish 3 key In the case of popular this is a spinning in place flourish. When you have JUST completed a full rotation, use your newly created /changedance lyrical. You will smoothly transistion to the Flourish #3 of the lyrical dance. Do a small portion of that particular flourish, pick a spot in the flourish when you hesitate before going into the next step. Then use your created /changedance popular2 hotkey again. If you have done this correctly you will have moved to a new location on the dance floor, and your change will transistion into the end of flourish 3 for Popular2 which you started this on. It allowed you to change your location. Practice trying this with all different dance types, This allows you to not only learn to control "Drift" but it also will help you to move around inside the cantina without having to stop dancing.

Ceta

Master dancer

Bloodfin

Sylune,

<giggle> Yup, but don't over look the small displacement moves that are availible right away to dancers for small corections. Fl 7 (basic) 3 left,6rigtht,3 left this alows a 3 step moveleft or right with just one flourish. Not to mention Fl 1 Rythmic 3 forward, 6 back , 3 forward. Now you have all 4 axis in one neat package. This is one of the many reasons I recomend a "dance card" it lets you see the big picture.

I understand perfectly Sultrina.

I was just using those as an example. I use the smaller dance steps to move around as well. But it depends on where i want to go..and how fast i want to get there.

Keep them coming, perhaps someone can show us old dogs some new tricks

Syl

Another tip: use the command   /diagnose  to see your patroon's fatugue (and all other stats).

(sorry dunno if we are born with it, else you get it with your first medic or doc xp.)

paith'z

<giggle> Ok I was saving mvoing around the dance floor till much later in this series, but there you have it you can indeed move anyplace you wish with enough practice. I'll post more on this later because there are a lot more skills to practice. I hope your all working on your drift and your timing because it's the very core of dancing. For toinight I'll just add a couple tidbits about /bandflourish since it has such a bad reputation and in fact works perfectly.

You CAN and I repeat CAN gain exp durring a /bandflourish you COULD and allwasy COULD. It's simple really and just requires a little timing. Wait for the bandflourish to start your character flourishing. Lets say the leader did a /bandflourish 7 while everyoen is doing basic and your nwo moonwalking. Simply flourish under it and you will get your exp and still be part of a courus line.

Second big complaint is the line gets all out of synch, well we allready talked about drift and that all dances drifted a bit so what we have to do here is watch the whole line and see to it we flourish at a point when all drift is average keeping everyone roughly on their mark. This is hard, much harder then keeping one dancer on their mark but then again its also more fun when it goes right.  practice practice practic. Remember a lot of you didn't even think such thiongs were possible until a few days ago

Thanks for the tips girls, I actually discovered the lyrical flourish with spinning and then changedance yesterday but it wasn't perfect yet.  I'll try these tips out tonight!

I tend to use chasecam on and off alot to face people too, not perfect but its quick.

Heya, y'all, I just wanted to give a little bumpage to this thread.

I ran into Sultrina in Dearic/Bria last night and played some accompaniment being as it was a slow night and no other band was around. She was a pleasure to work with and a highly skilled dancer. I've been entertaining since my first day in beta 3 and I thought I'd seen it all. Last night was the first time in a long time that I found myself saying "Woah, how did she do THAT?"

Not only that, but she followed my lead wherever I went musically. Every time I switched tunes she switched dances and outfits in a way that complemented the music nicely. It quite fun working with her. Made me feel some of the old "My dad has an awning! Let's put on a show!" stirrings again. ha ha!

If you're a new dancer or just looking for pointers, pay attention to this thread. I have a feeling you'll learn a few things, especially when the other experienced hands join in (as they have begun to).

Oo good one Paithz,

I've been using this trick for a while and should change my guide to reflect it.  While we are on the subject of /changedance I am finally goin to answer the age old question "Why do footloose and poplock look so stupid?" The answer is they don't, they look great. So the question realy becomes "Why do I look stupid doing them?" The answer is your letting yourself look bad because your not "playing" with your dancer. Here is the break down.

The way most dancers do it.

My highest dance is poplock/footloose and I want to do my best dance for the best EXP. I do a flourish and then let it count down the exp meanwhile Im stuck doing a really awfull base dance and people make fun of me. I've never corected this thinking because I allways felt any dancer that will let themselves look awfull for the sake of EXP deserves it when you could do another dance for less exp or chain flourishes together and simply rest more often.

The Sultrina way.

Switch to poplock/footloose and use a flourish. Now wait for it ..... watch your system message for the first exp message to pop up. Now /changedance to another dance style (basic for example). Now your doing basic, but getign exp for footloose/poplock, you don't look stupid and if you watch very closely you will discover another little easter egg in the dance code! That easter egg I call mixing and will discuss soon.

SlickRiptide,

<giggle> thank you for the glowing review, it was a pleasure dancing for you. I apreciate that you changed songs often giving me a chance to show off I wish more masters realized that changing songs was a good idea

Hi,

Sultrina - thank you for opening this school - I am learning a lot :-)

I would like to share one trick I use for costume changing.

Create a macro thus:

/ui action toolbarSlot12; /ui action toolbarSlot13; /ui action toolbarSlot14; /ui action toolbarSlot15;

now assign this to F1 slot. Then drag several clothing items into the SHIFT+F1, SHIFT+F2, SHIFT+F3 and SHIFT+F4 slots. These clothing items should all comprise a complete outfit (ie skirt, top, shoes & gloves)

Then by simply pressing  F1 you gan get an instant costume change - very useful when changing inside a smoke bomb that will disappear any second! This can be repeated using different slot numbers for your full costume wardrobe.

Another useful trick is that if you have two costumes consisting of only 2 items (ie dress+shoes, leotard+shoes) then if you put both costumes in the SHIFT+F1 - SHIFT+F4 slots, then the F1 key acts like a toggle between the two outfits.

If you start to run out of slots consider putting all your costumes on a seperate toolbar and using the /ui action toolbarPane command to swtich from your main dance macro toolbar to your costume toolbar, select the required costume and then switch back to your main dance macro toolbar.

I hope this is useful to some people and I'm not 'teaching granny to suck eggs' as the saying goes.

This is a wonderful post Sultrina, interesting to see we use a lot of the same techniques, including dance cards.  You can really tell a dancer/musician from someone who knows their flourishes

I have to say I never focused on controlling my drift to the extent that you have done (mainly worked with diff flos from diff dances to move around the dance floor and camera turns).  If you would not mind I would like to collate all of this in the guise of inviting Sultrina to the Kyorlana School of Music and Dance to give a masterclass to all the students.  That is unless you already have something that I could just link to for people?

One thing I would like to add here that many have already mentioned, is the use of aliases to enhance your dance experience and free up your toolbarslots for those all important things - clothes!  I have the following setup for Talus Moon:

cdb: /changedance basic2;
cdr: /changedance rhythmic2;
cdft: /changedance footloose2;
cdfml: /changedance formal2;
cde1: /changedance exotic;
cde2: /changedance exotic2;
cde3: /changedance exotic3;
cde4: /changedance exotic4;
cdpr: /changedance popular2;
cdpk: /changedance poplock2;
cdl: /changedance lyrical2;

sdb: /startdance basic2;
sdr: /startdance rhythmic2;
sdft: /startdance footloose2;
sdfml: /startdance formal2;
sde1: /startdance exotic;
sde2: /startdance exotic2;
sde3: /startdance exotic3;
sde4: /startdance exotic4;
sdl: /startdance lyrical2;
sdpr: /startdance popular2;
sdpk: /startdance poplock2;

This freed up many slots, I actually have three full (double-height) toolbars full of clothes, with half of another full.  To make use of these I have a separate clothes.txt file (I have too much too put everything into one ) which contains entries smiliar to those mentioned above.  I also put in an /echo to remind me what makeup I should be putting on to match the outfit.

exquisiteblue: /image; /echo Makeup: 72; /ui action toolbarPane02; /ui action toolbarSlot13;  /ui action toolbarSlot14;  /ui action toolbarSlot15;   /stately;

Notice the reference to stately?  That is my stately necklace.  When it comes to jewellry which is annoying as you can't tell which it is from the icon, I have these set up separately as aliases, then just call the appropriate one in the alias   Hope that makes sense.

stately: /ui action toolbarPane01; /pause 1; /ui action toolbarSlot07;

If you have never worked with alias files before you can read up on them in one of my previous posts:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=1046

Hmm... just in case any musicians are reading this, here are the commands I use to save you entering them manually

smsw1: /startmusic StarWars;
smr: /startmusic Rock
smsw2: /startmusic StarWars2;
smf: /startmusic Folk;
smsw3: /startmusic StarWars3;
smc: /startmusic Ceremonial;
smb: /startmusic Ballad;
smw: /startmusic Waltz;
smj: /startmusic Jazz;
smv: /startmusic Virtuoso;

cmsw1: /changemusic StarWars;
cmr: /changemusic Rock
cmsw2: /changemusic StarWars2;
cmf: /changemusic Folk;
cmsw3: /changemusic StarWars3;
cmc: /changemusic Ceremonial;
cmb: /changemusic Ballad;
cmw: /changemusic Waltz;
cmj: /changemusic Jazz;
cmv: /changemusic Virtuoso;

smbsw1: /startband StarWars;
smbr: /startband Rock
smbsw2: /startband StarWars2;
smbf: /startband Folk;
smbsw3: /startband StarWars3;
smbc: /startband Ceremonial;
smbb: /startband Ballad;
smbw: /startband Waltz;
smbj: /startband Jazz;
smbv: /startband Virtuoso;

cmbsw1: /changeband StarWars;
cmbr: /changeband Rock
cmbsw2: /changeband StarWars2;
cmbf: /changeband Folk;
cmbsw3: /changeband StarWars3;
cmbc: /changeband Ceremonial;
cmbb: /changeband Ballad;
cmbw: /changeband Waltz;
cmbj: /changeband Jazz;
cmbv: /changeband Virtuoso;

For my instruments I use the following:

bandfill: /ui action toolbarPane03; /ui action toolbarSlot23;
chidinkalu: /ui action toolbarPane03; /ui action toolbarSlot20;
mandoviol: /ui action toolbarPane03; /ui action toolbarSlot22;
traz: /ui action toolbarPane03; /ui action toolbarSlot21;

Ooooooo thank you Ravenmist I was hoping this would take off and get sticky, but was to shy to ask <giggle>

Kyorlana,

   I’ve been tempted to go the alias rout, but didn’t for a few simple reasons. Mainly I use the function keys for flourishes on the top row and mouse over the bottom row letting me play my dancer more like a piano. This lets me pre type chat at times just begging for the right time to hit the enter key. The other reason is apparent in my posts I am a terrible typist so if I use that method I would miss my cue do too typos way to often. Now for those of you choosing between the two methods let me confess I use no less then 8 bars (4 sets double deep) to control my dancer so that’s a commitment to hot bar space. Kyorlana’s method allows many more options to be at your fingertips then I have and if you’re a lighting typist it’s the superior. Also do not forget that you can assign your macros to hotkeys under custom on key map.  I’ve toyed with this but never saw a way to use it to my satisfaction.

   I love having this forum because we all get to toss out ideas. Many dancers have already come forward with alternative methods of doing the same things so everyone’s play style is represented. That said the down side of a forum is the topic is a complex one and is easier to understand with a more structured guide. So I’m also writing a mini book that explores all this in a more step by step from newbie to master format. Hopefully I can get Ravenmist to sticky that one posted on a chapter by chapter deal and I can send Kyorlana a copy in word format for download and printing. I will always present information here first though because it makes it available to all.

 <giggle> This was supposed to be a short post. Let me close by saying thank you ALL so very much for supporting this post. I have been very selfish with my secrets most of which were developed back in my beta days. I can honestly say that without people coming forward and offering some of the deeper secrets on their own. I would probably still be selfish with the information. Now that the cats out of the bag so too speak I feel that I was wrong to wait so long. So once again a heart felt thank you to everyone who has contributed and please keep pushing the limits here so we can bring the full potential of our class to light

I would like to dedicate this post to the male dancers out there and say I miss there presence on the floor! I’ve seen the pleas for more macho dances for them and I hope they get it. As a special gift I would like to expand your flourishes from 8 to 15 in some cases. In truth I’m going to give you infinite flourishes you can write yourself, but that is a little misleading as you will find out. It’s called mixing and it’s fun for all, but gentleman this post is for you.

  The short version is this, if you are still doing a flourish from one dance style and /changedance to another style you will start the same flourish number in the new style and it will be FREE (you pay the action cost of the base dance but not the flourish. You will get no exp for the new free flourishes, but the exp will continue to count down from the original you paid for.

  So here is a fun one, flourish 6 in popular (I call it hand flurry) then just as the flourish is about to end /changedance to rhythmic (I call this one jump splits) then just to humor me /changedance back to popular just as your feet hit the floor. If you timed it all right you will notice that the base rhythmic dance never showed. It appears that you grabbed a flourish out of popular that simply was never there. This is handy at times when you want to “borrow” a flourish from another dance as part of a routine. Eight flourishes plus the seven you can borrow from the other styles means in some cases you now have 15 flourishes at your fingertips. (of course not all of them really go together well)

 Very amusing Sultrina but you said we could write our own?! Yup you can. The full rules are this. If you leave a style and the style you switch too has a different flourish you will start the new flourish.  If it has the same flourish you will simply continue the original flourish but come out of it in the new style. This INCLUDES returning to the original style you started from. Ok let’s fire up the ole dancer and see what the heck Sultrina is talking about. We will use basic and rhythmic flourish 4 so even the novices can join in. In basic I call this knee pump/big arms and in rhythmic I call this one spin/hop. The slash tells me the flourish has a couple parts and that’s just what we are after here. Watch both of these flourishes a few times so you see what they look like as the DEVs gave them too you. Ok now let’s steal a flourish, places everyone! Fire up basic and flourish 4 watch the knee pump action and just as its done switch to rhythmic and start your spin. Soon as you come out of the spin switch to basic and notice the big arm action. Now when you’re almost done with the big arms witch back to rhythmic and get do the hop! Pweeeew no one said dancing was easy. Fame costs and this is were you start paying, in sweat <giggle>. Now at this point I hope everyone can see why you NEED a dance card.

A note on my examples: I always use the lowest level dance I can that will still illustrate my point. That way you don’t have to be a master to develop these skills. If I do use an example you aren’t skilled enough to do just try it with the dances you have and you should see the results just maybe not as dramatic. If you have tried and can’t seem to get it down just ask I will give you a routine that uses just basic and rhythmic.

Deep Funk forever

Writing these posts has made me reflect on my early days and how I got where I am. From a novice entertainer in “diaper pants” hiding in a ally to learn how the dancer worked (yes this is how I spent my first 3 hours of beta). To the day I met the boys, Deep Redscar, Thirha, Fingers and trubakka. There is also a cast of thousands but those people were the core of a band later to be known as ‘Deep Funk’. These guys were incredible musicians and had a very tight musical act when I met them. Watchign what they did with music pushed me to do everything I could to dance good enough to be on the same stage with them so they deserve a lot of credit for molding a young dancer into a crazy woman. Thank you guys I miss you!

At least I can still get a foot rub from trubakka <giggle>

---

Sultrina wrote:                     you’re a lighting typist it’s the superior.

---

You know, my typing speed is something I take for granted.  It only hits me when I get people asking 'Do you macro all that?' then they read what I've written, see how it is approriate/specific to the situation at hand and say 'Boy you sure type fast.'  So this is a very valid point.  If you aren't a fast typist, the toolbar slot method is going to be better.  I actually use a combination of the two, which I feel gives me a lot of flexibility.  I'd say try both and see what works for you.

As regards the book on dancing, that sounds great Sultrina.  What I'll do is put up a section on the KPME page (when it is finished) with the guest speaker notes, i.e. you   That way it is available online in html and for download as a word doc.