Order to Chaos to Order
That to me is the key to creation.
And to me its the key to captivating group-choreography. I have seen it in drill-teams as well as in the arts and in nature.
For SmartDancer (SD) a key component is being able to segue back into an orderly formation from a more disordered formation. This requires an in-depth knowledge of how SD perceives animations to work.
The key is to have a 1st animation running that we can return back to after performing a 2nd animation.
If we STOP the 2nd animation then it will automatically SNAP back in sync with the 1st animation.
There are a few tools at our disposal.
StartKill and StartKeep
StopLast
Freeze and UnFreeze
Assume we have 4 dances called Dance1, Dance2, Dance3 and Dance4
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StartKill mode, which is the default, will cause the following to happen:
Dance1 runs
Dance1 is stopped when Dance2 runs
Dance2 is stopped when Dance3 runs
Dance3 is stopped when Dance4 runs
Then if we press StopLast, Dance4 stops and our dancer returns to STANDING (or the standinganimation, because there are no more animations running. (Actually the standing animation is the 1st animation to run by default)
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StartKeep
Dance1 runs
Dance2 runs (Dance1 is still running)
Dance3 runs (Dance1, & Dance2 are still running)
Dance4 runs (Dance1, & Dance2, Dance3 are still running)
If we press StopLast, then Dance4 will stop and Dance3 will be running. If we press StopLast again, nothing changes. SD only remembers the last dance. You do have some extended control if dances are assigned to multiple Divisions. You can stop dances by Division (A,B,C,D) but only 1 dance per Division.
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Canons
I like to think of SD as having ‘2 trains‘. The normal-animation train and the Canon-animation train.
When you perform an animation on the Canon train, it automatically returns to the previously running animation from the normal-animation train,…when it is done. Canon animations run as long as the CanonInterval (aka CanonDuration) specifies.
We want to be able to emulate the way that the SD Canon works using the normal-animation method, that being…pressing dance buttons in succession, or sending them via commands to the SD sequencer.
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Freeze
Dance1 runs (this becomes the current backing animation)
Dance2 runs (this becomes the NEW current backing animation)
Lets say we plan to do Dance3 and Dance4 and then a Canon. When the Canon ends, we wish to revert back to Dance2.
We issue a FREEZE Command right after Dance2 runs. And then Dance2 becomes the FROZEN semi-permanent backing animation. No further animations will replace it unless and until we issue an UNFREEZE command. StartKeep and Freeze work hand-in-hand together.
Trace,0ff
ElapsedOrDuration,duration
1,Dance,dance1 | 10
2,Dance,dance2 | 10
3,StartKeep | 0.1
4,Freeze | 0.1
5,Dance,dance3 | 15
6,Dance,dance4 | 15
7,StopLast | 0.1
8,Wait,10 | 10
Upon executing the StopLast command, the dancers will revert back to dance2.
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Normal-Animation Segueing