Letters from the Sky - Aura Fitzgerald

Letters from the Sky

I first heard this song on a TV show and had to go looking for it on You Tube because it was so emotive.  The first time I heard it in full the images were just there, fully formed in my mind.  I knew this was a routine that had to be made.  How I was going to achieve this was another matter.

The swan dive from the cliff was a pivotal moment in the action but it was so close to the beginning there had to be other things going on to balance it out so it wasn't front heavy.  Once again the tip function came in very useful!

I used a 180 turn on the palette to position myself the right way for the backward fall.  There had to be a trade-off between how close to the edge I could dance and how far in I could be so that the tip back would look legitimate.

The moving background was a "leap of faith" (no pun intended) as I ended up with a 20 prim palette, which moved with ease to my surprise.  The Whole back section on the stage, with the cliff edge and the ground below moves upwards to create the illusion of me falling downwards.  The cloud generators move up as well to create a layer for the planes to move through later.

As I "landed",I then had to "jump" from the tipped back palette (a) to a grounded palette (b) using the sit-2-sit.  Timing was the issue here to have a soft landing.

I used various adorns and a negative adorn to wear and un-wear wings and the dove, but it ended up being more efficient to use the swap RLV folders which Yummy developed for SOS.

The real backbone of the routine was the movers which behaved very precisely even with lag in a live performance.  Apart from the background, I had two movers to seat me and one each for the planes and the flying dove.  Quite a lot of motion for so few movers, really.

I had thought to put the end title on a mover of its own, but I thought it was more economical to fasten it to the adorned "light beams" so that as I rose up, the words appeared on the screen.

Once again, there were lots of baby steps, building on the backbone of the dance itself and taking my cues from the song and the emotional vibe of the whole piece.

I think one of my favorite comments was from a male audience member in London audience who, when he saw me fall, said he got the urge to jump up and catch me.

That's what I call suspension of disbelief! 

Watch the video:   https://vimeo.com/143194445

Success ?

To all purposes, being a dancer in SL is easy.  Jump on someone's HUD, line up, start dancing. People dancing in synch look cool.  Admit it!

It's not like you have put in years of training in tap, ballet or modern jazz, torn your ligaments and your ankles, damaged your knees and your back learning this stuff. The people who model for your MOCAP dances probably did.  But hey, this is SL. This is what it is all about, having fun and realising your dreams. No-one says it has to be hard work.  It's not real life....right?

Much like any other interaction in SL, dance is an emotional and creative response; an outpouring of energy that results in something that could be a cabaret, a striptease or even a piece of performance art.  Doing it WELL is a personal choice. Your child's finger-painting may not be a Rembrandt but the intention behind it is just as important to the recipient of that gift.

Let me just say, I am NOT criticising anyone for their method or level of involvement. Dancing, like any other creative pursuit should be personally rewarding above all else.  If it makes you happy then all is good.

Performing for other people "professionally" however, is another matter.   Making something that other people want to not only watch but appreciate takes a bit more effort.
"Oh yeah, you mean all the scenery and costumes and stuff, right?"

Nope.

Whilst all of that is part of the package, I am talking about attributes and traits that you need in spades if you want to achieve something WELL.

When we do the Sinner's Shows, we get a lot of people saying to us "Wow, I would love to do what you guys do.."  Like the picture above they are only seeing the tip of the iceberg which has been polished until it shines like a diamond!

So lets have a look at some of the bits underneath that make the difference:
(and these principles work for just about any project you can mention)

Dedication/Motivation

You really have to WANT to do something to make a success of it. That hunger is all important.  It doesn't have to be there 24/7 - we all have off-days, but it needs to be there sufficiently and consistently enough that you hang on to your idea and see it through to the end.   You have to believe in it too.  That's quite hard in SL.  You aren't going to get rich from it, you are not going to become a celebrity.  You do it because you believe it's important, if only to yourself.
The easily distracted need not apply...oh and it's not for quitters.

Sacrifice

There are times when I would much rather be hanging out with my friends and having a good laugh.  Recently  have forced myself to take breaks and do that for my sanity's sake, but there have been lots of times when I have had to say "No, I can't, I'm working on something".  You might want to spend all your lindens on shoes but your budget is up the creek because you had to buy things for your set or new dances.  Be prepared to be single minded sometimes.

Hard Work/Persistence

Are you prepared to do something over and over again until you get it right?  You can sit for hours perfecting something and maybe you are just at that point where you have to finish one bit before you can leave it alone for a while.  Going that extra 30 minutes when you have been sitting working on something for 2 hours can be a pain in the ass (literally). More importantly, taking the time to LEARN something like The Artiste or other tools thoroughly; know what they can do and what is the most efficient way of doing it.  You don't learn things like this overnight.  It takes time.  I have been learning for over 3 years and I still don't know the full potential of the HUD.  I still have to think hard about how to implement things properly  AND I still have to kick myself up the ass sometimes to get on with it.  No-one is perfect!

Disappointment/Frustration/Failure

Guess what?  You don't always get what you want and especially not when you want it.  Browning said "a man's reach should exceed his grasp". Wanting things that we can't quite reach can keep us on our toes.

Sometimes we suffer frustration trying to get something to do what we want. SL may offer us the possibilities to do a lot more than the real world, but there are still restrictions and all you can do is try to circumvent them.

As for Failure, it is only a matter of perspective. As long as you learn from what you have done and it allows you to do something better next time then where is the problem?

Good Habits

You want to minimise your chances of frustration?  Get some good habits.
(put the nuns down, Yummy)

1. Have a realistic idea of what can be done:
That means what YOU can do. If you want to feel an achievement, do it yourself. If people want to help you out that great, but don't base what you are doing on what other people are good at.  This doesn't mean you can't ask for help.  Sharing the burden is another good habit, but support is not the same as foundation.

2. Keep it SIMPLE:
Not all good ideas have to be complex.  In fact even the complex ones follow the same rule. It's called Occams Razor - Google it!

3. Break it down into  s m a l l e r   b i t s:
Don't think everything has to fall fully formed from the head of Zeus. Take baby steps, both in learning and planning.  Make sure you understand the basics before you rush into advanced techniques. Remember that quote? Well if you reach too far you fall over...flat on your face.

4. Pace yourself:
Never rush things. Plan your time properly.  Try to do little bits everyday so you are constantly moving forward but also leave time for you to put the project away for a couple of days and look at it fresh.

5. Don't say "Oh, it will do":
Best maxim ever "if a job's worth doing, its worth doing well"  'Nuff said.

6. Be true to yourself:

Does it matter what other people are doing?  Listen to your heart. Let it guide your imagination to a place that is original and yours.  Just because Josie Bloggs is doing a killer routine with 20 dancers in the club one sim over, don't think that's what you have to do.  Learn to appreciate what other people do without judging yourself against it. You are your own person.

Now go Boogie!

Philip Rosendale "Catches" Yummy In the Act

I was checking out Hi Fidelity, Philip Rosendale's (creator of Second Life) new Virtual Reality platform and was taken aback to see him use, of all things, an implementation of a throw-and-catch in one of his promotional videos.  Of all the things he could have demonstrated, and it was the only thing demonstrated in that video...well suffice it to say I was amused and honored...it felt a bit surreal to be honest. Ok so my 1.5 seconds of faked-fame is over. Million to 1 he's  never even heard of Yummy but its fun to pretend for a split-second and give rise to reason for mentioning my name and his in the same sentence.

See his video ==>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mNqaJOZoCM 

I think he was just trying to show me up based upon the video I did.

See my video ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0gO4IBP7lU

On a more serious note, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, he is only worth 17.5 billion, Google Ventures, and Second Life even, just to name a few, have invested heavily in Philips latest venture, Hi Fidelity. I came across Hi Fidelity because someone rumored that SL2 would end up merging with HiFi. I don't think it will, personally, but I am not ruling it out.

Here is an introduction video sneak peak of his new VR platform in Alpha. Oh and you can try out the ALPHA for free now and all the stuff on their Marketplace is FREE. There are 38 regions currently up so is suspect maybe land is FREE now too. Its an interesting platform...unfair to judge it too harshly in its early stages.

See the Video ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=180oREeGnks

Chandelier

Watch the Video ==> Chandelier

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After taking several of Yummy's Artiste classes, I was looking to try my hand at some new things.  

I had just seen a show where people entered the stage by dropping down from vines, and I thought it would have been a tad better if they had been able to actually swing from the vines.  

Later, I was listening to my iPod and Sia's 'Chandelier' came on.  

As I was singing along loudly (and probably off-key), it suddenly occurred to me that I might be able to swing from a chandelier.  

I talked to Yummy about the idea, and several weeks later, we had a working, swinging chandelier.  

The sit-2-sit function of the Artiste made the transition from floor to chandelier and back to floor easy.  

It's a minimalistic routine, but I am very proud of it. 

By Kat Feldragonne


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I (Yummy), wanted to add that this is a new area of avatar movement (added to  animations, movers, relocation(Sit-2-Sit)) where a few of our Artistas have shown interest in "moving an avatar thru space freely" as part of a "takeoff, gravity-based-freefall, land" movement-combo.

We are in the early stages of exploring this popular phenomena. Kat has done an excellent job of starting the ball rolling by imagining and then implementing her own solution to downward movement. lilangles has also sparked a new line-of-thought and approach towards downward movement that was a catalyst for the applicability of link-control as a key component. Aura has explored and implemented upwards and backwards movements. Nancy has added an artistic component to avatar-relocation.

Anyway, the key issues at hand are: 

a) Control (Start/Stop)
b) Timing (Accuracy and Dependability)
c) Association with other events and actions to provide context and meaning
d) Gravity-based-freefall (inertia)

They now have a few Artiste tools that address this issue worthy of further exploration: 

1) The Artiste Sit-2-Sit
2) The Artiste Swing
2) The Artiste Thrower
3) The Artiste Mover
4) The Artiste "Action"
5) and the new Artiste Link-Control


     Yummy

Introducing the Artiste "Action"

The Artiste "action" feature is an extension of the Palette "move" which  now boasts in excess of over 80 Palette features (probably a dozen more than its initial release-candidate).

 With a move you can of course move an object or avatar or both. You can animate a seated avatar, moving or not (think Palette-based dance-sequencing). You can specify a pause at the end of the move and/or animation. Well now you can also trigger an inter-palette action or intra-palette action that occurs after the pause. This means that a Palette can issue further commands to itself as well as to other Palettes.

Why is this of importance?

Because it adds infinite extensions to the Performance HUD that is now relieved from the limitations of 255 characters per autofx event to control Palettes for a given event. The HUD can trigger a Palette to do stuff including telling other Palettes what to do and they can in turn tell even more Palettes what to do, and so on, and so on ad infinitum. And with the Palettes built-in abilities to rez other Palettes themselves as well as the ability to kill themselves, you can manage prim and script resources with just-in-time Palette spawning and retirement.

Also another advantage is that the timing of when things happen can be closely married to moves and palette-based animation-sequences and this reduces the effort of having to time everything from the HUD perspective. 

There is also the advantage of creating "dependant" activity such that activity B does not begin until activity A has completed. Sort of akin to addressing SL anomalies like chat-lag.

 Simply turn control over to a Palette and let IT take control of itself and/or other Palettes via the newly vetted Palette "action". And you can even have multiple actions for a given move. You also have an optional delay time for each action allowing even more granular control of when an action triggers. And don't forget that a move has the option to 'not move' and to 'not animate' so it could be used solely to govern actions.

And if you are not aware, the Artiste move-system has the ability to perform any single move or any range-of moves from the HUD or a Palette "action", along with the common standard "do all moves", so you can easily segment and alternate a performance between dance-animations, partial-moves, and actions or combinations of the above.

A little known fact is that a Palette can issue emotes (chat) as well as strip, and adorn and even manage a homemade costume change (adorns & negative adorns) as just a few of a Palettes underrated feature set.

And lest we not forget the ability to extend a logical set of activities via Sit-2-Sit.

So those who have found the need to use 2 HUDS for more involved performances can now rethink their design.  Twenty HUD events nor 255 characters per line are no longer hindrances.

The Artiste Action sets the stage as the cornerstone of the road-map towards  elongated performances akin to 1 hr+ productions.

P.S.

And I discovered that inter-palette (Palette-To-Palette) actioning are not confined the the restricted inner-list of actions since you can simply use a "move" as your primary action and use the target-palette's full set of action-availability. One extra but insignificant script-hop.

Colors

See the video ==> Colors

Yummy asked me to do a write-up of how I came up with the idea for this act.  

The short answer is Yummy.  

The slightly longer answer is this: 

I had been trying to come up with an idea for a group number for the opening show at Le Artiste.  I keep a list of songs and ideas for routines in a notebook, and I was looking through it.  

I wanted to do something with particles, since I was just learning about those, and I wanted an upbeat song.  I didn't have any luck and so I shelved the idea.  

A few weeks later, I was attending an Artiste class of Yummy's, and she was wearing a suit that kept changing color.  I asked how it worked, she told me, and BAM!  Idea. :-) 

I went back through my song list and found Cascada's 'Everytime We Touch.'  The upbeat track was perfect for what I wanted.  

I wanted the colors of the suit to change to match the various particle effects I was planning.  There would be 4 of us onstage, so I wanted the focus to be on the colors. 

I made a black box and then proceeded to fill it with particle effects.  Not so many that it overwhelmed the dancers and the stage, but instead complemented them. 

It didn't take me long to choreograph the routine and after I was done with the choreo, I started laying out where I wanted the color changes to happen.  

I also used the layout to plan the various movers, but I kept everything pretty simple.  Again, I wanted the focus to be on the dancers and the colors. 

As I was working through the routine, I decided I wanted a sequence - one that looked almost like chasing lights - where one dancer is a color, then that color moves to the next dancer, and so on, but quickly.  

There was a bit of back and forth - working on the colors and where in the routine they would go, then working on the various particles, etc. 

I finished the routine and we did a few run-throughs to see how it looked.  Aura was kind enough to provide boots for the costumes and from there, it all just fell together.  

I love how the finished routine turned out.  It was fairly simple to put it all together - I think it looked much more complicated than it actually was!  

A big thank you to Aura, who graciously provided the boots for the costumes, to Lil for dancing with us, and especially to Yummy, whose skills and imagination helped bring my idea to life.  

You ladies rock!

CALM DOWN

Sometimes a song just appears that calls to you and throws up images and emotions that you can't ignore.  This song turned up on the stream at my home and I had to go looking for it.  There was an element of lateral thinking involved as I initially thought she was singing "come down" which was the trigger for the ceiling sequence.
Originally the set was going to be faded from color to white to symbolise color draining from surroundings but I am glad that I stuck with the stark white in the end.

This was a very personal piece for me, dealing as it does with isolation, depression and anxiety.  The original stage version had accompanying emotes:

Another day starts after a sleepless night; the day is bleak/ How many days have I spent like this, trapped between tension and lethargy / How do I remember who I was any more?  Or who I am now? / So many days gone by and nothing remains / Clinging to a hope that one morning I will wake and all will be forgiven / Fading under the critical gaze of others/
My arc of self control gone and I am spinning / Until that day, I float like a ghost through my own life / Trapped behind glass, unable to escape/ ..And the clock still turns


The dancer is the only color in a room of white.  She is not overweight, or ugly or stupid; illness does not have to show on the outside. Inside she is plagued with visions of herself longing for something. She is constantly feeling as though she is scrutinised by others and criticised.  She is trapped in a fish bowl life, unable to escape from her own feelings. Dealing with anxiety can be like wanting to crawl the walls or feeling like your life is upside down.  I hoped to reconcile all these images within the piece.

This is not a typical dance piece, in fact there are very few actual dance animations.  Most of them are taken from AOs or non-static poses and took a lot of time to track down.
The Artiste makes them very easy to compile, and with the choice of putting the animations in the palettes or in the dance sequence I can work around any problems caused by priorities in animation.

Because the anims were all differently purposed originally, some of them have different "heights" as well, which made it important to adjust palette height to accommodate this.  This worked particularly well with the ground sits which are notorious for making you hover off the ground.  It was also so easy to get the palette back to where it started because you just flip the difference in the relevant vector eg. you move the pallete down 0.355 in a move...the same move with -0.355 will bring you back to where you were.

The "wall walking" was accomplished using 3 palettes and force-sit between them.  It takes a little while to set it up but it is not hard.   It was trial and error to establish the most appropriate animations for jumps and landings to "soften" the flow.

I also used a set of alpha palettes which fade in and out such as the sitting figures.

This was a very fulfilling piece for me to work on and I was gratified by the response that I got when I performed  it live as, I wasn't sure that people would "get it".  They so obviously did and it was very moving.

As always, Thad has stepped up and added his own little embelishment on it which I think has just made it magic, thank you love!

I would like to dedicate this video to everyone who has ever suffered an anxiety attack or a depressive episode.  If you haven't, remember to be kind to those who do :)

CALM DOWN VIDEO

Love and Light

Aura x