Classification of Dances
and Animations 111020
Dance Details contains a basic set of
information on the thousands of dances and animations in SL (Second
lIfe).
- Name - Spelled
correctly with the loop time added using the "|" symbol
- Type - Dance or
Animation
- Speed - An arbitrary
judgment of the dance's speed as Slow, Medium or Fast
- Time - The loop time
of the dance or animation
- Rating - The rating
of the dance by DANCE QUEENS members on a scale of 1 to 10 (best)
- Source - The creator
of the dance or anim
This information is contained
in a database that Riddle and I have been working on. This data reflects about
two months work in entering the data.
If you have ever looked for
just the right dance or animation for a sequence or a show, you know this can
take a while. Additional classification of the dances and anims would
increase the usefulness in finding dances and animations in the
database. This post describes where I am going on classifying dances
and animations. I welcome your comments.
A review of the classification of
dances in SL shows that there is not consistency in how different makers and
dancers choose to classify dances. Standards of classification are needed so we
can enter the data and retrieve it effectively.
To get us started on this
I am proposing a classification system for dances and animations in SL (at least
the dancing not the sex part of it, hahaha). It consists of four levels of
information:
- TYPE
- CATEGORY
- STYLE
- CHARACTERISTIC
Let me show you how this would
work.
====================
ANIMATION TYPES
There are four types of
animations of interest to dancing: individual dances, couples dances, animated
poses and static poses. These I call animation TYPES. I have made the names of
these four short, because as you will see, space will be needed for all the
information. So the abbreviated versions of TYPES are:
====================
DANCE
CATEGORIES, STYLES, CHARACTERISTICS
Although I know about some
types of dances, I know nothing about others. I think most if not all DANCE
QUEENS members are the same. So, to subdivide the dances further I found a very
helpful dance classification Wiki article with references. This article
provides a basis for defining the next level of dance classification into
CATEGORIES, such as hiphop, latin, performance, etc. Each of these CATEGORIES is
further divided into what I am calling a STYLE, for example in the
House CATEGORY there are STYLES: Footwork, Hustle, Jacking, etc. The really
helpful part of the Wiki classification is there are references which describe
the dances and may limit the disagreements we are sure to have when we classify
dances.
I modified the list from
the Wiki for several reasons. First, I wanted to simplify it a bit. Second, as
thorough as it is, there are missing dances, for example, pole dances, the
Twist, chair dances and more. I did find a list of dances on another Wiki and expanded
the list based on this list. Third, the list has duplicate STYLE entries and I
put a dance STYLE in only one CATEGORY. Finally, SL is not RL. We have some
unique dances here such as mermaid and air dances.So, here is my first proposal
for classifying SL dances into CATEGORIES and STYLES:
Included are links
to the description of most of the Dance STYLES with a YouTube video reference if
I could find one.
I know that
this list is both incomplete and wrong and I welcome your input on improving
this first attempt to classify dances.
CHARACTERISTICS is a term
I want to use to describe the most prominent unusual feature of a dance, if
there are any. For example, a dance may be one that is on the floor. This "on
the floor" CHARACTERISTIC is useful to know if that is what you are looking for.
I am not sure what these CHARACTERISTICS will be until we make progress on
classifying dances, but I expect 10 to 20 different CHARACTERISTICS that we will
find.
====================
COUPLES CATEGORIES,
STYLES, CHARACTERISTICS
The couples
dances can be classified by the same CATEGORIES, STYLES and CHARACTERISTICS
defined for Dances. I expect fewer STYLES. For example, I don't imagine a limbo
couples dance or a Geisha couples dance.
====================
ANIM
CATEGORIES, STYLES, CHARACTERISTICS
In classifying anims the
CATEGORIES I chose are based on the position of an avatar while doing
something:
- Standing
- Sitting
- Ground
Sitting
- Lying
- Jumping
- Flying
- Hovering
- Swimming
Again I shortened the names to
save space:
- Stand
- Sit
- GSit
- Lie
- Jump
- Fly
- Hover
- Swim
For the STYLES I went to the
list of special animations that I have been issuing for about a year. This list
defines what the anim is doing in one word or short phrase. Most of these apply
to the Standing CATEGORY. The other CATEGORIES have a lot of anims in them, but
I have not as yet defined a STYLE for each of these. This will come as the anims
are classified. So, here is what the classification looks like for Anims:
| TYPE |
CATEGORY |
STYLE |
| Anim |
Stand |
*Air |
| *Anger |
| *Anxious |
| *Applaud |
| *Arm Swing |
| *Arms Crossed |
| *Arms Folded |
| *Batting |
| *Beg |
| *Bored |
| *Bow |
| *Box |
| *Call |
| *Cheerleader |
| *Cheesecake |
| *Clean |
| *Cleavage |
| *Conductor |
| *Cough |
| *Crawl |
| *Crazy |
| *Crouch |
| *DJ |
| *Drunk |
| *Exercise |
| *Exhausted |
| *Express Love |
| *Fight |
| *Finish |
| *Flip-Cartwheel |
| *Flirt |
| *Greet |
| *Guitar |
| *Hail Cab |
| *Hand at Side |
| *Hand on Breast |
| *Hand on Elbow |
| *Hand on Groin |
| *Hand on Hair |
| *Hand on Hip |
| *Hands Behind |
| *Hands Folded |
| *Hands Over Head |
| *Hang |
| *Head Movement |
| *Hide |
| *Hold Something |
| *Jump Rope |
| *Kill Bug |
| *Knee Wiggle |
| *Laugh |
| *Lean Forward |
| *Listen |
| *Look at Nails |
| *Macho |
| *Meditate |
| *Military |
| *Model |
| *Moon |
| *Pace |
| *Palms Facing Out |
| *Palms Together |
| *Peace |
| *Point |
| *Read |
| *Religious |
| *Robot |
| *Sad-Cry |
| *Scratch |
| *Search |
| *Shake Fist |
| *Shot |
| *Shout |
| *Shy |
| *Sing |
| *Sleepy |
| *Smoke |
| *Snap Fingers |
| *Sneeze |
| *Snow Angel |
| *Spin-Turn |
| *Step Aside |
| *Stop |
| *Sway |
| *Talk |
| *Think |
| *Throw Up |
| *Throw Up |
| *Tie Up-Bind |
| *To Ground Sitting |
| *To Lying |
| *To Sitting |
| *Toilet |
| *Touch Foot |
| *Wait |
| *Wash |
| *Wave-Bye |
| *Wiggle Hips |
| *Win |
| *Zombie |
| Sit |
* |
| Ground Sit |
* |
| Lie |
* |
| Fly |
* |
| Swim |
* |
| Fly |
* |
| Jump |
* |
| Hover |
* |
Some anims move the avatar from one position to another, for example, an anim
for going from standing to lying. I placed these in the CATEGORY in which the
anim starts, Standing in this example.
One problem with this
classification scheme is that obvious anims such as those made for mermaids or
for ballet are not easily found. In the anim TYPE, I propose using the
CHARACTERISTICS to identify these uses of the anims. Although it seems
contradictory to put Mermaid as a STYLE in the Dance TYPE and as a
CHARACTERISTIC in the Anim TYPE, the alternative does not work. Having a STYLE
of Mermaid in Anims would miss what the anim is doing, for example,
spin-turn.
====================
POSE CATEGORIES,
STYLES, CHARACTERISTICS
We do not use static poses
often in dancing. Occasionally, a POSE may be used as a starting position or as
a finish dance, if the ease-in time is reasonable. At this point I am not
offering any classification of POSES. This will be done
later.
====================
REFERENCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_dance
====================
xxx
Nottoo
