Making a Notecard for Huddles

Making a Notecard for Huddles 111003


Notecards are used in the Huddles EZ Animator Delux to do two things:

1. Put dances in the order you want them
2. To make choreographed Dance Sequences

This notecard is to help you make your first notecard to put dances in the order you want them.

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HOW TO CREATE A NOTECARD

Open your inventory by clicking on the Inventory button in the bottom of your screen (Firestorm). Select the folder in inventory where you want to place the notecard. I use the same folder as my Huddles HUD. Right click on the folder name and you see a drop down menu ... select 'New Note.' This opens a note and selects the note in yout inventory so you can name the note. Let's use the name 'PRACTICE 1.' The name is important since this is the name that you will see in your HUD.

Once you have named your notecard, you see the notecard on your screen and it is blank. The top line is the title and I usually title it the same at the notecard name 'PRACTICE 1.'

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DESIGN OF THE NOTECARD

Since the notecard lets you arrange dances in the order you want and lets you use dance sequences, the first thing is to think about how to organize the card.

One dance or sequence is used per line. Since your Huddles HUD displays only 10 dances or sequences at one time, you need to think in terms of groups of ten.

I have put my HUD in the general order of SLOW, MEDIUM, FAST for the dances and sequences. Since I have so many dances I even put the speed on each display page.

In each group of ten I put four things:

1. line 1 - Sultry Down body - this is the transition dance to be used between dances that don't match well or at the end of a song
2. line 2 - I put the words SLOW, MEDIUM or FAST here with a modifier sometimes like MALE or SPECIAL. This helps me know what kind of dances are on the display page.
3. lines 3 through 9 - Here I put dances or sequences, which are discussed below.
4. line 10 - Here I put rythm6 which is my between songs dance.

At the DANCE QUEENS Free Stuff Box you can get a copy of a Notecard without the dances in the 3 through 9 position so you can see what it looks like ... it is 'DANCE QUEENS - Notecard Sample 1A for Huddles.'

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LOADING YOUR FIRST NOTECARD

Put 'DANCE QUEENS - Notecard Sample 1A for Huddles' in your HUD and take a look at it. To do this, DETACH your HUD. Rezz it on the ground. Edit the HUD and select contents. This is the same process you use to add dances to the HUD. Rezzing your HUD is the riskiest operation you can do with it. I try to do it on land where I can rezz, where I know the owner if something happens, and with a direct not wireless connection. The contents of my HUD cost me about USD 4000 and maybe 4000 hours of work. It is really valuable to me. Yours will be too, so protect it. I've set up a spot at Dance Central for you to do this.

Once the contents show, click and hold on the notecard and slide the cursor to the contents area of your HUD, then release the mouse button.

Once you have added the notecard and/or dances, close the editing window, take your HUD back to inventory and wear it. DO NOT WEAR YOUR HUD DIRECTLY FROM THE GROUND. You have to load the new or revised Notecard using the diskette button. Clicking this button gives you a listing of notecards. Select 'DANCE QUEENS - Notecard Sample 1 for Huddles' and the notecard loads in your HUD.

The default position is the first ten lines, which should display Sultry Down Body on the TOP line, SLOW as the second line, and rythm6 at the bottom.

Some important points:

1. Keep a copy of your notecard in inventory. I make changes in the inventory notecard and load or change the notecard in the HUD by copying the notecard from inventory.
2. Use different notecards for special situations. I sometimes host an event called LATE NIGHT SOMEWHERE. I have a notecard for this event with only dances that look like I am singing on a stage. I have a separate notecard for DANCE QUEEN demos. I actually have about 10 notecards loaded in my HUD ... all with different names.
3. If you click on the second line which has the name of the display group, you will see in Green in Chat the name, for example, SLOW. The HUD does this when it cannot find the dance with the name.
4. Look at the notecard in inventory. Notice that each blank line has a space bar space. This is necessary for the HUD to recognize the blank line as blank. If you do not put anything on the line, the HUD interprets it as nothing. This messes up your dance order. To be sure my spacing is correct I check the last display page to be sure Sultry Down Body is at the top.

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LOADING DANCES

Putting dances in your HUD is just like putting in the Notecard. You must have the dances in your HUD for the HUD to play them. One exception to this is the group of SL internal animations. They do not have to be in the HUD. There is a separate note that explains using the SL animations.

The next step is to put the dances in your notecard. First you need the name of the dance. I get the names by opening the properties of the dance. With very few exceptions this gives you the correct name for the dance. THE NAME OF THE DANCE MUST BE EXACTLY RIGHT IN YOUR NOTECARD. Watch capitalization and extra spaces. Exact means exact.

Next, I decide which dances are slow, medium and fast. This is arbitrary, but is a good first division. Then, I put the dance names in the HUD one per line. I make sure the extra space that I had put in the line as discussed above is eliminated. If I need more room for my SLOW dances, for example, I just add a new group of ten spaces with lines 1, 2 and 10 as described above. Then, I add the new dances.

Now I have the notecard in inventory with the list of dances in the approximate order I want them. 'DANCE QUEENS - 1B Notecard Sample for Huddles' shows an example of a notecard with dances included. This is available at the DANCE QUEENS Free Stuff Box.

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CHANGING A NOTECARD IN THE HUD

There are two ways to do this.

The first way is to load the notecard like you load a new dance. This requires that you put the HUD on the ground and I don't like to do that except when I have to. It also means you have to remove the old notecard with the same name.

The second method is easier. I edit the HUD while it is on. This lets you see the contents, but you cannot add or remove items from the HUD contents. However, you can change the contents of a notecard. What I do is copy to the clipboard the contents of the notecard in inventory, and replace the contents of the notecard in the HUD. You have to be careful to do this right or you will erase both notecards and be in crying mode. Sometimes, it takes about 5 minutes for the contents to open for me since I have so many dances in the HUD.

Once you have copied the notecard contents from your inventory to your HUD, close the inventory notecard, stop editing your HUD and reload the notecard using the diskette icon.

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POLISHING YOUR NOTECARD

As soon as you have your dances in your HUD, try them. Right away you will see some that you like together and others that don't fit. At this point I start changing my inventory notecard to make the order I like best. This is a never ending process. When I am happy with the changes I have made, I put the inventory notecard contents into the HUD like described above.

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Now you can put dances into your notecard and use it for Freestyle Choreography. Next, take the class on how to do Freestyle Choreography and how to do Sequenced Choreography.

xxx
Nottoo