Couples dancing has to be synchronized. In order for two avatars to share an animation there must be some sort of controller. In beds and other animation devices where more than one avatar interacts with another, the controller is usually embedded in the furniture. In the case of a couples dance controller, they are normally set out in the open where people can recognize it and click on it to summon poses that the couple can "sit" upon to activate the animations. In this case, dances. This may sound pretty simple and straight forward but it's not. It can be, but it's not. Let me illustrate.
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| Rainbow colored Intan controller, top center |
The Intan brand of couples dance controller is universally recognized. They come in the form of a slowly rotating, rainbow colored set of balls, or often times a heart shape. This makes sense. Most people will look around the club they are in for something like this to activate if they want to dance with someone. Intan also makes single dance controllers. So if you are by yourself, you can click on the blue controller if you are wanting male dances and the pink controller if you want the female dances. Intan also has remote controllers. These look like a rainbow colored ball on the top of a small post, plus two little people hanging onto the post. One is blue and the other pink. For example, if you want to dance a single female dance, you click on the pink person hanging onto the post. If you want to dance with someone, you click on the rainbow colored ball. It's pretty straight forward.
You will see a menu pop up in your viewer's window with control options for the dance. It will first ask if it may animate your avatar. This is important because these controllers can be clicked on accidentally and you may already be animated with a dance in your animation overrider (AO. Subject for another post), which would interfere with your current animation. You need that option to be able to say No. There are also a list of dances to choose from by name and a Tools button to use to adjust your dance or resynchronize the dance. Often times, due to lag or your partner's computer running slower or faster than yours, you may need to resync your dance. At clubs that have lots of dances, you can select couples dances that fit the mood of the music. There are waltzes, slow dances, fast dances, goofy dances (numerous ones of those), salsas, etc. Just about everything you can think of.
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| Brand X dance controller in the disco ball |
The only problem I have with the Intan system is that you really need to wear a HUD to help you control the dances. The HUD has a Resync button and if you try to access the resync feature using the default control menu without the HUD, you could get lost trying to find it under the Tools menu, especially if the club has lots of dances. To stop dancing, all you have to do is press the Stand Up button which appears in your viewer once you sit on a dance ball.
That is all well and good. But there is at least a couple of other dance controllers available out there and one of them that has appeared in the past year or so has be scowling. I will not call it by name here because it is not the goal of this blog to say anything bad about anyone or any product (unless it's griefers). Please allow me to explain first. I would not mind the new dance system at all except for the fact that it's quite popular. This is discouraging because I don't like it for a number of reasons. First of all, it can take any shape or form. You cannot find it. It's annoying to search for a couples dance controller and have to ask the host in public chat where to find it. I've seen it in mirrored disco balls and in dance floors. Sure, putting the controller in the dance floor seems to make sense. After all, my first club had a crude dance controller in the dance floor and I never remember anyone asking me "how do I dance here?". But that was five years ago. Today, people are looking for dance controllers. They are not thinking it's in the dance floor. And a disco ball? Well, it's not real obvious. Perhaps if it had text hovering over it? That might help. But nobody can disagree that if there is an Intan controller in the club, people will find it and know what it is.
Another issue I have with the Brand X controller is that when you click on it, you get a pop down message. Now if you are using the default SL viewer with the default settings, you will not see this pop down message. It's not real obvious in those viewers. That causes more problems that you can imagine. The message is asking if you want to dance single or couples. If you see the message then you can choose singles or couples but it will also ask to animate you. This part is bad because another pop down menu will present itself and cover that most important question. It's caused a great deal of confusion as you can imagine. So lots of hosts and club owners have taken to telling the patrons to relog onto SL to hopefully fix the problem. And I have run into that issue in the past. I had to relog just to get the dance controller to work for me. I have never had that issue with the Intan. So why are club owners using this less-than-desirable controller? But wait, there's more.
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| Click the deck to dance |
Once you choose to dance a couples dance, it informs you that dance balls to sit on are on their way to you. If you are male you sit on the blue ball and your partner on the pink ball. It makes sense. The problem is that the balls will present themselves (rez) to your far left and forward. Here's the problem with that. Say you are on a crowded dance floor with your woman and you find a small spot to dance with her that's unoccupied. So you ask for and find what to click on to dance and when you do, it rezzes the dance balls inside of another couple next to you. Once you "sit" on those dance balls, you cannot move except for the dance animations. You will be dancing inside of your neighbors. Most women don't care for that. The Intan does not do that. It rezzes the dance balls right where you are standing. So why are club owners using this less-than-desirable Brand X controller? But wait, there's more.
Actually, this is not so bad really. The Intan controller works best if you use their HUD. The HUD is free but they are not always easy to find and they are NOT included inside the dance controller menu. This other system does have their dance HUD inside their menu and it's offered as an option. This is handy because in order for me to use an Intan dance controller HUD, I have to search my extensive inventory. I have taken to including it in a file folder which I can quickly look up called Otto. I have lots of default items in there such as hair and skin, etc., and my Intan HUD is right there. But the other controller has the HUD right in their menu. Very handy except for the fact that it attaches itself to your upper right screen position as a default location. The Intan does this too but because I keep using the same Intan HUD, I have edited it to attach itself more to the center of my viewer screen. This other controller HUD removes a HUD I like to keep as always on and as default. And I did try once to edit and move this Brand X controller HUD over to the center of my viewer, but then it malfunctioned. It's as if it has to occupy the upper right corner of your viewer, removing any other HUD that was in that location. So annoying. So why are club owners using this less-than-desirable and user unfriendly controller?
I can only speculate. First of all, Intan dance controllers are very difficult to load with dances. There is a very real possibility that you can lose your non-copy dance animations as you are trying to install them into the Intan. I know, this has happened to me. There is even a company out there that pre-loads Intans with dances so you can purchase them fully loaded without having to load them yourself. They do a lot of business. So it's possible that this Brand X dance controller is easy for the club owner to use and load. But still, once you get used to loading the Intan like I have, it's not bad at all.
Another reason could be cost. It might be much less expensive purchasing the Brand X controller, I don't know. I think I paid around L$2000 for my Intan? Probably less than that for the couples controller. Then I purchased the two singles controllers later, along with a "Dance Anywhere" remote controller which is copy-able. So I might have up to L$3000 into my Intan system? If the Brand X controller is less than that then that might explain why more club owners are using it.
Finally, it could be that because the Brand X dance controller is new, it's better. That's not necessarily true. With all of the patrons having trouble with the Brand X controller, it's obvious that it is not better than anything else. If it's not instinctive to use, then it's not practical, especially when there is at least one other controller out there that is.
