Dance Creator is a set of scenes aimed at creating and playing dance animations in VaM without any animation knowledge(in VR or on desktop)
You can use it passively: Play some music, set the tempo of the dance and enjoy the show.
Or as an active dance mini-game: Use the in-game UI, or keybinds, to match your dance to the music! You can switch between up to 9 dances, change the tempo/amplitude, or rotate your character to create a unique live performance. (That's how i created my dance videos)
Download base dance presets here : DanceCreatorPresets You need to unzip the presets into VaMRoot/Saves/PluginData/CLS2/GeneralPresets/AutoPresets where VaMRoot is where the vam.exe is!
Creating dances:
1. First, load the DanceCreator scene and modify the person atom appearance to your liking. (Do not use the Load Look button to change your look, it will break the scene, use the appearance preset system instead)
2. If your character height is different from the default VaM height, use the Head,Chest and Hips pose Up/Down sliders until the pose looks good to you, then use the Dance Ground Offset slider if the character is floaty or stuck in the ground. You can save this scene as a base to create animations for this character.
3. Now you have a character ready, you can start creating your dance using the body sliders. (Tip: I usually start by creating the pose, with 0 movement amplitude. Then, with movement amplitude maxed, set the base movement of the dance, for exemple, if the main movement is from the hips, i'll start with the hip sway. Then build the rest of the movement to complement that, ending with the hands)
4. When you are happy with the your main dance, save it to slot 1 (Select a preset group before saving to avoid overriding existing dances!).
Now you can use the dance like that, but it lacks variations! Create variations of your main dance, and save them to slot 2-9 (all the slots need to be filled, if you don't want to create 9 variations, just fill the empty slot with the main dance style).
Playing dances:
You can either use the DancePlayer scene, or play your dance in any scene using CLS.
Using the DancePlayer scene:
To play your dance, simply load the scene, and load the slot 1.
Now you can use the in-game UI and keybinds to control the dance tempo, amplitude, rotation and switch the current dance variation.
You can use the Auto-Switch mode to cycle through your dance variation either sequentially or randomly as well.
From scratch using CLS:
If you want to load your dance in another scene, first add CLS.cslist to your character, and do all the basic CLS setup (you can check CLS tutorial if you are not familiar with the basics), then, inside CLS -> Presets category -> Load preset. You can find the presets created with the DanceCreator in GeneralPresets/AutoPresets (default preset group 699).
Advanced tips:
You can link morphs to your dance tempo using the CLS triggers. In CLS, go into the Triggers category, click the Transition Trigger dropdown, and select Both Steps. Add your morph in the standard trigger panel that poped. Now your morph will animate with the dance tempo.
The DancePlayer and DanceCreator scenes are using the excellent SilverExpressionTool plugin by ClockwiseSilver, i recommend customizing it with your own expressions to match your dances!
Made with Dance Creator:
You can use it passively: Play some music, set the tempo of the dance and enjoy the show.
Or as an active dance mini-game: Use the in-game UI, or keybinds, to match your dance to the music! You can switch between up to 9 dances, change the tempo/amplitude, or rotate your character to create a unique live performance. (That's how i created my dance videos)
Download base dance presets here : DanceCreatorPresets You need to unzip the presets into VaMRoot/Saves/PluginData/CLS2/GeneralPresets/AutoPresets where VaMRoot is where the vam.exe is!
Creating dances:
1. First, load the DanceCreator scene and modify the person atom appearance to your liking. (Do not use the Load Look button to change your look, it will break the scene, use the appearance preset system instead)
2. If your character height is different from the default VaM height, use the Head,Chest and Hips pose Up/Down sliders until the pose looks good to you, then use the Dance Ground Offset slider if the character is floaty or stuck in the ground. You can save this scene as a base to create animations for this character.
3. Now you have a character ready, you can start creating your dance using the body sliders. (Tip: I usually start by creating the pose, with 0 movement amplitude. Then, with movement amplitude maxed, set the base movement of the dance, for exemple, if the main movement is from the hips, i'll start with the hip sway. Then build the rest of the movement to complement that, ending with the hands)
4. When you are happy with the your main dance, save it to slot 1 (Select a preset group before saving to avoid overriding existing dances!).
Now you can use the dance like that, but it lacks variations! Create variations of your main dance, and save them to slot 2-9 (all the slots need to be filled, if you don't want to create 9 variations, just fill the empty slot with the main dance style).
Playing dances:
You can either use the DancePlayer scene, or play your dance in any scene using CLS.
Using the DancePlayer scene:
To play your dance, simply load the scene, and load the slot 1.
Now you can use the in-game UI and keybinds to control the dance tempo, amplitude, rotation and switch the current dance variation.
You can use the Auto-Switch mode to cycle through your dance variation either sequentially or randomly as well.
From scratch using CLS:
If you want to load your dance in another scene, first add CLS.cslist to your character, and do all the basic CLS setup (you can check CLS tutorial if you are not familiar with the basics), then, inside CLS -> Presets category -> Load preset. You can find the presets created with the DanceCreator in GeneralPresets/AutoPresets (default preset group 699).
Advanced tips:
You can link morphs to your dance tempo using the CLS triggers. In CLS, go into the Triggers category, click the Transition Trigger dropdown, and select Both Steps. Add your morph in the standard trigger panel that poped. Now your morph will animate with the dance tempo.
The DancePlayer and DanceCreator scenes are using the excellent SilverExpressionTool plugin by ClockwiseSilver, i recommend customizing it with your own expressions to match your dances!
Made with Dance Creator:
