Couple dancing in Second Life has always been different, usually one would either buy a complicated (and often expensive) system that would rezz poseballs, that you would now need to modify on your own, if allowed; or go to a club that had Couple Dances available for you and your partner to use. While all those were good options, Paragon Dance Animationns saw this and went like: “Hold my purse.” and went ahead to come out with their very own COUPLE DANCE HUD!
In this review we will cover the basics, the review itself and a video showcasing the dances. Let’s start.
The Basics
The Paragon Dance Animation Couples Dance HUD is currently available at Equal10 November, and at the Paragon Mainstore after this date, for L$999 and it includes:
♡ 2 HUDs, one Main HUD that will control all animations (no mod/no trans/ copy) and a Partner HUD (no mod/ copy/ trannsfer).
♡ 1 texture like the one shown on the left.
♡ 5 notecards about how to use the HUD
The HUD comes empty and animations are sold separately.
Curently Paragon has a total of 4 couple packs that if you had purchased previously you will receive a loader for them or you can request a redelivery; these are:
♡ Paragon_Vik & Miranda TikTok Dance Duo // Currently available at Equal10 November
♡ Hugh & Madison – Couples Club Dance Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
♡ Anze & Madison Dance Duo Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
♡ James & Miranda MJ Dance Duo Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
So basically how does it work?
You will need to wear the Main HUD (worn on TOP) and it will display automatically this welcome message.
Then wear the loader HUD which you will need to click.
After loading it will prompt a message with the animations detected and you will need to confirm.
And basically that is it. Once you have loaded all your animations you will just need to send the Partner HUD to the person you would like to dance with and VOILA! You ready for it all!
✨IMPORTANT!✨This device requires Remote Scripted Viewer Controls (RLVa) enabled on all participants, otherwise you will be prompted with a message saying it requires it to work.
The Review
The Paragon Dance Animation team has outrdone itself with this product. While it is not perfect, rarely anything is in SL, this is definitely something we as a community have been needing for a long time.
Cost wise I consider it a decent price for what it is, my one concern is the fact it comes empty and from what their FAQ mentions (see end of this post) there is no current compatibility with other brands, not an assured compatibility at least for now. While the team seems to be hinting at working towards that, it is definitely not something readily available.
Upon asking my friend Rysa to try this HUD with me to do the review the process was streamlined and simple; I loaded all dances into the HUD, sent him the partner HUD then clicked play. It prompted a list for me to select who I want to dance with (works on proximity) and sends a request to the person wearing the partner HUD, then it starts the dance.
You can choose who is the lead. This is probably the thing that excited me a lot, after the RLV/no poseball requirement, it automatically sets whoever you chose to be lead (you or partner) and sets them on the lead position, now careful here, once you have chosen who is lead and chosen an animation, the system will lock you in that position until you load a new dance with a new lead.
It autoaligns depending on who is the lead. This one is a bit janky, while it is freaking cool that you get to be realigned, it does not really indicates where and how this is decided, it just does it. It also sets the Hover Height for partner at -2, you will need to mod this on your personal hover height. While the alignment is wonderful, if you choose to move for wahatever reason, the alignment is lost and you will need to reset the HUD from scratch, meaning you need to picka partner again and do the whole process.
After a member of the Second Life commmunity contacted me about this review he asked me about specifics of this HUD and how it stands agaist other similar products. I decided to reevaluate and test this HUD once again to add the following to the review as of December 4th, 2023 and make changes to the momo-rating.
- The HUD is extremely easy to use: Only requires RLv enabled on both parties and it will autoalign at the start of the interaction. Adding animations is easy with the already included applier. Loses one corgo momo because there is no realignment button should one of the parties move. 4/5 momos.
- HUD is not compatible with animaitons outside of what Paragon offers and is not easily customizable. 2/5 momos (for now). They have plans to expand on this, more information at the end of this post in the FAQ.
- Quality and Cost v Benefit, to me is a solid 5, standing at 999 linden dollars with 1 free couple animation included it seems to be a good startinng point. Especially when you consider the Paragon team has plans onn keep expanding and editing the functionality of this HUD to include compatibility and customizability as well as working with solo and couple dancing.
Overall I think it is a great release with massive potential and I am ooking forward to more and to see what they come up with!
Video Showcase
The following are quick videos mostly raw showcasing some of the dance packs mentioned before:
♡ Hugh & Madison – Couples Club Dance Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
♡ Anze & Madison Dance Duo Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
♡ James & Miranda MJ Dance Duo Pack // Available at Paragon Mainstore
Credits:
♡ – wraith – Lilith Dress – Reborn @ Euphoria Event
♡ Phedora ~ Alma V3 Platforms @ Mainstore
♡ *exist* Lamb Marks – Black Evox @ Mainstore
♡ Stealthic – Wish Hairstyle
Disclaimer: Please note no copyright infrigement is intended with the use of the music in this video, and I do not own nor claim ownership of the original songs by Willie Colon ft. Ruben Blades and Rosalia used in these dance/review video.
🔥Paragon Couple Dances HUD🔥
Exclusively available at Equal10 November
Event Opening Date: November 10th, 2023
Event Closing Date: December 5th, 2023
🚖Taxi to Equal10 November
🚖TP to Paragon Mainstore
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Product F.A.Q.s
The following is an exact copy of the FAQ provided by Paragon Dance Animations and available in-world, I am just adding it in case you would like to read it as part of this review.
Q: Will this HUD work for non-Paragon couples dances?
A: In the future, yes. Currently, we can only guarantee that Paragon dances work. HOWEVER, we have dev kits Loader HUDs for animation/pose creators. This HUD won’t be limited to just our dances. We are all about giving people options.
DISCLAIMER: Other brands may or may not produce compatible couples animations in the future with the dev kit; however, this release is compatible with all Paragon couples dance animations, which we only provide support for.
Q: Does the HUD play single dances?
A: No, but a future update could make this happen or it may be integrated into an AO hud. There are many single dance huds in SL, but Paragon wants to do something never done before.
Q: How do I load my Paragon couples dances that I already own?
A: You will be auto-delivered [Loader] HUD(s) of each pack or single pairs you previously purchased OR if you buy any Couples Dance Pack or Single pairs after the release of the Couples Dance HUD, the folder should say v.2 and will already include a [Loader] HUD.
Wear the [Loader] HUD with your main HUD for 1-click to load your dances. No more inconvenient hud rezzing, drag & drop.
Q: What kind of updates/improvements/addons can we expect in the future?
A: On our list…
- Add a more intricate partner hover adjustment function.
- Add a special user-friendly web-based ‘No Notecard’ sequencing function.
- Add a one-touch auto-loader system at the store, so people don’t have to reload each pack every time there is an update.
- Add a pause button.
- 3 ppl (trio) dance (way in the future and based on demand once we start taking things to a new level with this HuD).
Q: How many dances can this HUD hold?
A: 75 pairs (150 animations)
Q What is up with the -2.00 Hover?
A: Due to the complexity of what we are doing with movement animations, we don’t use a joint to vertically offset like follow huds, so the -2.00 is the offset.
Currently, ONLY the lead/person with the Main HUD can adjust his/her hover up and down, BUT the invited partner (with the Partner HUD) can only adjust hover up. We are currently looking at different possibilities where the partner can adjust both ways without making the script heavy.
The hover issue is more noticeable if you have a disproportionately tall avi and short partner and the shorter avi will “float” to get proper alignment. You will see that floating issue in poseballs as well. Nothing can be done about it because in SL your avatars are like puppets suspended by the shoulders. That is why it is recommended to keep your avatars close to standard size as much as possible or at least close to your regular partners’ height.
Q: What makes this HUD different from what is out there?
A: There is nothing out there that does what this couples animations HUD can do. In short – we broke the code and found ways around the limitations. Those who are curious read-on….
For the past 20 years, SL couples dancing was limited by a dilemma: The best alignment you can get with couples animation is by sitting on a prim/poseball, BUT you need rez rights to rez prims. It was a known issue spoken about in the scripting community for years.
Some brands have tried variations of hugger-based scripting, but this is not effective as many of you already experienced. Why? Without anything to lock you down, your avatar will go out of alignment due to lag, when you rotate camera, and when other avatars bump into you. Even RLV by itself is not enough. Nothing beats sitting on a poseball/prim to lock your avis down. Until now…
We were fortunate to be the first to make a break-through to automatically align and lock down your avatar. It is as good as if you were sitting on a poseball. Our proprietary scripting process is very complex.
Other stuff
- With our proprietary method, this HUD is not limited to only 2 ppl dances. We have the option do 3 ppl (trios) dances and more.
- Our couples HUD will be universal and not limited to just Paragon dances with the dev kits that will be made available.
While most scripters gave up because they didn’t care enough, Paragon cared enough to revolutionize dance on the grid for those who love dance.
If you have any questions not addressed here please contact: jnakagawa resident
MiwaBunny 