♪ Let's dance to the music ♪

Dance has been with humanity since prehistory. Initially an instinct for survival and expression, it evolved into sacred rituals in ancient civilizations and later into a formal art and theatrical spectacle in the Renaissance.

And in Second Life it couldn't be different, we have our art in every aspect and form of expression and dance is one of them, and in this edition we're going to meet one of the greatest creators of SL dance animation

The animation project started four years ago. Before that, he was already working in poses, but it was four years ago that he decided to start the development of animations based on real movements. The idea came up four years ago when a friend invited him to participate in some videos. While searching for dance animations to fit into what she wanted to produce, he realized that there were no real choreographies in Second Life and that people needed to adapt animations to the songs, rather than using movements faithful to choreography. At the same time, TikTok was on the rise and many Second Life users began producing videos with their avatars. It was then that he decided to do something different: bring into the game real choreographies, synchronized with music and based on real movements.

The beginning was extremely challenging, and he believes that learning continues to this day. When he came up with the idea, he had no technical knowledge about movement capture. He started studying, invested in equipment and put the project into practice. The greatest difficulties were technical. The first platform used could not provide the support needed for animations with real movements, causing the feet to slide during the animations. After migrating to another platform, he managed to solve this problem, but he began to face incompatibilities in the bones of his hands, which left his fingers deformed. As this problem remained unsolved for years, he eventually developed his own method of correcting this error automatically. Later, he started using a third platform to further improve his workflow. During the tests, he was finding new difficulties and working together with the development team to solve them. Some improvements implemented on the platform have emerged precisely from the needs identified by him. Another challenge was to export the animations to Second Life, as there is a file size limit and, because they were captured from real movements, the animations were heavier. The platform ended up developing a method to reduce these files without compromising quality. Over the course of these four years, he has constantly improved his production process, finding solutions for each challenge and evolving along with the tools he uses. How The process begins with the hiring of choreographers, who receive the dances that will be produced. As they are usually viral and current choreographies, they are already familiar with the movements. Then, the capture of movements is performed. After accumulating several catches, it maintains a large database of animations and initiates a careful editing process, correcting capture imperfections and adapting each animation to work perfectly within Second Life.

In addition to capture of movements, there is an extensive step of manual editing. Without technical knowledge and mastery of the tools, you cannot turn a capture into a second-life-ready animation. In addition, there is a high financial investment, both in equipment and in the hiring of choreographers. It is not a simple process, which explains the fact that there are few stores specialized in real motion animations within Second Life. As far as he knows, he is the only Brazilian creator working in this segment. Most of the public are international users, especially the K-pop community, which consumes most of the choreographies produced.

Producing real-movement animations requires a high initial investment in equipment and software, as well as continuous costs with platforms, updates and hiring professionals. It's a constant investment. From the beginning, he sought not to see other creators as competitors, but to focus on offering something that did not yet exist in Second Life: real choreographies, synchronized with music and performed with faithful movements. In time, he realized that some stores began to produce choreographies similar to his own. The first was "Awake Pedrinho", his first animation, which was later released by another store. On another occasion, during a conversation with the owner of a large store in Second Life, he heard that this kind of choreography would be very difficult to produce. for some reasons. Shortly thereafter, this same shop began to launch choreographies similar to those it had already produced. Still, that was never a cause for concern. Its differential has always been the speed of production and the amount of releases. While other stores eventually launch the same choreography months later, he has already made available several new features in this period. Its focus continues to be to follow the moment when the songs viralize and quickly deliver new animations to the public.

It is generally worth doing this kind of work. In addition to the satisfaction of developing something that few people do, he believes he is the first and only Brazilian to maintain a shop specialized in real movement animations for Second Life. The greatest return, however, is in community recognition. Receiving messages of thanks, praise and seeing happy people because they have been able to bring their avatars to life through their animations is what makes all effort, investment and dedication truly rewarding.

By: Henry Bernitz