Design Features - Quick Reference

** NEW FEATURES IN VERSION 2.0 

ADD WAYPOINT
Adds a Waypoint slightly offset from the last Waypoint ready for you to move into place using the "Edit Linked Parts" feature of the SL Edit Tool.
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring and choose AddWaypoint on the menu.
  2. Using the Edit Linked Parts of the SL Edit tool, move the Waypoint into position, making sure to point it in the direction you wish to face while traveling TO that waypoint.

ADD WAYPOINT BEFORE
Movement routes go in the order of the numbers of the waypoints. Users can click a waypoint and press the "AddWPBefore" button.  This will create a new waypoint, which will appear in the center of the designer ring, but the waypoints will all be renumbered, so the new one will be numbered BEFORE the waypoint clicked.
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring and choose AddWaypoint on the menu.
  2. Using the Edit Linked Parts of the SL Edit tool, move the Waypoint into position, making sure to point it in the direction you wish to face while traveling TO that waypoint.

AUTOPAUSE
Great for runway models or dancers who wish to use more of a freeform dance routine rather than a timed route, using the Autopause feature allows the Mover to go to a waypoint and stop until it receives a Play command from either Choreography HUD, the Performance Director HUD, or a chat command, or any HUD capable of sending a chat command, before continuing on the route.  You can still use regular sleep times on other waypoints in the route.
​Autopause is an On / Off toggle. In order for the Mover to be commanded from a typed chat command or a HUD, the Mover must be assigned a channel. See Chat / Emotes for more info.
  1. Left-click the waypoint in which you wish to enable Autopause and choose Autopause on the menu. Do the same to turn it off.

CHAT / EMOTES
** REMOVED FROM 2.0 **

At the design stage each waypoint has theoption to send text / emote in public (Channel 0) or on any other channel to allow commands to be issued to other devices that are able to listen and respond to user chat commands such as stage props, particle emissions, or saying an emote in chat. You can even have a Mover tell another Mover responding to a different channel to play/pause or stop!
  1. Left-click the waypoint and choose “ChatChannel” on the menu.
  2. Enter the channel you wish the waypoint to use, then press Submit. (0 is local chat)
  3. Left-click the waypoint again and choose “ChatComman” (chat command). Enter the chat for the waypoint to say. Due to limitations in SL chat lines, we recommend you keep it under 120 characters, including spaces.

CLONE (Shift+Drag Copy)
When using shift+drag to make a copy of a designer layout any previously set Times or SleepTimes on your source layout are transferred to the copy. This is useful particularly in conjunction with the Mirror feature, but not limited to that. You can also clone a Mover by following the same steps.
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Keep in mind that Second Life's drag+copy feature leaves the copy in the original place, and moves the original. You MUST approve the popup Link/Delink permission request before you can do anything with the new copy.
  1. Left-click to Edit the Designer Ring.
  2. While holding the shift key, left-click one of the directional arrows and drag in the direction you wish the copy to be.
  3. Click YES on the popup menu asking for Link/Delink permissions.

DELETE WAYPOINT
This will remove the waypoint, and renumber the existing waypoints.​
  1. Left-click the Waypoint you wish to delete.
  2. Choose DeleteWP on the menu.

GET NOTECARD
When you are finished with your design, this will generate the coordinates in local chat that you will need to copy and paste into your Mover notecard. Routes with more than 10 waypoints will be in 2 or more segments in chat.
See Mover Notecards for complete instructions.
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring.
  2. Choose GetNotecard on the menu.
  3. Look at local chat history (Control+H) and copy the text between and including #BEGIN NOTECARD and #END NOTECARD, by selecting it and pressing Control+C.
  4. Paste this into the Mover's Notecard.

HIDE / SHOW WAYPOINTS
To temporarily hide waypoints during the design phase.
Note: The Designer Ring and Waypoints are not meant to be present during a performance. ONLY the Mover is needed.
  1. Left-click the Designer ring and choose “HideWPs.” All waypoints go 100% transparent.
  2. To see them again, left-click the Designer and choose “ShowWPs.” All come back into view.

JUMP TO WAYPOINT
** REMOVED FROM 2.0**
​​
A mover that is NOT playing can now be moved via a CHAT COMMAND to a specific waypoint. This is useful in the design phase for editing the ends of routes without having to play the entire route. Your movers should be assigned channel numbers using the @user_channel parameter when using this feature.

More about this feature on the Parameters page.
  1. Giver your Mover a user channel using the @user_channel parameter.
  2. In chat, type the command to Jump To a certain waypoint. Example of a Mover on channel 10 jumping to waypoint 14 would be:
/10jumpto 14

MIRROR
The designer has the ability to "Mirror" your layout about the central axis of the designer ring. This allows quick and easy replication of a route for dancers to the left or right side of your performance area saving you time and effort duplicating routes.
  1. Left-click the ring and choose Mirror on the menu.
  2. Left-click the ring and choose GetNotecard. This will now be an exact mirrored route (x axis) of the original.

MULTIPLE NOTECARDS
You can have up to 10 routes, one per notecard, in your Movers.
See Multiple Notecards

NORMALIZE TIME
** NEW IN 2.0 **

​This is the most complex feature in version 2.0.  It allows you to select several Waypoints and tell the Designer to calculate the distance and time for a consistent speed between a subset of Waypoints.  That is quite a mouthful, but it can be better explained with an example.

EXAMPLE:

A routine was created with 2 waypoints, dancing atop a spiral staircase, then 5 waypoints have been mapped out, descending the staircase, where there are an additional 5 waypoints. (For a total of 12 waypoints). 

The creator would like the dancer to gracefully descend the staircase over a span of 20 seconds, moving at a consistent speed.

So, between Waypoint 2 and Waypoint 7 is the part of the route we need to adjust. Using the Designer Ring menu, the creator selects the "NormalizeTime" option in the advanced menu.  She enters the following in the Normalize Text box:

2:7:20

The syntax is "<starting waypoint number>:<ending waypoint number>:<total time in seconds>"

This means "Start at waypoint 2 and end at waypoint 7.  Make the total time travel between these waypoints 20 seconds, but divide the time between those waypoints (based on the distance between waypoints), so the dancer moves at a consistent speed across all of them.
  1. Left-Click the Designer Ring and choose the Advanced Menu
  2. Click NormalizeTime
  3. Enter the Waypoint numbers between which you'd like it to calculate and the time.
  4. Click Submit - the travel time on the Waypoints will change.

SYNTAX:
<starting Waypoint #>:<ending Waypoint #>:<total time in seconds>

EXAMPLE:
2:7:20

PARTICLES
Pressing this option will create a string of particles following the exact route of your waypoints. Pressing it again will turn them off.

You can change the color of the particles as well via the menu after you have started a particle stream.
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring.
  2. Choose Particles on the menu.

Turn Particles off via the Designer Ring's menu.
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READ NOTECARD
The designer has the capability of loading a movement card into it and reading it to generate the waypoints automatically.  This feature is perfect for editing routes at a later time or editing a route someone has shared with you. There is a notecard that comes inside the Designer Ring called Movement Card.
The Designer will read the first notecard it sees in its contents.
  1. Either drag your movement card into the Designer Ring contents, or copy and paste the coordinates into the Movement Card already in the Ring.
  2. Left-click the Designer and choose “ReadNotecard” from the menu.
  3. You will get the pop-up permissions request, press Yes.
  4. The waypoints will come out of the Designer in order and the chat window will show the coordinates of each while they’re coming out and say when it’s completed. This is NOT the chat to be put in the Mover!

RESET
To reset the Designer Ring and have all Waypoints removed, use this option. Be sure you've saved any routes you've created in your Mover or your inventory.
  1. Left-click the Designer ring and choose Reset.
  2. The Movers will immediately stop and move back to the starting position.

REZ MOVER
Places a Mover in the center of the Designer Ring ready for you to paste the route into.
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring.
  2. Choose RezMover on the menu.

SET / DELETE PREFIX
To help you when creating several routes, you can distinguish between them by adding a Prefix to each Designer Ring which will show on all Waypoints.  For example, entering the prefix A on a designer ring will cause all the Waypoints on that ring to show as Waypoint A1, Waypoint A2, etc.  
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring and choose SetPrefix.
  2. Enter the desired text in the popup dialog box and Submit.  All Waypoints will change to that Prefix.
  3. To turn Prefixes off, choose DelPrefix from the Designer Ring's menu.

SLEEPTIME
Allows you to specify a pause time, in seconds, at that particular Waypoint.  You can enter fractions of a second as well, such as 5.2.
  1. Left-click the Waypoint you want to pause at and choose SleepTime on the menu.
  2. In the popup dialog box, enter the amount of seconds you wish to pause at that Waypoint.  Enter numbers only (Example:  5.2)

STATS - SHOW / HIDE

Stats (Statistics) will calculate and show you in hover text above each Waypoint exactly when you will arrive and depart from that Waypoint based on the total travel Time and Sleeptime.  When you change a Time or Sleeptime, the Stats will automatically update.

See the Tutorial Video on the Statistics Feature
  1. Left-click the Designer Ring for the Menu and select Advanced.
  2. Click ShowStats
  3. Click HideStats to turn it off again.

TIME
Allows you to enter the time, in seconds, that you wish to take to get TO that Waypoint. You can enter fractions of a second as well, such as 5.25.
  1. Left-click the Waypoint and choose Time on the menu.
  2. In the popup dialog box, enter the amount of seconds you would like the mover to pause at that Waypoint and click Submit.
    Enter numbers only - Example: 5.2

TURN TIME
** NEW IN 2.0  **

For more graceful turns (facing) between Waypoints that are not in a straight line, increase the Turn Time via the Waypoint's menu that you will be moving towards.  Always add a Turn Time on the Waypoint you are traveling TO.

The default turn time is 0.5 seconds (and has always been) but you can now stretch that time out less than or equal to the total travel time between two Waypoints.  

​Important:  
  • Turn Time cannot exceed the travel time between the two Waypoints.
  • If you do exceed the travel time, Turn Time will go back to the default of 0.5 seconds.
  • Be sure to enter the Turn Time on the Waypoint you want to slow down the turn TO.
  • Entering a Turn Time less than the travel time results in the turn being made in the beginning of the movement with the remainder of the time going straight.
  1. Click the Waypoint you want to slow down the turn TO and choose Turn Time on the pop-up menu.
  2. Enter the number of seconds (not exceeding the Time) and click Submit.

Example:

Your travel time to Waypoint 2 is five seconds and you want to slow the turn down to three seconds.

​Entering a 3 on Waypoint 2's menu will result in the dancer turning for the first three seconds and then going straight for the last two seconds of the travel time.