How to use TAMinations
This example to the right is just a snapshot image, not a working
animation. The square dancers are boys, and the round ones are
girls. The orange connections are handholds.
I try to follow the Callerlab definitions as closely as possible.
Some differences you might see are:
-
The dancers may adjust a bit to finish in standard lines, waves,
columns, etc. This is what real dancers do as well.
-
I try to match the Callerlab timing with the number of tick
marks between Start and End, but you might find a few
differences.
-
Handholds are drawn very simply and don't show any styling -
hands up, couples, forearm, are all shown the same. Some
handholds might not start or end exactly when real dancers
would.
TAMination Controls and Display
- This slider shows the current position in the animation. You can
drag it to change the position.
-
Drag this slider to vary the speed when the animation is
playing. Bottom is snail-paced, top is hot hash.
(The SVG animation has Slow/Normal/Fast buttons instead of a slider.)
-
Multi-part calls have the different parts numbered here. The
tick marks show the beats. All animations start on beat 2.
- Click to go to the start of the animation.
- Click to go to the start of the current part.
- Click to go backward a small amount.
- Click to play or stop animation.
- Click to go forward a small amount.
- Click to go to the start of the next part.
- Click to go to the end of the animation.
-
Square dancers are "boys", circles are
"girls". The dark hemisphere show the facing
direction. (So this example shows right-handed ocean waves.)
-
These orange connectors are handholds. There's no styling -
hands up, couples, forearm etc. are all drawn the same.
Special Features
You can access some fun "extras" by right-clicking in the Java animation,
or selecting the additional buttons on the SVG animation.
-
Loop
Check to automatically restart the animation when playing.
-
Grid
Check to show a grid with 1-dancer-size boxes.
-
Show Dancer Path
Displays the route this dancer takes as a colored line.
-
Hexagon
One dancer is added for every 2 in the starting formation, so 4
couples becomes 6 couples. There's an
excellent article
on this by Clark Baker, and
more info and graphics
by Justin Legakis
The SVG animation has some more features, available by
shift-clicking on a dancer.
-
Barstool
This fixes the position of one dancer. The barstool dancer can
turn but not move. All the other dancers adjust by moving around
the barstool. Clark Baker has a
good explanation
. In some cases you'll also want to enlarge the dance floor.
-
Compass
The complement to barstool - one dancer's facing direction is
fixed, and the other dancers have to rotate the setup to adjust.
I don't know if this has actually been done, it might not be
practical especially for 4 couples.
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This is a static image of an animation. Move over each part to highlight what it does.
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