DDR Video - And A Good One

[Sullla]

Yes, we must see a video.

So said T-Hawk in the last thread where I brought up the subject of the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) games. I had a digital camera that would record video, but not sound; I actually did shoot some low-quality movies with it - too bad a dancing game video isn't much use without audio! This week I had to purchase a new camera for research purposes; I'm going to London next week for work in the archives and need a way of photographing large quantities of documents. Anyway, the point is that my research camera also turns out to shoot really good quality video as well, so I decided to try my hand at recording something to post here. This was the result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KMw0f80htI

Second song I tried was a 9-footer "AAA". Sometimes I amaze myself. As far as comments, I'll mention that this is fairly difficult as far as DDR songs go, ranking as a 9 out of 10 on the scale that the games use. Even though I already had a perfect score on this song, I was getting very nervous at the end, since I knew I was recording this on video. The final group of sixteenth note clusters at the end of the song was extremely close to a misstep; I rushed the last one but it didn't show up with a Great - whew! I also use way too much zoom at the end of the video, since I didn't realize just what the camera could do yet, heh. Here's a clearer picture of what the screen is displaying at the end:



The one difference is that the screen is NOT displaying "It's a New Record!" in the video, since I already had gotten the "AAA" before. Anyway, I was very pleased with this, so I thought I'd pass it on to you. Enjoy!

[Sciros]

Hey that's pretty good! I have a friend who is now in Seattle but he used to be one of the best DDR players in my state .. I couldn't keep up with the arrows with my eyes and yet he could nail them all with his feet. It was a bit insane to see in person. He used Stepmania so he had a huge collection of songs and he'd play them at beyond the usual max difficulty level. As for myself, I can do *real* dancing but DDR... I got nothing.

[sunrise089]

Very nice footwork! Is that the hardest song you've "AAA'd"? Or did you choose it just because it looked cool?

It was a little bit weird to watch though - I've seen pics of your living room on your DDR page, and suddenly it was in motion. There was a brief motion of "whoa, have I suddenly become a web-stalker"?

Considering the timing, and your word choice, is it safe to assume the trip to London is to do work on your dissertation? I guess at the doctoral level Wikipedia is no longer acceptable....

[mostly_harmless]

Certainly looks interesting. Have you tried those moves in a club yet?
mh

[T-hawk]

That sure is awesome! AAA on a 9-footer just cold on demand. I got AA on one 7-footer. Once. After trying for an hour.

Can you position the camera to get your feet and the pad in the frame? Like always, I want the technical details - how you actually do the footwork and positioning and balance. Not sure if that's compatible with still being able to see the arrows on the screen, but maybe you can experiment a bit.

DDR dancing has no connection at all with real nightclub or ballroom dancing. DDR dancing has too much jumping up and down, and looks pretty dumb when it's not a video game. (I have a friend who broke out into DDR dancing at his wedding reception. We geek gamers laughed hysterically, but the bride and most of the families just looked awkwardly confused... )

[Sciros]

Yeah it's true DDR and dancing are quite separate skills. Kinda like... Soul Calibur 2 skills won't get you very far in UFC and a UFC belt won't help much against someone who's really good with Ivy or Cervantes or whatever.

[Garath]

Congrats! I've passed that track in the past (...just), but that is just *worlds* away. I am most impressed.

I'm curious, though. Do you always speed up the tracks? That looked like 2x, though it might just have been 1.5. Do you find it makes it easier to get really good scores, or do you just prefer it that way?

What kind of pad are you using? Is it the same make as the one up against the wall by the TV in the video?

Garath

[Sullla]

Thanks for the interest! Let me see if I can cover some of the responses.

Very nice footwork! Is that the hardest song you've "AAA'd"? Or did you choose it just because it looked cool?

This song is on video because it was the second one I chose to play, while the camera was running. Much to my own surprise, I ended up with a perfect result! (This is only the second time I scored a "AAA" on this song, although I have done 1 Great on several occasions.) I would say that I'm pretty good, but I cannot produce a "AAA" on demand, certainly not on a 9-foot song. This was rather lucky, which was why I was so pleased to get it on video. Colors is one of my favorite songs, but this was more chance than planned.

Yes, I am going to London this week for preliminary work on my disseration. And no, don't feel that you're a stalker for watching the video!

Certainly looks interesting. Have you tried those moves in a club yet?

I know you're joking, but T-Hawk and Sciros are right. This really isn't "dancing", it's a pattern recognition game, more akin to mathematics in reality. Anyone who would try something like this in a club format would look foolish - and yes, my friends tease me about this frequently. ("Wow, great song! If only we could put some arrows on the floor, you could dance to it!")

Can you position the camera to get your feet and the pad in the frame? Like always, I want the technical details - how you actually do the footwork and positioning and balance. Not sure if that's compatible with still being able to see the arrows on the screen, but maybe you can experiment a bit.

I'll see what I can do; I can put the camera on the floor, but you probably won't be able to see the screen then. Maybe some experimentation will find a better spot. If I can get the camera lower to the ground... hmm...

My footwork is actually rather poor; I don't turn the way you're supposed to do the songs, so I'm constantly stepping back and forth between the two feet on the central arrows (this is called "double stepping" for obvious reasons). I'm working on learning Doubles Mode at the moment to help solve this problem, which is a whole new world altogether! But I still suck at Doubles play (doing 5 and 6 foot songs on Standard right now), so anything on that side of things is still months away.

I'm curious, though. Do you always speed up the tracks? That looked like 2x, though it might just have been 1.5. Do you find it makes it easier to get really good scores, or do you just prefer it that way?

You have good eyes, Garath: this was indeed 2x. I always, always have to increase the speed of songs to play them; my one friend makes fun of me by referring to "the most dreaded modifier of all: 1x!" I have terrible eyesight, and I learned a long time ago that I couldn't read the notes at 1x because they were too close together. It does make it easier to score better as well, as the notes are separated out more, but it's more of an interface-type change than anything else. I mean, sure, you could learn to do everything on 1x, and it would be "harder", but it would be a stupid kind of harder. Like playing a piece of music where all the notes were crammed together onto one page no matter how long the song might be. You could learn to read the notes like that, but why? If I had to fight the game's interface just to read the danged notes, I would have quit DDR long ago.

And if this were In the Groove (a DDR copycat game), I would actually be using 2.5x, a mod not included in DDR. Even the 2x notes seem a bit slow to me here.

What kind of pad are you using? Is it the same make as the one up against the wall by the TV in the video?

This is a Cobalt Flux metal pad, the best that you can buy; it is indeed the same make as the one leaning against my bookcase in the video. Mine cost me $300, a ridiculous amount of money, but I've gotten my money's worth out of it over the last two years. I originally used $50 soft pads, but I was destroying them in literally one month's worth of use, so I bit the bullet and bought the top of the line model. Never regretted it for one second either. The second Cobalt Flux I bought from a friend who is moving into a condo and can no longer use it; picked it up for $100, which was an absolute steal. And now that I have the two, I can learn Doubles Mode!

Here's another video I shot, where I play a much, much more difficult song. This one (Xuxa) is ranked as an 11, actually above and beyond DDR's 10-foot grading scale. You'll see why. Although my performance is much more ragged on this one, I wanted to give you an idea of what a song looks like that tests the limits of what I can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chyomzzeWo8

The score here is an 88.47%; my best is a little over 90%, so this is very representative of what I can do. Comments... note initially how obnoxiously long it takes the song to load! (This is a recurring complaint for the In The Groove PS2 game.) I did the intro rather poorly, missing two different steps there (this is at about 0:40 to 0:45 on the timing). I always hit two mines at the 1:00 mark; I just haven't figured out how to avoid them yet. Par for the course. At 1:14 the "hell runs" part of the song begins; I made some mistakes in the first and last of the four, but the middle two were almost perfect. This is off the charts in terms of toughness, and I did decently here. The little run at 1:30 is my favorite part of the whole piece.

The run at 1:42 is just ugly; I did not hit that well at all. I also screwed up the following gallops section, which is odd, because I'm usually quite good at gallops. This was clearly the worst part of the performance. But starting at 1:56 I actually combo the final 200+ steps of the piece, which is extremely rare for me and quite good. Decent finishing score overall. The final numbers read 490/144/10/1/6/7 from top to bottom (the top category being the best, equivalent to DDR's "Perfect" steps more or less).

Thanks for the interest!

[Sciros]

Very impressive!