Dance Voldo Dance

July 18, 2004 12:16 PM

Dance, Voldo, Dance (embedded quicktime .mov) Two people controlling two Voldos (the #1 freak from Soul Caliber). Quite possibly the most amazing synchronized video game dancing you'll ever see.
posted by malphigian (30 comments total)

direct link to movie file
posted by nasim at 12:49 PM on July 18, 2004

amazing wow, that's great :D up there with watching david elsewhere and napoleon dynamite dance!
posted by kliuless at 12:54 PM on July 18, 2004

Wow, the only thing that could have made that any better was if they had both done 'Weapon select -> feather boa' before the routine.
posted by nasim at 1:19 PM on July 18, 2004

Quite possibly the most amazing synchronized video game dancing you'll ever see.

s/most amazing/only/
posted by esch at 1:36 PM on July 18, 2004

That was some pretty dirty dancing, there.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:45 PM on July 18, 2004

Ay carumba, that's art, right there
posted by chrid at 2:05 PM on July 18, 2004

Interesting, I was expecting some sort of Evangelion style twin attack but this was more dance oriented. I liked how they weren't always in sync and would sometimes do moves back and forth.
posted by bobo123 at 2:14 PM on July 18, 2004

Wow, this is rad. That bitch can *freak*. I love the repurosing of the motion capture. Real people's movements digitized, then used to make a simulacrum of a different kind of motion.
posted by Nelson at 2:21 PM on July 18, 2004

Yes esch, that was the joke. Thanks for explaining it with regex tho :).
posted by malphigian at 2:28 PM on July 18, 2004

Minute three gets a little nsfw. I'm pretty sure if this is freaking me.

I spent many sleepless nights remembering how I can't parry this leather clad monster's move on the gamecube.
posted by phyrewerx at 3:52 PM on July 18, 2004

Cheap-ass button mashing Voldo players.
posted by ChasFile at 5:05 PM on July 18, 2004

Funny... and somewhat freaky. Definitely well-done. Thanks for the link. The website says there are two other versions of the video made, one of which is "heavily edited to make it more like a real music video" (neither are online due to bandwidth constraints). I don't think it would be as impressive, being edited and all, but it would be interesting to see.
posted by DyRE at 5:21 PM on July 18, 2004

Oh, man. I have a friend who used to laugh so hard at Voldo that he could hardly stand up. I can't wait to show him this.

Server's getting a bit hammered; maybe a freecache link would help.
posted by Galvatron at 6:54 PM on July 18, 2004

I think the red Voldo is a slightly better controller/dancer
posted by cell divide at 7:33 PM on July 18, 2004

Is this from another version of SC? I have SC for DC, and this doesn't look like it. Or have I been missing out on some good Voldo freakieness?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:40 PM on July 18, 2004

I watched it before and think that at some points, they bridged the controllers so that one controller had input into both characters.

At certain points, the sync is too perfect for people working together.

Truly great machinma!
posted by Argyle at 7:56 PM on July 18, 2004

I have no idea what the clip or this thread is about (no really), so if somebody could explain in fairly simple terms why this is significant, I'd be most grateful. Cheers!
posted by carter at 7:57 PM on July 18, 2004

It's from Soul Caliber 2, probably the X-Box version although all three look almost identical anyway so I could be wrong.

The reason it's noteworthy is because the people who are doing this did it with controllers.

Considering how complicated the sequence of commands is it's almost impossible to even consider the theory that it's one person doing the moving - you can't do that charge up move they do in sycronization with one hand very easily.

Since the movie does cut, I'm assuming it was performed by a couple of uber Soul Caliber 2 players who spent hours getting it exactly right. Considering that the game itself is based upon timing I'd imagine these people would utterly kick your ass ina straight up match.
posted by Veritron at 8:02 PM on July 18, 2004

What an amazing graphics engine. I can't even imagine how much time it took to coordinate the characters. Very cool.
posted by dejah420 at 8:36 PM on July 18, 2004

Yeah, if you think think this has to be fake, you obviously haven't seen any of those scary-good gamers out there (those kids who can do DDR with their back turned, for example). Here's a case in point(direct MPG link).
posted by malphigian at 8:41 PM on July 18, 2004

Cheers Veritron :) I think from the post I'd expected to see two people doing DDR.

*returns to Rip Van Winkle slumbers ...*
posted by carter at 8:57 PM on July 18, 2004

There was a portion of the movie--in the middle somewhere--that ran backwards. You can see the flames going into the lake of lava or whatever. Still, that was pretty impressive. Me likey.
posted by Tacodog at 9:00 PM on July 18, 2004

What an amazing graphics engine.

Soul Calibur is a beautiful game, I prefer it over other fighting games because you fight in SC with weapons ... lots of weapons. And I'll kick your ass with my boy Kilik.

Carter, exploring around the above link will clue you in more detail than you'll possibly want or need. But my boy Kilik is hot. And I'll kick your ass with him.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:58 PM on July 18, 2004

great link. i'm fascinated by art made through reappropriation of video games.... been seeing this enough that i'm starting to wonder if it could be considered an art movement. machinima, hacked ROMS of NES carts that subvert game intention, velvet strike, etc... alt digital media was one exhibit in this vein but there are others i'm sure. keep an eye out for virtual crash sculpture, coming soon to a quicktime window near you.
posted by jcruelty at 10:28 PM on July 18, 2004

Considering how complicated the sequence of commands is it's almost impossible to even consider the theory that it's one person doing the moving - you can't do that charge up move they do in sycronization with one hand very easily.

Incorrect. You can map multiple button hits to a trigger. The "charge up move" you describe invloves pressing 3 buttons (A+B+K) simultaneously. You can assign this to either trigger button, which makes it much easier.

At certain points, the sync is too perfect for people working together.

Ha. First of all, meatspace dancers do this all the time. Perhaps they synchronize the dancing to music they have playing in the room. That would make it much easier. Second, many combos in SC involve executing commands at frame-level precision. For instance, "Throw a down-A, then forward-B, then at frame 4 of the animation for that attack, throw a back-back-K." Dancing is easy once you master that kind of nonsense.
posted by ChasFile at 7:53 AM on July 19, 2004

But in a Dance Feveresque showdown, could they take the breakdancing Transformers?
posted by onlyconnect at 7:54 AM on July 19, 2004

the link is dead. anyone have a mirror?
posted by dogmatic at 10:06 AM on July 19, 2004

velvet strike,
posted by jcruelty at 10:28 PM PST on July 18

I must know! What is velvet strike?
posted by Miles Long at 11:46 AM on July 19, 2004

Mirror here:

MetaKnet
posted by Furie at 12:03 PM on July 19, 2004

The creator of this movie emailed me saying he was looking for a mirror, so if anyone can offer one, or knows of others, please send him an email at [e-mail].
posted by malphigian at 12:07 PM on July 19, 2004