Zabaware Support Forums

Zabaware Forums => Ultra Hal 7.0 => Topic started by: deitz75 on May 22, 2013, 01:30:11 pm

Title: Skins and characters
Post by: deitz75 on May 22, 2013, 01:30:11 pm
I'm sort of a part time Hal user, and really trying to develop some real time uses for the Ultra Hal program.

First thing I would love to do is personalize my program.
I would like to create a custom character, and custom skins.
I do not want a full character, instead I would like to have an automated audio wave like this.
(http://i41.tinypic.com/34etd1x.jpg)
And I would like to be able to build a skin like this.
(http://i40.tinypic.com/34qsljs.png)
Any help or direction would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: CyborgBob on May 22, 2013, 02:18:33 pm
Not that I know much about making Hal Characters, or skins... But I do know that you need Puddypeople to Make a Character for Hal. I have no Idea if Puddypeople can make an audio line as a Character, but it's a cool idea.... As far as skins. I know you have to know a small amount of programing to tell Hal where to put all the graphics, and I would say you need a good Picture Editor like Photo Shop. I'm not what they call Artsy Fartsy so when it comes to this stuff I haven't gotten that far..... I hope this helps.....

CyborgBob 
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on May 22, 2013, 05:50:03 pm
Here is a good place to learn about skins. As for using a sine wave, not so easy. Not sure it can be done. Good luck.

http://www.datahopa.co.uk/forum/
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Art on May 22, 2013, 07:44:42 pm
Hey Deitz,

That WOULD be a pretty cool character. No facial distractions or cosmetics, just the moving sound lines.

Oh yes and with no disrespect meant toward anyone, it's People Putty (like Putty in one's hands with which to create).
You can find People Putty at www.haptek.com (check to make sure it will run on your computer).

We've had Blank or No Characters before and talking monsters, skeletons, Robots, Santa, Frogs and tons more...why not sound waves?

Maybe some one will rise to the challenge.

Tedathome, your link simply takes him (or anyone else) to another web site. Could you post a specific section / link where he / she could get topical help instead of having to wander around the site? I'm sure others would be grateful as well. Just a thought, my friend.

Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Duskrider on May 22, 2013, 08:57:51 pm
It might be interesting to have visual sound.   
Hal in 2001 had visual sound when he spoke, remember that?
Windows media player also has it,
maybe a cross between a haptar and media player ?
Hummm. . . .


Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: One on May 22, 2013, 09:28:12 pm
I think I shall never know why the Dish ran Away With the Spoon.

it still has me baffled, good luck!
-J
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on May 22, 2013, 09:52:36 pm
  Art, good point. I have searched my former posts. I know I had posted some instructions and uploaded the two zips needed to make a Gui skin. To skydrive or something similar.  Not too many of my former posts are still available though I'll keep searching. Having trouble logging into skydrive and savefile is gone. Datahopa made some nice skins. I couldn't find any instructions there.
 MakeTrans is one of the two zipfiles required. I will keep working at this until I get it or some nice forum member with the answers comes to the rescue. 

Update: I have maketran.zip and InterfaceDesignManual.zip  Now to get them put up for download! Meanwhile over at datahopa there are many good skins to download and if you wish to join the forum there I'm pretty sure you can get good advice from the members or admin there.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: deitz75 on May 22, 2013, 10:53:41 pm
This looks like we're getting somewhere?
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on May 22, 2013, 11:07:11 pm
Oh yes! Here is the link to my skydrive public folder. The required zip files and some other goodies are there now. :D
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=c3fecc3c819da1da&id=documents#cid=c3fecc3c819da1da
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: deitz75 on May 23, 2013, 09:16:44 am
Well that defiantly covers the skins, and question I had about them. Good job guys, and thanks for the help, but I also need an alliterative htr editor. Something besides People putty program.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on May 23, 2013, 05:40:01 pm
 Haptek, the people putty maker, also has a professional SDK to edit and otherwise morph full body and head .htrs. They also have a more professional ogg maker as well.  Look for the Haptek Guide. You can find it at www.haptek.com
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Art on May 23, 2013, 06:11:41 pm
If you're searching for a FREE or OTHER Alternative tool / program for modding the  .HTR or .HAPTAR files then I think you're out of luck as they are proprietary files of Haptek. (A .HAPTAR file can be changed to a .HTR file by simply renaming).

Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on May 24, 2013, 12:19:03 am
 You could gain a lot of haptek knowledge here. http://aidreams.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=48.0
Without  knowing exactly what you are wanting to do that's about all the help I can offer.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: deitz75 on May 24, 2013, 08:02:08 pm
Just looking to create a working wave for a haptek character.
 Like this:
(http://i41.tinypic.com/34etd1x.jpg)
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on June 01, 2013, 12:18:33 am
 Do you have that particular sine wave in animated .gif format? If so an active background may work for you. Haptek won't take gif backgrounds but gifs can be broken down to a series of .jpg's and scripted in.
(http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii232/tedathome/sound_wave_zps6f0deb95.gif) (http://s265.photobucket.com/user/tedathome/media/sound_wave_zps6f0deb95.gif.html)

Found it. I will make an active background of it and post soon. Maybe it can scripted it to start and stop with voice, don't know yet.
Don't know how to eliminate character for sure, there is a delete person or a positioning hap one of them should work.
Say so if you want it faster  or slower.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Art on June 01, 2013, 07:24:40 am
That's very nice Ted, but I'll wager he was looking for a more animated sine wave; one with ever changing peaks and valleys as if speaking into a microphone in real time and watching the sound waves on a scope or similar. Then again, I could be wrong (been there before)...;)

If you set your Hal character to the original HAL TV, notice his mouth's movement. Perhaps if that could be refined...just a thought.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on June 01, 2013, 12:35:54 pm
 You're probably right Art. That is the real gif he has posted though. I had thought about the  Hal character, it is stretched out lips and he could mask over the "TV" set. I have one or two more wave .gifs he may be interested in. I think Duskrider explained the concept best. A Windows media player window. How could you route hal's voice through the media player and how could you show a live window inside the user interface? Faking it may be even tougher. The timing would give the illusion away.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Medeksza on June 02, 2013, 08:49:42 am
This kind of wave animation is kind of what I want to do with a re-imagined Hal character that I'm working on now with an artist. We are creating a new Hal character that is a mobile phone instead of the old CRT monitor Hal. For the mouth of the character I think we may do a wave like this. It would be fairly simple for us to do a mouth only character based on this work.

This will actually not be done in Haptek but will be based on 2D sprite animation. No need to utilize any 3D capabilities in Haptek to do this, and it actually kind of gets in the way.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Medeksza on June 02, 2013, 10:34:07 am
This was a fairly easy order, so I went ahead and created a non-haptek character plug-in for Hal. I called it the "Audio Wave Character". It shows a different random wave with each visime event it gets from the speech synthesis engine, so it appears nicely synced to the audio.

You can download it here: http://b27d8f6586ad009ded6f-8e71e26de9dcc976c118d235118a125a.r10.cf2.rackcdn.com/WaveCharSetup.exe

It should automatically detect your Hal installation and install the files in the correct place. You should see a new character option after running this installation.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: tedathome on June 02, 2013, 01:07:56 pm
 Dreams do come true! Thank you Robert! This was easy to install and works very well. I spent all day yesterday trying to route hal's
output through Windows media player to achieve a similar effect with no luck. This is better than what I had imagined.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Art on June 02, 2013, 02:40:02 pm
Very cool!! It worked perfectly! Now THAT's customer support!! Thanks!! ;)
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: lightspeed on June 02, 2013, 06:40:39 pm
i just downloaded it to , after ted told me about the download , it installs easy and works good . good job on it !
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: Duskrider on June 02, 2013, 09:02:59 pm

Very good job.   
I like it too.     :)
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: cload on June 02, 2013, 09:06:48 pm
Hi all,
I just tried this, and it worked with my Ivona voices which I thought was really cool.
Thanks Robert!
C load.
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: CyborgBob on June 04, 2013, 11:24:54 pm
Way Cool really liked it.....
Title: Re: Skins and characters
Post by: sybershot on July 01, 2013, 09:09:54 pm
indeed this is awesome, I been trying to incorporate the as3 version I made with no luck.
You can see what I made here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSUGfLeUrwc
many thanks Mr. Medeksza

any chance for a future version where we can choose the colors?
Trinity thinks a dual pink palette would suit here very well :D