Speaking documents with animated Haptek characters

[castonguayh]

Ted I have been naming the file and keeping the file size small. No luck.  Thanks anyway. If you come up with any other things to try, let me know.  I have learned that the slightest differences in set up can have a huge impact on performance.

Art I am using XP.  The file size has be very small - one sentence for testing.

Of course, you are correct on MSagent not using SAPI5 I use Mike or crystal SAPI 4 voices for those character.

what would be great here, is if we could get an addition to the program that we could just say "read file *.txt" and it would open and read it.

[tedathome]

hmm. One more idea.In general options, when you select a voice and click apply, do you return to the character page and update sapi config? Then click apply again?

[castonguayh]

That didn't work......

I put a post on the programming forum to see if we could get an answer in programming. I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks

[Art]

Castonguayh,

The Programming Forum might draw some additional insight to your problem but you will still see the same members (it's not a sectionalized forum, per se).

A couple issues I noticed while trying to duplicate your efforts:

I used Notepad and typed a simple sentence. I selected a character from an .htr file and it along with the Control window came into view.

I highlighted (selected) the sentence (drag across it), Right click and choose COPY (with the idea of doing a PASTE into the Control window). As soon as I selected the COPY, Hal's voice started speaking the selected text BUT the character's lips did NOT move.

Next, I saved the sentence as Test.txt in Notepad. Using Windows Explorer, I located the file and dropped it into the Control window. The Hal character spoke the sentence AND the lips moved.

OK...progress.

The sentence was about 8 words so I typed several more sentences until I had 130 words. Again, Saved as .txt file, locate and Drop into Control window. Perfect.

One more time only I copied the first paragraph and pasted twice, giving me 390 words. Saved, Drag & Drop into Control window. No problem. Boring to have Hal re-read the same text but Hal did not flinch while reading a 390 word text file.

I don't know what the practical limits might be until a memory overload issue occurs but for your proposed purposes, I don't see where several paragraphs of speech should pose a problem.

Lastly, which TTS voice (and company) are you using and are you using the free or paid version of Hal.
Hal is not setup to allow use of additional Haptek characters without the purchase of the Character Expansion Pack.

Just some thoughts. Keep us posted!

[castonguayh]

Art, I have the paid version and the additonal characters.

I have Kate & Paul voices, as-well-as Microsoft crystal & mike.

First question: the box that shows at the top left say "Haptek Console" - is that the correct control?

I turned on the option of havin Hal speak copied text, and he does speak but without lip sync.

I have tried your suggestion (copy & paste, drag, etc.)to no avail.

I am willing to bet it is something extremely simple that I am just overlooking.

[castonguayh]

Perhaps the problem lies in set up:

What TTS engine is the default?
Does it match the one chosen for the voice of the character?
Which setting a checked off?
..........?

[Art]

Ok, you mentioned Kate & Paul. Those are NeoSpeech voices.
Chrystal & Mike are AT&T, not MS.

There has been some issues with the Kate & Paul voices not speaking as soon as Hal is started. If this happens, go to the Options>Speech menu in Hal and select a different voice. Wait a few moments and reselect the Kate voice. Go to the Chat with Hal section and all should work fine.

YES, the pop-up Control Window should say Haptek Console. This is where you can drag & drop jpg images, txt or ogg files, etc.

One other thing came to mind:
If you purchased / installed the TTS voices AFTER Hal was installed, you should run the HapSAPISetup.exe program. Your voices and Hal's character should now sync with each other.

Keep pluggin!!!

[castonguayh]

I have no problem getting the voices to lip sync.

I just seem to have a problem getting the lip sync to work when I use Hal to read documents for me.

Thanks for staying with this.