Messages

31

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Flash animation

« on: April 08, 2009, 03:12:27 pm »

I asked the same question about a year ago ... and got more or less the same answer. I tried to figure out a way to integrate flash and hal - and I think there is a way, but it would involve writing scripting hal to send commands to the flash program ... which is possible (there are other applications that do similar things) but I didn't have the time to deal with it.

I moved on to Verbot, which doesn't allow flash but does have a pretty powerful character editor (wish the Conversive Character Studio worked with Hal ... that would rock) ... but the verbot brain editor isn't as nice ... everything has its tradeoffs. I've gotten bored with Verbots (and its more or less not being developed anymore ... the company that makes verbots is focusing on its enterprise software that is not available to normal people ... or if it is it would be to expensive for us to buy.)

I wouldn't hold my breath on Ogre being integrated into Hal ... as noted, I asked your question a year ago and was told Ogre was being integrated into hal... and just read that the integration has been postponed until the next version ... so who knows ... could be years.

32

General Discussion / Kari 3 interface with Hal 6 brain?

« on: March 31, 2008, 04:54:12 am »

Actually, KARI doesn't use actual Poser 3d capability... its using rendered images in a fashion very similar to a MSAgent. i.e. I render images from Poser and then compile them in a KARI program called the Scene Editor that tells KARI how to use the images. Each 'scene' has images that tell it what it looks like when it blinks, what the different mouth shapes are when it talks, etc.

At any rate ... the visual element of being able to talk to characters that look exactly like what I want is more important to me than the irritations I experience from Kari's limited responses - at least until I find another solution. At the moment I'm exploring VERBOT4... which looks like it might do everything I want ... or can at least be scripted to do so.

Although, I'd be perfectly happy with KARI if there was just MORE 'question' responses and if output could be less mechanical ...

i.e. something that works like :

USER : My $var1 is $var2.
OUTPUT : Why is your $var1 $var2?

But given the current learning method and brain editor, I really don't see that as an option for KARI ... which is to bad, because I think its got an awsome user interface and very advanced pattern matching... she is just limited in that every sentence she says to me is simply something I said to her that she's parroting back without any variance or alteration ... (and yes, all 'learning' chatbots function this way to an extent ... but at least with HAL there is a semblance of paraphrasing.)

33

General Discussion / Kari 3 interface with Hal 6 brain?

« on: March 29, 2008, 10:05:15 am »

Hey everyone. Its been a while since I was around. I've been in the hospital a lot the past six months... anyway ... thought I'd bug you guys with a general curiosity (although, I'm fairly certain I know the answer) ...

Does anyone know of any kind of interface like the Kari 3 but for Hal?

I have a lot of fun with hal, but I simply can't stand the Hal avatars ... I've always hated them. Haptek stuff is so limited visually and the MSAgents can't use SAPI5 voices! Grrr...  It doesn't help that I am a professional artist and really have a clear idea of what I want my Hal to look like ...

I started using Kari because it allowed me to 'talk' to my art ... i.e. it allows me to take the character art I make in Poser and with a little work make it possible for me to use that as my Kari avatar. I love it.

Especially since I can assign them triggers that change the scene (i.e. for many Kari scenes this means making her naked. laugh.) Although, it would be nice if there were multiple triggers ...i.e. one for each of the available 'topics' in the Kari personality adjuster.

My problem is that I'm not that fond of the Kari brain. She has some great features ... I love the personality adjuster and the wordimages... but all she really is is a complicated 'parrot bot' ... all she can EVER say to you is something you've said to her ... she has no ability to extrapolate new sentences like Hal. And when she doesn't know something, she only has a small number of things she can respond with ... it makes her feel very mechanical regardless of the 'brain size' or the complexity of how she chooses her responses. (also, editing the brain isn't anywhere near as organized as Hal)

So I'm hoping that people with more desktop programming ability than me also love the Kari interface but like their Hal brain better and are working on some method to do something similar for Hal. (i.e. allow for the creation of an 'avatar' that can be built from static images and have triggers but use SAPI5 voices.)

I've bitched about this problem before - I think my last post was in reference to finding a way to make a flash interface to do basically the same thing. Anyway...

I'm pretty sure I know the answer is 'NO. No one is working on anything like that.'

I realize, that this might not EVEN be possible given the way Hal's interface is programmed. But ... no harm in asking.

34

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: August 14, 2007, 06:15:48 pm »

talked to the guy again. This time he was a little more communicative. He said that he's taking the site down permanently and no longer selling any of his products. So there goes that way to get AT&T voices. I'll let  you know if I find another method that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Still wish I could find a way to get the acapela voices ... those are really nice.

35

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: August 06, 2007, 11:53:47 pm »

they got back to me just a little while ago ... they refunded my money and simply said they were sorry for the mixup. Nothing else. no idea. Maybe they are going out of business or something.

36

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: August 06, 2007, 08:51:43 pm »

Has anyone had trouble with these people? I purchased the clipboard reader and audrey voice and they never got back to me ... their site lead me to believe they'd send the download link via email in 24 hours of purchase... but they just never contacted me ... I've tried sending them 4 emails since I purchased the product a week ago, and they aren't responding ... not good.

37

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Flash Interface for Hal

« on: August 04, 2007, 12:23:06 pm »

My problem is not with the core input output ... but mostly with the characters ... I'd like to be able to create my own flash based charactrs  ... so ... I think maybe I can create a kind of link between hal and the flash program running the character ...

User sending and hals text response will be in a hal skin with the hal character turned off ... but when hal sends his response he also sends that response to the flash program thats running at the same time ... where it gets processed into TTS and lypsync animation for the character ...

its a thought. I'm still playing around... still may not be within what flash/hal can do ...

38

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Flash Interface for Hal

« on: August 03, 2007, 06:34:56 pm »

I've been playing with my Hal for about a year and I have a decent brain that I'm happy with ... however, there are a lot of things about the interface/characters I don't like ... I'm a professional flash designer ... so I'm toying with the idea of trying to find a way to write a flash based interface for my Hal ... I haven't looked to far into this yet, but does anyone know if this is a realistic idea given Hal 6.1's current structure?

Thanks for any help you can provide

39

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: July 18, 2007, 12:09:59 pm »

Excellent. Thank you. I better jump on that quick ... you never know, in a month they could make it so the voices only work with their software!

40

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: July 18, 2007, 02:29:20 am »

I've been scanning the forum about the various TTS voices available and many of the posts are a couple of years old and I was looking for a more recent view of things ... I've been scanning around the net, and it appears that AT&T Natural Voices are no longer available to us regular folks ... the same goes for the Acapela and RealSpeech voices ... so all that seems to be left is Neospeech & Cepstral... ?

I purchased TextAloud from NextUp and got one of their Acapela voices ... and it appears that they've made it so that voice can ONLY be used in their products ...

Sooo ... I am looking to see if anyone has any updated information thats different from this ... is there some secret website out there that sells Acapela or AT&T voices that hal can use (for less than $250+ )? Or are we really just limited to Cepstral and Neospeech voices ...

Thanks,
Ender