Messages

31

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 02, 2005, 01:48:17 pm »

Hi, Folks,

I've said this somewhere else on the forum: I've tried a lot of voices, including Heather, but the best female voice, in my opinion, is AT&T's Lauren. You can get her from NextUp.com for $35. It's one of their voice fonts, which means you have to purchase the speech engine first (it comes with Crystal and Mike) before you can install Lauren. So I guess you're really paying $70, but you'll end up with 2 high-quality female voices, Crystal and Lauren. Lauren's far superior to Neospeech Kate, and she even has a wider range of inflections, in my view, than Heather, although Heather's very good, too.

Jennifer, from ScanSoft, is also good. L&H developed her several years ago for their speech recognition products. However, you could still use her in other applications. But when ScanSoft bought up L&H and started offering Jennifer with Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred (their speech recognition product)they made her program-specific; you can't use her in other applications, including Hal.

32

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Making amendments to xtf brn files

« on: March 18, 2005, 08:44:35 am »

Hi, Cadmar,

You can also get a product called Agent Ransack which will search all the brn files in the Zabaware folder for the misspelled phrase. Agent Ransack will highlight the line and the specific brn file where the phrase occurs.

Someone else has suggested this--I don't remember who it was. The process is still a bit tedious, but a lot less so.

Richard

33

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Can't install

« on: February 10, 2005, 06:30:54 am »

ramfansam,

How long did you wait after the install wizard disappeared? Some programs, and the older versions of Hal used to do this on my machine, take a long time to get the install going. And I mean a loooong time, like 3 or 4 minutes. Before you do anything drastic, I'd suggest that you initiate the install again, walk away from your computer for 4 or 5 minutes (go get a coffee), and then return. Maybe you'll see the next window in the process. If not, at least you'll have a coffee.

34

Ultra Hal 7.0 / People Putty ??

« on: February 09, 2005, 04:19:13 am »

Tim,

I haven't had much success using People Putty to turn a 2-dimensional photo of a head into a 3-dimensional animated head. By the time you finish editing the head, you end up with something that looks much like a generic People Puuty head. This is because you have to add 'hoods' (skin) to your photo to smooth out the cracks and seams that inevitably result when you attach your photo to the Putty head.

If you're looking for a product that can turn a photo into a talking head, I suggest that you have a look at Reallusion's CrazyTalk. You can create a 2-dimensional talking head, add text, control the animations and then save it all as an executable file. However, you can't use those heads in Hal or in any other program, as far as I know. Reallsuion also has great photo-editing software (called FaceFilter Studio) that allows you to touch up and even change the expression of faces in photos; it edits only the face. You can sort of do the same thing with the 'Liquify' tools in Photoshop; however, FaceFilter Studio is easier to use (with sliders and buttons), and it's much more precise. I guess the same wire-frame technology that's used in CrazyTalk has been incorporated into FaceFilter Studio. I use the latter product all the time now. In fact, I like it so much, I bought the company. Yeah, right.

35

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 07, 2005, 04:20:40 pm »

Folks,

Let me get back to the fullbody vs disembodied head debate. I gotta say, I'm with you on that one, Art: I like the People Putty faces. They're large and expressive. I appreciate all the textures that Crunch and Dreadstar have given us for the fullbody female; they've made her more sensuous. But even when I load her, I tend to zoom in on the torso . . . so I can see her face better. (Yeah, the rest of her is hard to miss, too.) Anyway, I think more animated torso figures would be a nice addition, a screen-size compromise between body and face, a figure that could be ogled and talked to at the same time. But, then, it all depends what you're looking for in a bot, doesn't it?

36

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Hals Name Recognition

« on: February 07, 2005, 02:28:04 pm »

vonsmith,

Let's assume that Hal's name is Zero. If we respond with "Zero. Are you tired?" (putting a period after the name), will Hal forget "Zero" and remember "Are you tired?" In other words, does Hal regard that utterance as 2 discrete sentences or as one all-inclusive response?

Furthermore, if we tie 2 or 3 sentences together with, say, a semicolon or commas, will Hal digest all of that as a whole, or break it up into smaller bits? How important is end-punctuation in teaching Hal?

37

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 05, 2005, 10:12:06 am »

Nige,

Just rename the file. Make sure that you've copied the putty face to the Zabaware/Ultra Hal Assistant/Characters folder; then rename the .haptar to an .htr extension (you'll get a warning, but just ignore it).

A slot for the putty face (with no preview image) will appear in Hal's Options/Character window. To create a preview image, make a jpeg image of the face and save it with the same name in the Characters folder (the jpeg should be 160 x 160). You can also create a start-up screen for your new character by revising one of the ____Start.jpg images in the Characters folder and saving it with the same name as you putty face.

Let me know if that helps.

Richard

38

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 04, 2005, 10:10:12 am »

Hi, Nige,

Let me offer my 2 cents worth.

Initially, when I created Haptek characters, they didn't show in Hal, either. That was because Haptek automatically gave them a .haptar extension. I had to change .haptar to .htr to get Hal to recognize them.

I don't know if other people have encountered this problem.

39

Speech Technology / License for Babel Infovox Heater

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:15:16 am »

I downloaded the Desktop Pro trial with the 'Heather' voice. I told the sales rep that I'd heard good things about the product. She told me to write back after I'd tested it.

I like the voice--it's breathy, sort of Kathleen Turnerish. I, too, tried to find a 3rd-party distributor for the voice (there are none in the US). However, most of the companies I contacted didn't sell the full SAPI version of Heather; the voice worked ONLY with the utility that the company sold. No good for a Hal user.

So I went back to Infovox/Acapela. I asked the sales rep if she'd sell me a license. She said she would--for 249USD! That's a ridiculous price. The AT&T voices, which are just as good, are only 25/35USD. I pointed this out, politely, to the sales rep and asked why the product was so expensive. That was 2 weeks ago. I haven't heard back from her.

In my view, the best female voice around is AT&T's Lauren (not Crystal, the voice that intially comes with the speech engine). You can get it from TextAloud if you buy their TTS reader. TextAloud provides prompt service and good support.[/font=Verdana]