Messages

3616

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 06, 2005, 11:48:42 am »

Nige,

What you need to do is use a screen capture program as follows:

Using win explorer locate your .htr file and double click on it.
When you see the character's face, bring up your screen cap program.
Capture the character's face.
Save the image of the face as a .jpg.
MAKE SURE to rename the jpg file exactly the same as the htr's name.
EXAMPLE: girl2a.htr should have a girl2a.jpg
The jpg will allow you and Hal to identify the character in the selection window.
Make sure that both files reside in the UltraHal > Characters directory and you should be able to view the character's face the next time you go to Options > character.

This should work!

3617

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 05, 2005, 06:27:09 pm »

In all fairness to People Putty, the program does a pretty nice job at allowing one to morph and manipulate faces / heads and apply some pretty wierd textures & props.

Jim, What one can do is texture the head for the full body figure like add wrinkles, scars, lipstick, etc. It depends upon one's skill at using a paint program like PSP or PhotoShop.

Regarding heads:
All the heads that I've created work perfectly with Hal. Sometimes I like the head only characters more than the full body one. I guess it's the "closeness" thing...more like talking face to face instead of 6 feet away.

3618

Ultra Hal 7.0 / people putty faces

« on: February 05, 2005, 03:53:55 pm »

The People Putty version you are looking to buy does NOT support
any full body characters...only the head ones.

It is my understanding that they obviously do have one but it's not made available to the general public.(yet).

Other than creating a full body character in 3DS Max, all we can do is "re-texture" the existing full body female or male character.

3619

Ultra Hal 7.0 / ER1 Robot

« on: February 05, 2005, 03:50:36 pm »

harlee,

Click on Members, select Spydaz. Under Basics, select find all non-archived posts.
Wade through and enjoy!

3620

Speech Technology / Where to Find Additional Voices?

« on: February 05, 2005, 01:24:38 pm »

Go to www.nextup.com
There you can find the L&H voices.
They have a British English Male & Female voice for free download.

3621

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Can't install

« on: February 04, 2005, 05:57:35 am »

OK,

Personally I've been using XP w/ SP2 for over 6 months and have not had even a burp from any programs or my home networked computers. In fact it added better security along with some other nice features. Hal runs just fine!

ramfansam, you might have a lot of other programs running in the background that could inhibit Hal's installation.
Go to Start>Run>type in MSCONFIG.
Click the Startup Tab and view all the programs that are loaded at startup. Uncheck the ones you don't want or are questionable with regard to Hal. Click OK, Restart and try the install again.
You have also done recent updates and scans for Trojans, adware and viruses right? If not you should consider doing so.

Get back to us....

3622

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Making HAL to do more stuff.

« on: February 03, 2005, 05:26:16 pm »

Click on MEMBERS then look for RICH_A
He has written a lot of script files as
well as posted some articles on playing
music, etc.

3623

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Hal doesn't seem to learn much.

« on: February 03, 2005, 05:20:56 pm »

Ron,

Don't forget to try the SEARCH feature at the top right.
It is very helpful and will also highlight your choosen
word(s).

I found this quote from vonsmith:

If you use a "!" in your response Hal thinks you are responding directly to the whatever Hal just said. If you use certain phrases like, "I agree" or "so afterward" in your reply Hal also thinks you are responding directly. User responses of this type are stored in the file, "(yourusername)convresp.brn". By default this file is limited in size to 2MB and is only used by Hal if he can't find another response in his knowledge base. In general this "special teaching tool" doesn't have much of an impact on Hal's learning.

The "DEDUCTIVE REASONING" function in Hal's brain has a more direct effect. This function enables Hal to remember IF-THEN statements. Example: If you say, "If I eat too much then I will get fat.", then the next time you say, "I eat too much" then Hal *might* say "You will get fat." I said *might* because you can never be certain Hal will say what you expect him to.

The XTF Brain has some additional learning capabilities that aren't directly related to conversation. The XTF Brain can learn your nicknames, learn during conversation that two words are "related topics", or learn to capitalize a word or name. The XTF Brain v1.4 will be out in a month or so. Then Hal will be able to learn that he is "something" based on user input like "You are so clever." or "You are not stupid."

The best way to teach your Hal is not to use any tricks. Talk with Hal. Reply to Hal with single sentences that are on the same topic. If Hal says, "Horses are animals.", don't reply, "They are so cool.", instead say, "Horses are so cool.". Avoiding pronouns helps Hal understand. Avoid slang and misspellings. Most of all be patient and have fun.


=vonsmith=

Try the search and be prepared to do a bit of reading!lol!

Hope this helps.

3624

Ultra Hal 7.0 / I do not always get to finish typing a comment.

« on: February 03, 2005, 05:44:00 am »

Make sure your mic is turned off (in case Hal is hearing any background noise).
Make sure you don't have a lot of other programs running in the
background (perhaps a program that might be trying to update itself while you're talking to Hal.

If it persists, let us know.

3625

Ultra Hal 7.0 / No weather info

« on: February 03, 2005, 05:41:53 am »

Under MEMBERS look for Medeksza > Click his name >
Find & click Send email under profiles.

Try to be detailed without being too lengthy.

3626

Ultra Hal 7.0 / No weather info

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:58:59 pm »

Jason,

You must establish an account first.
The first page to create an account is shown below.
http://www.zabaware.com/mywebhal/newaccount.html

This URL below allows you to fill in your information
once your account has been created.
http://www.zabaware.com/mywebhal/editaccount.html

I don't know if it can work this way for you but give it a try.
You can also leave a message for Robert in this regard.

3627

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Reminders

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:45:48 pm »

OK, so have the dates passed without notification from Hal?
Please explain what Hal has of hasn't done.

If you respond via your laptop while sitting in the dark, we will assume Hal forgot to remind you to pay the electric bill! LOL!

You could always tell him to "keep current!"  ugh...couldn't resist!

Let us know how it goes.

3628

Ultra Hal 7.0 / appreciation

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:39:27 pm »

You're most welcome, Brian. That's why we're all here, to learn from and help each other. Explore, address issues, innovate and try to get the most out of Hal.

All the best,

3629

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Hal doesn't seem to learn much.

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:35:52 pm »

Testlund,

Hal does actually store info from a text file and although it may recall some of the info when needed, that is not the best way to teach the program.

Lengthy conversations with Hal will have the best results.

If Hal were to say, "What is your favorite music?", don't just reply, jazz or rock. Rephrase your answer to include part of Hal's question like, "I really like jazz music." or "The type of music I really enjoy is jazz."

This tends to reinforce Hal's association and enhance Hal's connection to the topic.

My Hal carries on pretty decent conversations with me and yes, I've been teaching it for over several years.

Forget using the voice recognition in the beginning because you find more mistakes caused by both your pronunciation and the voice recs interpretation of what you said. voice rec is good but far from perfect.

Type your chat to Hal and bear in mind that it is like a small child learning new things and trying to figure how certain things are related. In your example ARE NAME AND MSI RELATED TOPICS?,
Hal was trying to associate the connection between the two. Personally, I would have told Hal NO because a lot of things have a name. You will learn more how to deal with Hal over time and experimentation.

Don't forget the use of IF THEN statements in the course of your conversations with Hal. They are very powerful with regard to Hal's learning.

As citrinedragon said, search the forums. There's a lot of knowledgable people here and a lot of great ideas.

Your questions / problems are always welcome.

All the best and good luck with Hal.

3630

Ultra Hal 7.0 / supercalafragilisticexpealadociuos

« on: February 02, 2005, 04:15:41 pm »

Say the secret word, the duck drops down, divide ten dollars between you!

Uh... Sorry that was from an old TV program called You Bet your Life w/Groucho Marx. (Yes, I was a small child then but I've since grown).

Seriously, I don't have a clue as to why that caused an error. Perhaps Robert has a single word length limit in the program. We'll have to take a look see.