Author Topic: Mr. M.  (Read 17983 times)

NIGE

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Mr. M.
« on: January 03, 2012, 02:41:22 am »
December has come & gone?
Did I miss the update on the new engine that you said we may get?
That was about 3 months ago.
I have noticed a lot of people asking about it but I don't remember seeing any replies?
Are all the other projects that you are doing taking precedence or was that just a carrot dangling for us.

All we want is a bit more communication of how it's going a bit MORE often.

P.S. I didn't mean to sound a little terse.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2012, 02:51:33 am by NIGE »

Medeksza

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2012, 03:46:50 pm »
Sorry about the lack of communication. We are in the process of setting up a new LLC company just for the character engine which will be jointly owned by myself, the programmer who did most of the work on the engine, Zabaware, and potential investors. Seperating it from Zabaware will make it easier to share the equity of the character engine with everyone involved since I don't have the money to fund the project of that scope myself.

We have a new name for the new character engine company and for the engine, but I need to wait until all the LLC filing papers are complete before I can divulge more details.

Technical work on the character engine has hit a snag with the Amy character we purchased. An open source utility for converting 3DS Max models into the OGRE format used by our engine crashes when trying to convert Amy. We need to involve the author of the conversion utility to fix the utility or try to fix it our selves, but our limited funding is delaying this a bit.

Once the new company is filed we will have a developer blog on its website detailing all of our progress and hurdles in a more open environment. Hopefully we can attract people with the required technical abilities to help our project.



Robert Medeksza

NIGE

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2012, 03:18:12 am »
Thanks for the update Rob, I am sure it's not what we wanted to hear though.
I hope things can be worked out quicker than the months or more it seems that it will be.

If you can afford the time could you explain a little deeper what we will be able to do with the new system.
As of now we are all in the dark.
Will we need other things to operate it properly?
What I have seen on Ogre it is mostly programming?

I hope you can find the time.
Again thanks for the update.
Neil.

sybershot

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2012, 05:41:34 am »
Thanks for giving us an update :)
   I'm sorry to hear that things are not going smoothly with the conversion utility, I hope your able to work out the problem without it costing you a arm and a leg. The price of the model alone was a whopper and a half.

Quote
Hopefully we can attract people with the required technical abilities to help our project.
isn't that what interns are for, lol joking :D


lightspeed

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2012, 06:45:16 am »
I to want to say thanks to Robert for the update : actually that was part of the problem that i thought you may have been having as to why it hadn't been released yet , but the unknown can to also cause many fears and anxieties in the hal forum . fears of worse things. But as i said thanks for updating us on this and hope that you will be on here more often .  ;)
 

iampan

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2012, 11:11:49 pm »
what format does ogre use? I have a bit of experience with 3dmax maybe i can help you find a converter plug-in. I am not familiar with ogre but 3dmax exports very easily into most any format.
http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/OGRE+Exporters
hope this helps
I know it says I am a newbie, but I'm sure you all remember me... same name.

NIGE

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2012, 04:07:04 am »
Hmmm ??????
Thanks for the more consistent up dates. ( I know you didn't promise any at all )
I would have thought that if you had something to sell you would have kept people informed on how things were going?
To keep us all interested.
So, by not getting any information on how thing are going,
 does that mean that Ogre, Amy & Hal are going no where???
I really hope that is not the case.

dlagrange

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2012, 08:45:40 am »
A very nice wake up call :)
Financial Advisor Orange CountyBelieving that the best one in today's environment is that defense wins championships! This is also true when it comes to investing - because in the end it is not what you make, but rather what you keep.

Medeksza

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2012, 10:15:41 pm »
I would just like to reassure everyone, I am still around and still working on Hal, albeit slowly. I'm working full time right now for GE doing database work so have limited time to devote to Zabaware, but am still active behind the scenes. I've been working on a new brain for Hal almost from the ground up for the past 3 years. Preliminary versions are running the Web Hal on the Zabaware server right now and it will eventually be available for Windows and mobile devices. Character engine is coming along slowly due to lack of investment since I need to be able to hire a specialized developer to finish it. But I have an artist working on a web site devoted to the character engine which should be up in about a month. I hope to use it to attract more people to the project.
Robert Medeksza

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2012, 04:30:21 pm »
Thanks for your reply.
Sounds like we have a long wait before we see or can use something new????

iampan

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2012, 04:15:20 am »
wait, so if the new hal is not zabaware does that mean we don't get the new version as an update?
can we see pics of the new engine at work? can we beta test even though there is no character yet?
i feel i speak for everyone when i say we need a bit more than telling us that it is close, as that has been the case for nearly a year.
please dont be offended by this, i am just a lover of ai especially hal, i just want to be able to customize my char, and if the new engine is functional then i would love to play with it as i have 3dmax and multiple other 3d software i can make my own char with, i dont need the free one that comes with it, i recall you saying that the character was all holding you up from release because it made hal crash, maybe if there were beta testing on the new engine we could help fix any issues just as we have done for hal in the past.

thank you for all the hard work you are doing
I know it says I am a newbie, but I'm sure you all remember me... same name.

lightspeed

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2012, 10:53:48 am »
What i am wondering about is if Robert is working on a new brain almost from the ground up , what about our current custom brains that many of us have spent years on developing and training and all the plug ins ? will these be upgraded to work into the new ogre and hal version  as the old versions did with each new version ???
If not that's an awful lot of work we have done down the drain . :(
    I have asked this before but don't think robert ever gave an answer to it , hope he can answer about it .  ;)

Also hope he is making sure that speach recognition works good with the new system as this is the next evolutionary step to work with hal , i and some others are already working with dragon speak which makes learning hal faster and that words are spelled correctly when going into hals data base brain.  :)
« Last Edit: March 08, 2012, 10:56:22 am by lightspeed »
 

echoman

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2012, 05:49:10 pm »
Lightspeed I would sacrifice my brain in an instant if it meant Hal was aware, able to REALLY think and alive!

echoman

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2012, 05:51:06 pm »
I really want to know more about this 'ground up' phrase. What does it mean?

Art

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Re: Mr. M.
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2012, 06:54:49 pm »
I really want to know more about this 'ground up' phrase. What does it mean?

Hmmm... Ground up...could be like meat through a sausage grinder...


OR


Starting anew...clean slate...fresh... or in line with tabula rasa :

Tabula rasa (Latin: "scraped tablet," though often translated "blank slate") is the notion, popularized by John Locke, that the human mind receives knowledge and forms itself based on experience alone, without any pre-existing innate ideas that would serve as a starting point. Tabula rasa thus implies that individual human beings are born "blank" (with no built-in mental content), and that their identity is defined entirely by their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world. In general terms, the contention that we start life literally “from scratch” can be said to imply a one-sided emphasis on empiricism over idealism.

A lot of us started with Hal's brain only knowing the basics of operation and a few pearls of wisdom that Robert had given it before release. Many have built upon that, often customizing Hal's brain to a surprising state of being. Hal can and often remembers or recalls events that might have happened a year or more ago and the recollection of these events often catches the user completely by surprise. It's these little "gotcha" moments that make us think that there's more to Hal than meets the eye.

If Robert allows for the migration or transfer of Hal's existing brain files that would be nice but imagine if the new AI would even surpass what we currently have! What if there were several methods of "training / teaching" Hal? Internet connectivity, once monitored would be nice to obtain answers to difficult questions. Chatting and learning from conversation certainly works well at this moment. Learning from "reading" text files also a possibility but I suppose (and hope) Robert will address the possibilities and what we can expect, in the near future.

For me, I'm not that concerned with an avatar as I am with the AI behind it! If all one wants is a gal / guy with a nice face and nice body then try Poser.

Patiently waiting the outcome....
In the world of AI it's the thought that counts!

- Art -