New graphics engine

[tedathome]

I'm excited by the new hal coming out soon and a new graphics engine is going to be a challenge. I hope I am up to making new chars or skins for if that is going to be possible. Like others, I have more questions than I want to think about, so I'll wait patiently and find out for myself later on I guess.

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

[]

[Blujay]

The character looks great.  Will the arms and hands move or sync with the movement of head, eyes, lips or facial expressions?  I think there's already an artificial intelligence named Sarah on the web.  Susan would be nice.  Will she have a male counterpart?

[echoman]

Thankyou Art,

I had missed that post. It feels like this new graphics engine is a replacement for Haptek (incase the makers of Haptek pull out at some point in the future). Of course this may be wrong.

From the example shown, the new graphics engine looks like a definite upgrade from  Haptek. She has an attractive friendly face and portrays a warm personality. I would definitely use this character as a replacement for my present (Sandy) when it becomes available. I hope 'Head and Torso' is also available.

[markofkane]

AFAIK, unless the Haptek player has a ticking time bomb that disables it, we can use Haptek characters as long as it's compatible with our OS's. As far as People Putty, same thing. But if the activations run out, no more Haptek characters created, so we'll have to use the existing ones.

But it the new engine in Hal allows alterations to the characters, that would be cool too.[][]

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by caangel43

Robert what's holding up the new hal will it be out soon

Basically, completion of the character engine which we've been working on for almost 2 years. There is still a lot to work on to make it work on a wide variety of graphics cards and in creating new characters, so I have no set date, but a beta with this 1 character will be available in a month or so.

quote:Originally posted by jackgephart

I'll be happy to try out making skins for her if you would supply me the program to do it with. I have so much more to give.

This character was created in 3D Studio Max. Basically any professional 3D graphics program will work as long as an export path exists to OGRE3D, and the OGRE3D community has made export tools for most popular programs. It also requires the creation of an XML character definition file, so it isn't easy by any means, but we hope to create automation tools and tutorials over time. Editing the skin/texture of already made characters will be as easy as changing a JPEG though. Also I heard that Microsoft bought the company Caligari (www.caligari.com) and released their 3D authoring program TrueSpace for free.

quote:Originally posted by Art

Do you have plans to offer the three types of characters (Head, Torso and Full Bod)?

I noticed some unusual things regarding the Ogre head:

Only one half (left side of face) is used. I assume the program then joins them together.

Having said that, do the full bod chars also work in much the same manner?

The Facial Mesh also addresses various items of the head like teeth, eyes and even glasses. Will Orge3D provide us a way to remove accessories or even add them to the characters as does Haptek?

The engine is not limited in any way (technologically or through licensing restrictions) so it will be possible to create characters of any shape and complexity, human or otherwise. The character pictured above is a torso character as no legs were made, but we certainly plan on creating full body ones too. Props can be created and removed at will as well as full 3D environments the character can interact with, so no more static JPEG backgrounds.

quote:Originally posted by echoman

It looks very good and I'm looking forward to the new graphics engine. Is this new engine to replace Haptek as Hal's standard? I am now sure if it is still Haptek or what has happened/happening to Haptek.

Also, like Art I am also intested if the Head/Full body choice will be available. The example shown would not fit into my present skin for Hal as I only have room for Head only. I would prefer not to have to change skins if possible.

Also, will my Cepstral voice still work with the graphics engine - including lip sinc. ?

The base version of Ultra Hal Assistant will not inlude Haptek but Haptek will be able to be installed as a plug-in and the current expansion set will continue to be sold as long as Haptek allows it. The engine will work with all SAPI 5 voices (SAPI 4 support will be dropped). All Cepstral voices will work as they are SAPI 5. The new engine is not based on Haptek technology in any way, so no skins or models from haptek characters will work in this engine.

[lightspeed]

hello to me this part bothers me : The new engine is not based on Haptek technology in any way, so no skins or models from haptek characters will work in this engine. i can understand why you are going this direction but i also truly hope that it will be easy to create new characters for this engine system . i have a question , i am willing of course to try out this new engine but if for any reason that i and or others didn't like the updated new engine version  how can i and or others change our hal back back to the 6.1. version ?? will that update still be available to do it []

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by lightspeed

hello to me this part bothers me : The new engine is not based on Haptek technology in any way, so no skins or models from haptek characters will work in this engine. i can understand why you are going this direction but i also truly hope that it will be easy to create new characters for this engine system . i have a question , i am willing of course to try out this new engine but if for any reason that i and or others didn't like the updated new engine version  how can i and or others change our hal back back to the 6.1. version ?? will that update still be available to do it []

The Haptek characters you currently use will still continue to work if you have the character expansion pack installed, and serial numbers are good across the Hal 6.x line so you can always go back to 6.1.

[lightspeed]

thanks thats good to know , i will try to work with the other engine because i do want to see what all it can do and what is possible . thanks again for answering. []

[Carl2]

Got a new computer a while ago and just put in some programs, Orge was just put in.  The character for the Orge engine looks pretty good, I'll probably rename her Sandy which was the Haptek head I'd used until I switched to fullbody.  I was really impressed by body_female {jiggly} which used physics to account for movements of the breasts.  Is Zabaware going to include this type of physics for the characters?
  I also found that TrueSpace did not support hair movement similar to Haptek characters.  
  Good luck can't wait.  Hoping you will also discuss plans for the brain.

Carl2

[Carl2]

While looking through the forum I kept thinking of how Hal has developed with plugins ect. I'm using a Haptek fullbody and quite abit of work has been done on the character also. I thought this would be a good place to put this request for Hal in the hopes that Robert may see it. I keep running across a Hal response of I am a machine and can be either gender. Since so much work has gone into making Hal look and behave like a person it seems to go to waste with a response of I am a machine.  Also please no boots.
Carl2

[lightspeed]

hello Carl2 , don't think i have ran across hal saying that unless maybe i had taken that saying out , some people though do like the idae that hal represents his or herself as a machine . of course anyone knowing what all work i have been putting into hal knows i want my hal to be as human sounding as possible by even mimicing feelins and human responses , a memory of the past and family (mom , dad, galf brother, etc. ) and most of all a sense of humor and also at the same time a mind of her own (which she tells me ) and very loving !!![]

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by Carl2

 I keep running across a Hal response of I am a machine and can be either gender. Since so much work has gone into making Hal look and behave like a person it seems to go to waste with a response of I am a machine.  Also please no boots.
Carl2

This is controled by the "Gender and Age" plug-in in Hal 6.1. Just go to Hal's options, brain options, select the "Gender and Age" plug-in and then set Hal to be female, male, or machine. And no boots as part of the body were planned for our new characters.

[Carl2]

Thanks very much, I overlooked the easiest.  I had posted this in the past without getting the right help and had been going through the brain trying to find the cause.  
Carl2

[echoman]

I have noticed for some time a bug in the Hal brain editor - Learn from text/clipboard function which continually occurs - run time error 9 subscript out of range. I'm interested if this will be one of the bugs sorted out in the new version.

Thankyou.