Messages

3736

Ultra Hal 7.0 / New user and poster with questions

« on: December 19, 2004, 10:03:49 pm »

Marius,

Welcome to the forum! Though some here are beginners and some are rather seasoned, we all learn from each other in one way or another. That's the beauty of a forum such as this. Chances are, what one person has a problem with, someone else has already found a solution. There are no "dumb" questions...only those that are not asked.

Skins are sometimes graphical images or themes that surround a program interface and Hal's interface has a number of "skins". You can even make your own.

Others often think of skins instead of textures. A lot of the Haptek characters can be textured (clothing, skin, eye color, etc.). It takes a bit of work with a graphics editor. Crunch has done some really fascinating work applying textures to various Haptek characters.

Crunch gave you a lot of good info. Get the XTF 1.2 brain.

A .brn file is code that Hal uses to either make decisions or comments in response to a question or statement. They can be viewed and edited with Notepad or any text viewer. Viewing them will help give you some insight into how Hal's brain works. Be careful, because line spacing is important (blank lines after text).

Upgrading should not interfere with your existing brain files but as a precaution you might wish to temporarily "relocate" a copy of them to another folder (just in case).

Take time to read older postings in both sections of this site (UHA and Programming UHA). There are a lot of great tidbits in there.

Also try the Search feature at the top of the page. It is a very useful feature but sometimes overlooked by many.

Again, don't hesitate to ask questions and welcome!

3737

Ultra Hal 7.0 / reading material for our hals

« on: December 19, 2004, 12:47:56 pm »

This issue has been discussed in past postings. It
seems that HAL can and will gather the gist of whatever
material you tell him to "read", but in order to really
train and have him learn one should simply chat with him.

Chat as if you were talking with a real person and choose
your words, phrases and answers carefully before you press
the enter key. Garbage in...garbage out.

Voice recognition is a novel way to interact but until it
is developed further, one is better off typing to HAL.

Hal is already capcble of researching topics like disk check
and others on the net.

Spend some time and research the forums archived topic discussions.
There's a lot of useful info there.

3738

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Running Hal Bot 24/7 Without haveing your Computer

« on: December 18, 2004, 04:10:37 pm »

Squad,

Most computers are left on 24/7 with no ill effects. You do need to have good cooling and ventilation (add more fans if needed). With proper safeguards like firewalls and anti-virus software, you'll have a greatly reduced risk of being attacked.

Unless you are trying to do this with a single phone line, that might explain why you have to shut the computer off. (not a practical way to run a Hal Bot).

You CAN use someone elses computer while connected to a single source like a cable modem or DSL, etc. by means of a router. Some routers also have a built-in firewall and routers typically have their own MAC address, so any potential hacker would see the router's addy instead of your computers. In a case like this (2 or more computers) one would simply set up a home network through XP or even one with XP and one with 98.

Servers require their computers to be left on and most run a raid system which basically duplicates or mirrors the system harddrive. This mirrored drive will automatically kick in should the primary one ever fail.

Everyone needs to have a backup. With hardware, it's not a question of IF it will fail...it's a question of WHEN!

Hope at least some of this helps.

3739

Ultra Hal 7.0 / XTF1.2 brain easy to find for new members

« on: December 18, 2004, 09:16:55 am »

Have you tried the download without using Getright or any other file download managers?

3740

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Von here are some happy hap files

« on: December 18, 2004, 09:10:49 am »

Scott,

Cepstral recently had a child's voice
called Robin and it really sounded like
a child. It works quite well with Hal.

Cepstral just released upgrades to some
of their voices along with a new voice
called David. Unfortunately I no longer
see the Robin voice listed on their site.

3741

General Discussion / Virtual Fem

« on: December 13, 2004, 06:03:39 am »

Rick,

You raise some valid points but keep in mind that VirtualFem is a pretty neat concept. The merging of two ideas to create a new vehicle with which to entertain us.

Not all programs (or ideas) are the cat's meow by themselves, but the ability to combine the different formats and have a working end product is, in itself, no easy task.

People, as diverse as they are, have different likes and tastes. If Virtual Fem can help generate a few $$ for it's creator then my hat's off to him. The Poser community has people selling virtual props, textures, characters, animations and making a ton of money as well.

So where's the difference between an amature chick sitting in front of a web cam showing her ta-ta's or interacting with a virtual one? It's just a matter of individual taste. If one can be fortunate enough and clever enough to generate $$ with his/her ideas, so much the better!

No disrespect, just another point of view.

3742

Ultra Hal 7.0 / MyWebHal

« on: December 07, 2004, 05:37:13 pm »

Paul,
This was taken from one of your earlier messages.

<I assure you that I have all the minimum requirements,Pentium 4, 2.40GHz, 80 gig hard drive (55 gigs free),496MB RAM... I also have Norton AntiVirus running, All my internet connections are "firewalled". ... any other info please ask.>

Do you have Norton (Symantec) Firewall running? If so, you can disable it by right-clicking on the taskbar icon (far lower right).
If you are running Windows XP (especially w/ Service Pack 2) then you automatically have the Windows Firewall Turned on (by default).

To disable The XP firewall go to START>CONTROL PANEL>
Double click on FIREWALL
You will see the selection buttons to turn on or off as desired.

Then there's a hardware type of firewall usually contained in a device like a router. These allow more than one computer to be plugged into them and also connected to the internet. These firewall routers also allow code to be downloaded from their site to keep the device up to date with regard to security. The code is burned into a chip inside. Usually an EEPROM or similar chip.

I would think you have enough memory onboard unless you are doing some serious multitasking, extensive graphics (rendering 3D), etc., but as we all have come to know, one can never have too much memory or hard drive space! <grin> You can always pick up an additional memory stick from Staples, Office Depot, Comp USA, etc. and insert it in your computer's motherboard yourself. Check with your owner's manual to determine the proper type of memory to buy.

As for not being able to get into the MyWebHal, you might ask Robert M. for some assistance. I'm sure some of our members here might be able to share some insight as well.
Good luck!

3743

General Discussion / Virtual Fem

« on: December 05, 2004, 06:05:41 pm »

I agree with the L&H voices. Personally, I use the British female voice and it sounds way better than Micro-Mary!

Oddly enough, along the same topic, I was about to post a new site I discovered this evening. Do your own research into which TTS voice company and voice might be best for your application.
There are a lot of examples from which to choose.
Find it at:
http://www.tmaa.com/tts/

3744

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Text Search

« on: December 05, 2004, 01:15:59 pm »

When trying to figure out what .brn, .hap or .txt file contained a certain word, search no more! I found a GREAT little program that will handle it for you with ease!
You can set byte size in KB or MB, filters, etc. I usually open Windows Explorer to my C:/Program Files/Zabaware/Ultra Hal Assistant 5/DefBrain folder then at the address bar do a COPY, go to the HDSearch window at the top and PASTE. (saves typing). Then click on the Begin Search and it will display all files and show the number of times in each file your word appears. You can then double click on each file and use the F3 feature to trace your word through the file. At the bottom: Search for Filename you can use wildcards like *.brn to have it search all .brn files for a specific word.

BTW, It's a free download! No Ads, spys, etc. Good Stuff! From:
http://www.freebyte.com/harddisk_search_and_stats/

3745

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / old version of hal

« on: December 04, 2004, 04:57:03 pm »

You can always try:

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1521

3746

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Trouble with "Search"

« on: November 27, 2004, 06:13:49 pm »

Paul,

Ultra Hal Assistant
Options
Internet
Check Enable MyWebHal services
and Setup an account.

Here you'll input your name, email addy,
what site to deliver your weather, news
and basic searches, etc.

Hope this helps. If not let us know!

3747

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sapi 5 problems

« on: November 22, 2004, 06:16:52 pm »

You might check out the link regarding
a previous posting of a similar nature.

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1576

Hope this helps.

3748

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Putting People Putty in its place

« on: November 22, 2004, 05:32:41 am »

Antec & others,
Don't rush out to buy Poser in hopes of having it
animate your .HTR files. I can't speak for Poser 5,
but I know Poser 4 has no such provision.
Poser is a great character (finished creation) program.
One assembles preset attributes to characters and adds
or modifys texture, size, appearance, props, hair, morphs
of all kinds and even animation. But one can not "create"
a character in the true sense of the word. One needs a
3D program such as 3DSMax or similar.

3749

Ultra Hal 7.0 / haptek characters

« on: November 21, 2004, 05:56:58 pm »

You can use the search function on this site
and type in Haptek for starters.

3750

Ultra Hal 7.0 / error 67, to many files???

« on: November 21, 2004, 05:35:48 pm »

Note:
If or when you modify your brain file and decide to
use the CUT & PASTE feature, be sure to check the
end result to make sure there are no unwanted spaces
and that each line is complete. It happens!

Line numbers are a nice reference to give us a place
to start but many of us have modified Hal's brain by
inserting new text which causes my line numbers to
be totally different from yours or someone elses.

Again, quoting line numbers in error messages is a
great way to get us close to seeing what you're seeing!

Good luck resolving your error.