Zabaware Support Forums

Zabaware Forums => Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area => Topic started by: Medeksza on April 15, 2007, 02:33:12 am

Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 15, 2007, 02:33:12 am: Zabaware is looking into alternative graphics engines for character animation in addition to the currently supported MSAgent and Haptek engines. A project has been started to create a 3D character engine for Hal based on an open source graphics engine called OGRE 3D www.ogre3d.org At least a year of work remains before the full scope of the project can be completed (full body rendering in fully immersive 3d environments) but below is a very early demo of a character running under OGRE 3D. It is a character plug-in and will only work with Ultra Hal Assistant 6.1. Lip syncronization will only work with SAPI 5 voices. Simply unzip and run the setup to install. A new character called "Ogre" will appear in Hal's options menu.

http://www.zabaware.com/download/halogre.zip
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: markofkane on April 15, 2007, 04:45:25 am: When you say "plug-in" do you mean it can be enabled and disabled at will?? That would be great. I might try it. I do think I need to download SAPI 5.[8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: iam bennu on April 15, 2007, 05:09:20 am: Hello Robert,

I tried the character but it did not load. I could tell as the setup dialog did ask me if I wanted to change the name to Ogre.it did appear in the list though, but I only got a blank window.

Maybe it is because I do not have a character pluggin for 6.1. Have you created one yet?

hope all is well,
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: markofkane on April 15, 2007, 05:29:48 am: Same thing here. [:(]

I installed the demo, and it works independently from Hal. But I am unable to make it appear in the Hal Window.

I installed Speech SDK 5.1, but no dice. I have Direct X 9C.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Art on April 15, 2007, 08:17:10 am: Robert,

I followed the install and have the following sub-folders in the ZabawareUltra Hal Assistant 6 directory:
Characters
Skins
Ogre
Wordnet

Of note: In the Characters Folder there are only two files that reference Ogre, an ogre.jpg and OgreStart.jpg

I can preview the Ogre head when in the Options menu Character section but the head does not display in Hal's main GUI window.

If I type in the window I receive a "Run-time error '31004':
No object message.

I don't know how the Ogre file is formated. Should there be a similar file extension to an .htr , that is, something other than a .jpg image?

I notice there are 11 files in the Ogre folder totalling 5.76 MB
Looking at the Plugins.cfg folder, there is no defined Plugin folder.

Other than that the ball's back in your court.[:)]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 15, 2007, 09:31:17 am: Run regsvr32 on the file FacialAnimX.dll Just click start, run, and type in:
Regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Zabaware\Ultra Hal Assistant 6\Ogre\FacialAnimX.dll"

This is an error in the install program that I'll have to fix, but running regsvr32 manually should fix it for now.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: markofkane on April 15, 2007, 10:22:24 am: quote:
Originally posted by Medeksza

Run regsvr32 on the file FacialAnimX.dll Just click start, run, and type in:
Regsvr32 "C:Program FilesabawareUltra Hal Assistant 6OgreFacialAnimX.dll"

This is an error in the install program that I'll have to fix, but running regsvr32 manually should fix it for now.

That worked as far as showing the character in the window, but the lips don't move, and I installed MS Speech SDK 5.1. Is there anything else?
The mouth moves once in awhile, but does not move with the words.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 15, 2007, 11:10:15 am: Hi Rob.

after installing and also running:
Regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Zabaware\Ultra Hal Assistant 6\OgreFacialAnimX.dll"

I received the following runtime error when loading Ogre and activating HAL's Assistant panel for conversation.

(http://www.zabaware.com/forum/uploaded/onthecuttingedge2005/200741511946_untitled.gif)
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 15, 2007, 12:03:10 pm: quote:
Originally posted by markofkane

quote:
Originally posted by Medeksza

Run regsvr32 on the file FacialAnimX.dll Just click start, run, and type in:
Regsvr32 "C:Program FilesabawareUltra Hal Assistant 6OgreFacialAnimX.dll"

This is an error in the install program that I'll have to fix, but running regsvr32 manually should fix it for now.

That worked as far as showing the character in the window, but the lips don't move, and I installed MS Speech SDK 5.1. Is there anything else?
The mouth moves once in awhile, but does not move with the words.

You have to actually select a SAPI 5.0 voice as Hal works with both 4.0 and 5.0 voices. SAPI 5.0 voices in Hal will be labled "NO 2D Lip Sync" which means they don't work with MSAgent, but will work with Haptek and Ogre.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 15, 2007, 12:07:35 pm: quote:
Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005

Hi Rob.

after installing and also running:
Regsvr32 "C:Program FilesabawareUltra Hal Assistant 6OgreFacialAnimX.dll"

I received the following runtime error when loading Ogre and activating HAL's Assistant panel for conversation.

(http://www.zabaware.com/forum/uploaded/onthecuttingedge2005/200741511946_untitled.gif)

There are probably some Visual C++ 7.1 dependencies that I forgot to include. Try download this file http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcr71 and placing it in the "C:\Program Files\Zabaware\Ultra Hal Assistant 6\Ogre" folder.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: markofkane on April 15, 2007, 02:12:11 pm: Edit again: I got Mary to work, but could not get Mike or Sam to lipsync. I guess I have a female Ogre!!! LOL

I tried changing the default in Control panel-speech, Haptek player, and within Hal.

Thanks, Robert.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Art on April 15, 2007, 02:28:06 pm: Robert,

After running the:
Regsvr32 "C:Program FilesabawareUltra Hal Assistant 6Ogre\FacialAnimX.dll"
all is now working as it should...without errors and I can select
from a variety of TTS voices and they all work fine.

One note of interest, the lip sync of the character (ogre) is much
faster than the typical Haptek character even though the spoken
words are at the same speed. Lips moving at 25 in a 10mph zone, so to speak.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 15, 2007, 06:13:55 pm: Hi Rob.

I installed the new .dll and still received the same runtime error.

Hal loads into the system tray fine but when clicked on to allow Hal's panel to load default conversation panel it gives the runtime error and shuts down.

I am running the SDK 5.1 and I am running windows 2000 professional with full service pack.

Jerry
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: PaleRider on April 22, 2007, 10:20:50 am: I downloaded and Installed Ogre and ran the Run regsvr32 .
worked good the mouth was running a touch fast but the words came out with it.[:D]
Also was using Neo speech with Paul worked good .[8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on April 23, 2007, 10:08:41 am: Anyone got a screen shot of the character ? I haven't had time to download the new version so haven't seen it. How does it compare to Haptek?
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: PaleRider on April 23, 2007, 03:16:35 pm: on it's way to your site my friend. uploading as i write.[:D]
in download area at AIDreams.[:D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 23, 2007, 06:02:20 pm: Hi Rob.

I still receive the same error as before on the Ogre 3D.

Jerry
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 23, 2007, 11:08:05 pm: quote:
Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005

Hi Rob.

I still receive the same error as before on the Ogre 3D.

Jerry

Hi Jerry. I think you need both the run time DLLS for Visual C++ 7.1 and 8.0 as different parts of it were compiled in different versions. I will focus more on this project once Hal 6.1 and an updated Vista compliant Hal TTS with Neospeech are released.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 24, 2007, 12:13:20 am: quote:
Originally posted by Medeksza

quote:
Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005

Hi Rob.

I still receive the same error as before on the Ogre 3D.

Jerry

Hi Jerry. I think you need both the run time DLLS for Visual C++ 7.1 and 8.0 as different parts of it were compiled in different versions. I will focus more on this project once Hal 6.1 and an updated Vista compliant Hal TTS with Neospeech are released.

Thanks Buddy.

Jerry[8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on April 24, 2007, 09:24:42 am: quote:
Originally posted by PaleRider

on it's way to your site my friend. uploading as i write.[:D]
in download area at AIDreams.[:D]

Thanks PaleRider [:D]

It looks interesting, this should widen the scope of faces available for Hal no end. I feel some graphics work coming on!
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 28, 2007, 06:41:12 pm: Hi Rob.

I got Ogre running, works good although the lip sync seems to fast, Ogre's mouth moves like an Auctioneer at an Auction with the voice at normal speed.

other than that it's all good.
I also downloaded all the other stuff from Ogre3D's site, Demo's, Tools.

Also, I wanted to mention about putting a reboot routine in the Ogre3D
installation, it doesn't mention a reboot and if anybody tries to run a fresh install of Ogre without rebooting to refresh the registry an error will occure like the one I had in a prior posting.

I guess I will try and use my old AutoCad Skills once again and try and figure out all of Ogre's tools to make 3D enviroments.

Is the new 3D enviroments going to replace HAL's current GUI panel or will there be an option for both? talking to HAL in a full screen virtual world would be extremely awesome, something like this would become quite a popularity among users. I have about 10 years of experience with UnrealEditor and AutoCad in making Maps, I guess these are going to be exciting times ahead.

Jerry[8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on April 28, 2007, 07:31:18 pm: quote:
Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005

Hi Rob.

I got Ogre running, works good although the lip sync seems to fast, Ogre's mouth moves like an Auctioneer at an Auction with the voice at normal speed.

other than that it's all good.
I also downloaded all the other stuff from Ogre3D's site, Demo's, Tools.

Also, I wanted to mention about putting a reboot routine in the Ogre3D
installation, it doesn't mention a reboot and if anybody tries to run a fresh install of Ogre without rebooting to refresh the registry an error will occure like the one I had in a prior posting.

I guess I will try and use my old AutoCad Skills once again and try and figure out all of Ogre's tools to make 3D enviroments.

Is the new 3D enviroments going to replace HAL's current GUI panel or will there be an option for both? talking to HAL in a full screen virtual world would be extremely awesome, something like this would become quite a popularity among users. I have about 10 years of experience with UnrealEditor and AutoCad in making Maps, I guess these are going to be exciting times ahead.

Jerry[8D]

Nothing set in stone yet as theres still a lot of work left, but I was thinking of splitting Hal into 2 products: Ultra Hal Assistant as it is now with its windowed GUI, and Ultra Hal Companion (name may change) which will run full screen more like a game. Many people use Hal purely for its entertainment value and don't utilize features like appointment book, phone book, etc and would probably prefer fully immersive 3d environments. And the other group of people who use Hal as a personal assistant with chat as an interesting but not main feature would prefer Hal Assistant as-is. And for the overlap group, I'll probably offer buy one get the other half off and let the 2 products merge brains and features when both are installed.

The Ogre character was created using softimage xsi see http://www.softimage.com/ They offer a 30-day trial so if anyone is interested in trying to make ogre compatible characters...
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on April 28, 2007, 09:18:28 pm: Hi Rob.

OMG!, I just read the literature at http://www.softimage.com/
this is going to be a total blast my friend, thank you.

These are exciting times!
downloading as we speak.

Jerry[8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: jojimbo on April 12, 2008, 05:15:06 pm: Rob any news here?
Or any documents on the nessessary procedure to implement a head model from xsi.I tried to import the .mesh into blender using an
ogre3d mesh importer but you need a .mesh to xml yadda yadda,
why is it the 3d world is awash with so much confusion?
is people putty worth buying?
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: lcatmc on April 20, 2008, 03:18:09 pm: I tried to install this in hal and it told me I needed 6.1 to install it, but I purchased 6.1 so it should already be there.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: klato on May 25, 2008, 10:05:44 am: quote:
Originally posted by lcatmc

I tried to install this in hal and it told me I needed 6.1 to install it, but I purchased 6.1 so it should already be there.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on February 20, 2009, 12:15:15 pm: Does Rob or anyone know if this will now work with 6.2 ? I was wanting to get some advance experience in playing with the Ogre engine. Thanks. [:)]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: James007 on February 20, 2009, 08:09:53 pm: I just tried to install it on Vista with 6.2 and got a message it require 6.1.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on February 21, 2009, 08:50:22 am: Thanks James, that saves me a lot of hassle. I have 6.1 still so I will use that to experiment with.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: James007 on February 23, 2009, 03:04:13 pm: My pleasure Freddy! [8D]
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on February 24, 2009, 02:44:25 pm: Okay so I got it working. Robert I have a question - is there any way to increase the resolution/level of detail of the texture. The texture file is quite detailed but the rendering of it is pretty poor on the actual model. Thanks.
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on February 24, 2009, 04:23:22 pm: Also - I tried dropping some other Ogre meshes and materials in the Ogre folder but none of them get recognised. Is Hal only set up to recognise the facial mesh ? Will it be possible to drop new models in there in the future ?
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Maviarab on February 24, 2009, 06:04:32 pm: hehe...also waiting patiently :)
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on February 28, 2009, 01:56:20 am: quote:
Originally posted by freddy888

Also - I tried dropping some other Ogre meshes and materials in the Ogre folder but none of them get recognised. Is Hal only set up to recognise the facial mesh ? Will it be possible to drop new models in there in the future ?

Yes, this will be possible. It will however require setting up an XML definition file telling the Zabaware character engine how to use the models (What animations are available and rules on how to run them, what textures are available, additional animation plug-ins, and other info).
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: Medeksza on February 28, 2009, 01:59:01 am: quote:
Originally posted by freddy888

Also - I tried dropping some other Ogre meshes and materials in the Ogre folder but none of them get recognised. Is Hal only set up to recognise the facial mesh ? Will it be possible to drop new models in there in the future ?

Yes, this will be possible. It will however require setting up an XML definition file telling the Zabaware character engine how to use the models (What animations are available and rules on how to run them, what textures are available, additional animation plug-ins, and other info).
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: freddy888 on February 28, 2009, 03:21:20 pm: Thanks Rob - any idea on my other question regarding improving the detail of the textures on the model ?
Title: Ogre 3D Graphics Engine
Post by: sofort99 on April 15, 2009, 07:44:53 pm: Will this be expendable to Emma, or will there be a way for an Emma plugin?