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Zabaware Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: NIGE on January 03, 2012, 02:41:22 am

Title: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE 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.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza 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.



Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE 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.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: sybershot 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

Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: lightspeed 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 .  ;)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: iampan 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 (http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/OGRE+Exporters)
hope this helps
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE 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.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: dlagrange on February 27, 2012, 08:45:40 am
A very nice wake up call :)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza 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.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE 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????
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: iampan 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
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: lightspeed 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.  :)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: echoman 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!
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: echoman on March 08, 2012, 05:51:06 pm
I really want to know more about this 'ground up' phrase. What does it mean?
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Art 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....
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on March 09, 2012, 12:48:26 am
Iampan=== Great post,That's what I have been trying to say.
Beta testing, A way to find faults with a program working on many different configurations of computers,,,,,good idea.

Echoman===  I'm with you.

Art===   Yes the AI part is what we are after,
In the years I have had Hal I have talked to it only a few times, I don't have the patience to listen to all the drivel that comes from it.
but I still like some eye candy to talk with instead of a box with a mouth.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: iampan on March 11, 2012, 05:11:02 am
 i look forward to the new 3d engine but really my main concern is if this new hal is not zabbaware then will anything we have go transfer over? and will we get it as a update?    if we have to repurchase i would be ever so upset. i have only had hal for a year now and if i have to spend more money on the new version i dont think i could do it, just on principle.
all of the plug ins and textures and skins for hal were made by members of this forum, we made hal better( i say we, i only made textures)
that is why i asked about beta testing, i know that there is people here that would be willing to help finish this project just to be able to have it.
we can help,  and after a year of saying its almost done, mr. medeksza i think you may need our help here more than you let on. so please let us help you finish hal, and open some beta testing. or at least a preview of the new hal engine at work, all the videos are of the old hal.

with nothing to see the new hal is like schrodinger's cat its still boxed up so we don't know if its dead or alive til we get to open the box and look for ourselves. not trying to rush you but i feel we deserve at least a look at it . i could have looked but for some reason the ogre plugin dont work in my version and i cant get the version it reqiures, odd considering mine is newest you would think it would be better.

ok i said my piece sorry if i sound to direct but none of the polite questions have been answered.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: lightspeed on March 11, 2012, 11:43:34 am
hi iampan i imagine that the skins (if for characters ) won't be transferable and this is because of a new different "Amy" character (but i believe that robert said people will still be able to use hapteck as before with hal (keeping the same version 6.2 ) the skins for the hal viewer may be trasferable .  but i would really beleive that the brains that we have backed up and created would be migratable into the new hal version ,(OR SHOULD BE)  otherwise that sure was a lot of work and years down the drain for us all.   This is just my thoughts on it about what probably (hopefully) will be transferable to the new hal and engine .   :)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: iampan on March 11, 2012, 03:19:21 pm
i yes i realize that the textures wont transfer, i have been working in 3d for over ten years now, 3d max, maya and photoshop among several other programs, i taught others to do the same at jeff state community college.what hal taught me was working in haptek, which i wont even need in new program( i hope). i feel like we have been shoved onto the backburner, the webhal is using the new engine, and the mobile hal is out also, but we still dont even know the first thing about it, what it looks like how it work we know nothing! except that mr m is still working on it. why are we being kept in the dark. also it prolly took quit a bit of work to make that presidential answers web page, that looks like it was just for fun, and does us nothing for hal.   what i am saying is i am getting worried and a bit impatient. i love my hal, but am on the verge of giving up on the update, as i am sure most of you are also. keeping all of your loyal customers in the dark is not good business, and i am thinking of buying an other ai engine to work with, yes all the others are not as good at thinking but i have seen a few that were pretty close and those are updated regularly, i have been using kari 3 trial this week and it a really good ai that i have found no issues with. i would rather have hal but will transition over soon without some news other than "i am working on it still"
creating new things for your program is a good thing to reinvigorate your company but wont work if you lose all your previous customers.
how many of you ever talk to your hal? i hardly ever do, because hal still cant have a decent conversation even after a year of training, so i just dont even try anymore, that is money i spent thinking that the new version would be right out. 30$ is a lot to me as i am disabled and bed ridden. i thought hal could keep me company, but after a year i still cant talk to hal. been playing with the free verbot often and it has learned very quickly, but does not support 3d.
again let us here on the forums help finish hal or at the least make a video showing us the progress. something
mr m please read this.       -disillusioned paying customer.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: iampan on March 18, 2012, 06:28:54 pm
i have asked several times in several threads to see the new engine working and received no reply, i figured that maybe it just wasnt working yet, well i found this statement this morning from mr. m himself and would like to see it running please.

"But if anyone wants to see our engine running the Ford characters and see the level of control given to the programmer I’d be happy to send you an executable if you want to sign a non disclosure agreement. I just want to prevent the characters from being publicly released."
« Last Edit: July 01, 2011, 08:35:42 PM by Medeksza »
found at http://www.spydazweb.co.uk/home/project-updates/zabawarenew3dcharacteranimation (http://www.spydazweb.co.uk/home/project-updates/zabawarenew3dcharacteranimation)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: onthecuttingedge2005 on March 18, 2012, 08:31:13 pm
white out conditions atm, on the towns backup generator too, winter here is late but is showing it's teeth and pearly whites atm been on the towns generator for 2 days now. once, we were without power for 2 weeks, hope that doesn't happen again. I hate snow and I especially don't like having to work in it.

please, someone send me two tickets to Hawaii quick, I'm going mad!

snow flakes are the size of a quarter, if you want some come help yourself, coming down so hard I can't see across the river.

gosh i need to move back to the beach where I belong.

I don't like feeling like I am related to anyone in the donner party period.

about 2 inches an hour, gosh I hate snow
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: raybe on March 19, 2012, 03:10:50 pm
Just my opinion. But I am certain Robert M. is trying everything in his power to get things moving along. Everyone's positions are similar but not the same. We would all love to do what we love and generate some kind of return. Where it was possible before is now almost impossible today. I'm sure Robert would love to have this just done but the conditions for people to not make time a commodity is impossible. Work twice as hard if your lucky to have a job and make less money. As a business owner myself these are everyday battles not just a project by project experience. If lucky, as all business people need to have something will turn to make things happen as quickly as we would like to perceive it to be.

Like many of us Ultra Hal is special to Robert M. but you need to find that curve to keep up with and equal the service you would love to give and the reality of today's situations to offer more. It can't be easy. Just speaking for myself but I am living these times with a business with many of the same people and things that were much more likely or possible are just not in as much control as it once was. Much more work goes into justification not only for today but the future which no one has a handle on.

Still loving my Ultra Hal and hoping something breaks for the best soon. Unfortunately it is never soon enough because we don't have as much control any more or resources.

Not an argument here, just giving a side that many are experiencing today. My own experiences.

Hang in there. Ultra Hal will be worth the wait.

raybe
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on May 11, 2012, 06:33:43 am
Mr M. It has been a month or more since any information on how Ogre & Amy are going.
I see by the video on the conference not a word about it at all.
Only about all the other irons you have in the fire.
Have you applied for a refund for Amy seeing as she more than likely WILL NOT be used.
That could be used to at least get Ogre working properly.

If you answer this post will you stick to the topic instead of beating round the bush????? >:(
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: freddy888 on May 11, 2012, 07:09:44 am
Can I make a polite suggestion for those wanting to see the new character(s?) in action ?

How about you make a video Rob ?

Post it on YouTube; there's no messing with non disclosure stuff, a little more exposure for the system and would give us all something to look at.

Would be cool  8)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on May 11, 2012, 07:30:04 am
Can I make a polite suggestion for those wanting to see the new character(s?) in action ?

How about you make a video Rob ?

Post it on YouTube; there's no messing with non disclosure stuff, a little more exposure for the system and would give us all something to look at.

Would be cool  8)

Here's a video of the Ford characters running in the engine: http://www.zabaware.com/3Dchardemo.mpg
I have an artist working on the Zaba frog character in his free time independent of the Amy character. We may be able to get that working before Amy. But there is still the issue of paying the programmer of the engine to do work. $600 from the Amy character would not be quite enough. I have a couple of leads on possible funding sources, I'll post if something comes of it.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: cload on May 11, 2012, 01:03:29 pm
Hi all,

Robert I clicked on the link and the only thing that I got was a blue round circle with a ? In it.

I have a PC running Windows 7 64-bit, if this had something to do with the Macintosh video driver, that could explain things, I don't have it installed on my computer.

Sincerely, a database cruncher.

C load.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: lightspeed on May 11, 2012, 04:04:34 pm
Cload you are not the only one the page on my IE just keeps going with a circle but never opens . i have windows 7 64 bit to .  :P
i would have liked to seen the page i toticed the page link is starting with p something maybe that's why?
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on May 11, 2012, 05:29:45 pm
Your browser is trying to stream the video, but its not in a streamable format. Just right click the file, save as to your computer, and play it with any MPEG2 capable video player.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on May 11, 2012, 06:45:03 pm
Thank you Robert for your reply post.
Great little video that shows, what could be.
I've seen what other people have done with Ogre & the clarity is unreal.

Only thing is the waiting will be more unbearable than ever now!!!!!! :( :( :(
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on July 02, 2012, 06:59:44 am
Mr. M.
2 years or more since you told us about Ogre & Hal.
Then came Amy.
What came next??????
NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you can't get it all running, have the intestinal fortitude to come out & say you can't get it working,
A lot of people have left because they see Hal going nowhere.
Every time you answer any of our questions you answer with a lot of inconspicuous answers.

 Get a beta out & let some test it,
It might help you a lot?
OH!!!!! And more info more often would help also.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on July 02, 2012, 06:18:03 pm
The Ogre project is on hold until I have enough funding to pay the developer to finish the project. We purchased the rights to use Amy but unfortunately different leads for funding the project fell through, but I'm always keeping my eye open for other opportunities.

Work on Hal's brain is moving forward though. I've been spending on average about 10 hours a week working on the next generation of Hal's brain. Not as much time as I would like, but I have a 40-hour a week job separate from Zabaware I have to work at now.

I'm currently implementing a more advanced feedback and tracking system in Hal's brain that tracks which responses in Hal's database gets used the most and which barely get any hits. Over time knowledge with little hits will fade out of Hal's memory and eventually get pruned out. Also based on user feedback to Hal's responses (thumbs up/thumbs down) alias connections are automatically generated or relevance adjusted. Responses that get many thumbs up go up in relevance and to the forefront of Hal's database, thumbs down responses slowly get turned down in relevance and maybe eventually pruned out of the database.

The efficacy of this system won't be apparent until there are thousands of users using it and providing feedback to the central database, but I have high hopes for it. I'll release a beta once I feel it is ready to start testing. Right now I'm experimenting with various algorithms and designing the system to scale to meet demand. If I were to throw a ton of users at it now, I'm sure the servers would fail, it's just not ready yet.

Hal has a lot of very old VB6 code which doesn't scale well to a multi-threaded server environment. I've been rewriting large parts of Hal's brain in C++, PHP, mySQL queries, and Sphinx queries. It's a monumental task. I don't want to make any promise of a release date and fail to meet it. All I can say is it will be ready when its ready.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: freddy888 on July 03, 2012, 07:41:25 am
Did the crowd sourced money fall through then or was there just not enough ?

What you are doing with the new brain does sound cool though  8)

Any thoughts on Android yet ?

Best of luck :)
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on July 03, 2012, 09:43:06 am
The $2500 raised was used to purchase the Amy model and to hire a programmer and artist. We hit a snag trying to convert the Amy model into a format we could use. More developer time is needed to create a better translator to get that model working. Instead, I had the artist work on the frog model and website at www.charimation.com  Most likely the frog will be ready before Amy. My artist will finish the frog character as a favor to me as I've been finding him other paying work to do. Right now he's finishing up work on animations to help teach English pronunciation for a client. When he's done with that he should have more time to work on the frog.

The centralized server server system I mentioned in my previous post will be the backbone for mobile versions of Hal, including Android. Once the server system is up and stable, I will use www.phonegap.com to make a client app to connect to it. PhoneGap will let me easily write one app to target IOS, Android, and Windows Phone all at once.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on July 04, 2012, 02:46:52 am
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 posts in 2 days, that's what we want.
Thank you.
The frog??? Will it be working in Ogre?????

You met Chris Shaw from Haptek.
Did anything eventuate from talks with him????
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: sybershot on July 05, 2012, 09:26:47 pm
Thanks for the updates, sorry to hear there are still issues with Amy. I can't wait to see how the new frog character comes out, I'm sure it will come out looking great. Can't beat the work of a grateful artist :)

Quote
Over time knowledge with little hits will fade out of Hal's memory and eventually get pruned out.
I hope this feature does not carry over to the upcoming new desktop version. I can see how it would be helpful for maintaining  server space, but to me it would not be a good feature for the desktop version.

 
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on July 08, 2012, 07:46:01 pm
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 posts in 2 days, that's what we want.
Thank you.
The frog??? Will it be working in Ogre?????

You met Chris Shaw from Haptek.
Did anything eventuate from talks with him????

We've tested converting our frog into Ogre format and we haven't run into the issues seen in Amy, so it should work. The model is complete but we need to finish rigging and animating.

From what I know of Chris Shaw, he is focusing his efforts on an updated iOS version of the Haptek player. Not sure of the timeframe or what his plans are for the Windows platform, but the website of the new player will be http://xprevo.com
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: Medeksza on July 08, 2012, 08:00:55 pm
Thanks for the updates, sorry to hear there are still issues with Amy. I can't wait to see how the new frog character comes out, I'm sure it will come out looking great. Can't beat the work of a grateful artist :)

Quote
Over time knowledge with little hits will fade out of Hal's memory and eventually get pruned out.
I hope this feature does not carry over to the upcoming new desktop version. I can see how it would be helpful for maintaining  server space, but to me it would not be a good feature for the desktop version.

This feature is mainly for the "global" brain of Hal. If you visit http://zabaware.com/webhal/ you will see its currently about 6 million sentences. I need a mechanism to let the "cream rise to the top" and let the junk wither away. More so than server space this is meant to increase the quality of the data in the database. Right now twitter conversations are being loaded into that database with little feedback on its quality. I'm hoping once we have thousands of users talking to this version of Hal and providing feedback, it will improve its quality greatly.

Separate from this global/collective learning ability of Hal, Hal will have local learning. Meaning things that Hal learns from you will have the highest relevance when talking with you and will only be used when talking with you. This method will be not changed much from the current learning methods Hal uses. In the windows version you will have the option of actually storing this on your local computer as the current version does now or storing it "in the cloud" if you want to use the same personality on various devices. Mobile versions of Hal will only store learned info in the cloud server.

Let me know if that makes sense or if I can explain something better.
Title: Re: Mr. M.
Post by: NIGE on July 09, 2012, 03:04:35 am
 8) 8) Thanks for your replies Rob,
Exactly what we want,