Messages

3391

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 04, 2005, 05:24:19 pm »

Raymond,

Yes I wondered if I were to purchase the Valley Girl voice
just how long would I be able to listen to her before I
yell, "Could you like...Shut Up?!"

Those Rhetorical folks were quick to tell me that she was
no longer available and that she was rather expensive.

Pity....<G>

3392

General Discussion / virtual Life

« on: June 04, 2005, 05:19:27 pm »

Marius,

You going to try the spider too? lol!

3393

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Download Ultra Hal!

« on: June 04, 2005, 09:18:52 am »

Mabuan,

If you're looking for warez, passwords or cracks for UltraHal,
you probably won't find them here as most of the members here
have paid for the full version. The other members here are trying
the free version in order to decide if they want to make the small
investment for the full version.

This is a support forum...not a port for Jolly Roger.

If you have legitimately purchased UltraHal then you need to contact Robert at Zabaware, if not, you might consider taking your request elseware. Just some friendly advice.

3394

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Project To Control Haptek Animations Within Hal

« on: June 03, 2005, 05:27:45 pm »

Outstanding work Rich! Now we all know where you've disappeared to these past few months!
Puts a whole new meaning into our interactive Hal!

Good job, my friend!

3395

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Relevence algorithm

« on: June 03, 2005, 05:04:37 pm »

mikmoth,

vonsmith had a discussion regarding this in the thread below:

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1455

Also, click on members then click vonsmith's name then view archived posts from him. I recall one thread where he discussed the possibilty of assigning weights to various responses in order of priority or revelence.

Hope this is a nudge in the right direction for you.

Good luck and keep us posted!

3396

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 03, 2005, 04:56:33 pm »

Nolitanger,

Have you used Cepstral's SwiftTalker interface?
It lets one adjust Speed, Pitch and Volume and
even verbally indicates each setting as they are
adjusted and tested.

Check out Voiceware's Kate. It's the same as the
NeoSpeech one but I think it sounds a lot clearer.

Rhetorical, at one time had a good rendition of a
Valley Girl voice but I understand it was discontinued.
Her voice did reflect that cute but annoying personality
of the typical valley girl...Ohmygod...like, you know?!

Getting the voices to sound more human-like also
requires the proper use of inflection. For instance,
when a person asks a question their voice usually
rises at the end of the sentence (Are you going?).

Raymond pointed us to a link earlier in this thread
to Simon. The demo was rich in inflection, emotion
and of good quality. The cost however, might be another
issue.

Granted the current selection of TTS voices are not quite
perfect but they have come a far cry from the earlier
tinny, mechanical, monotone voices of even 5 years ago!

I dare say they will continue to improve until they
become indistinguishable from a human voice.

Good things come to those who wait....

3397

General Discussion / Lesson II of Neuro logical Artificial Intelligence

« on: June 02, 2005, 06:08:01 pm »

I agree, Raymond,

Since you've mastered the technique, Gerald, did you indeed create an entirely new bot or is HAL the base of your creation? It sort of sounds like a super Ziggy.
Give us a clue!

3398

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: June 02, 2005, 06:03:32 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Dr.Benway

Art, I am looking forward to your post with the promised critique of the various TTS voices you've tried. [:p]

Raymond,

Sorry for the delay. Trying to finish one of those horrible projects that tend to occupy a lot of my waking time called WORK! It seems to interfere with life's pleasures! Anyhow....
Here's what I found:
TTS voices

This is my personal take on demo voices that I've listened to from
the various distributor's sites. These views are just my personal
opinion and are not meant to detract from or add to any company
listed. I am not affiliated with any TTS company listed in any way.
All voices tested were female.

For those that missed a previous post:
Acapela acquired Babel
Scansoft acquired Rhetorical
Voiceware & NeoSpeech have same Kate voice but sounds better from Voiceware for some reason.

Note: most TTS voices heard as a demo on site are usually not as
clear or good sounding as if they were residing on your personal
computer. This can be due to line noice, bandwidth considerations,
buffering, etc.  (your actual mileage may vary)...

Aculab - rather high treble pitched
AT&T   - Crystal - nice, smooth & clear
AT&T   - Lauren- very nice, clear voice
Babel   - Heather - very nice, soft, clear, sexy lisp type sound
Cepstral - Emily - nice, soft, smooth, calming voice.
Cepstral - Robin - nicely done child's voice
Elan (Sayso) - Laura - smooth
Elan (Tempo) - Mary - choppy, rather foreign sounding accent
Fonix (Faast) - rather slow, mellow, almost drug induced
IBM - Allison - perky, slightly nasal sounding
Loquendo - Susan - words seem slightly run-together
Loquendo - Elizabeth - lower pitch and slightly choppy
NeoSpeech - Kate - nice voice but inflection occurs on / with wrong words in sentence.
Nuance - Laurie Wood - nice but slightly muffled
Rhetorical - Jennifer - lower tone, very business-like
Scansoft - Jill - nice voice but has trouble with double L's (like Jill)
Voiceware Co. Ltd. - Kate - clear, crisp, very good

If anyone else has voices to add to this list by all means please contribute!

3399

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Day of the week

« on: June 01, 2005, 07:00:00 pm »

Hollywood,

I use vonsmith's XTF brain and my Hal seems very conscious of the time. If I start Hal around 5:00 AM it tells me that it's very early...morning coffee, etc. If it's around 11:00 PM I get the aren't you tired...isn't it bedtime kind of responses.

It hasn't been modified other than talking with it for several years.

What version are you using?

3400

Ultra Hal 7.0 / How to change hair colours (ie. yes you can!)

« on: June 01, 2005, 05:27:27 am »

I remember...the first chia-person! Just add water!
Actually that guy was none other than Stephen King!

[/settexture [figure=hair5_9EXP tex="C:/Program Files/Haptek/player/data/standard/skins/myhair.jpg"]]]

3401

Ultra Hal 7.0 / How to change hair colours (ie. yes you can!)

« on: May 31, 2005, 09:17:07 pm »

quote:Originally posted by freddy888
/settexture [figure=hair5_9EXP tex="C:/Program Files/Haptek/player/data/standard/skins/myhair.jpg"]]

'myhair.jpg' is the full filename of your new hair texture.

Just to complicate things:
note : that this forum doesn't allow the use of backslashes, so i have used forwards (/) - you will need to replace these with backslashes - (next to the Z key)

[ammended to include suggestions, thanks]

Freddy888,

You mean like:
C:\ProgramFiles\Haptek\player\data\standard\skins\myhair.jpg

Yeah...you're probably right...backspaces and all...<G>

3402

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: May 30, 2005, 01:11:33 pm »

<The Heather-demo expires in 30 days. So, why should I bother to back those files up anyway?>

Raymond,
I was referring to TTS Voice files that you or anyone else has paid for and downloaded.
I've paid for several voices and wouldn't want to loose them or go through the hassle of trying to contact the vendors and explain to them, have them look up my purchase info, get back to me, download them all over again...etc...when I could have made a simple backup in the first place!

To me a few bucks could mean 20 - 40 bucks...not 250 + -.<G>

3403

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Scripts, addins, and extras

« on: May 30, 2005, 07:57:32 am »

Thanks Halimprover!

I couldn't place the exavt time nor was I able to locate the topic.

A current progress posting would be nice to read.

Cheers!

3404

Speech Technology / Emotional voice from Loquendo

« on: May 30, 2005, 07:44:34 am »

That's way out of line in my opinion. Unless a person wants to use that voice in a commercial application there's no way I'd ever pay such a high price.

BTW, Babel quoted me $2500.00 for the use of one of their voices a while back!

TIP: If anyone has a downloaded voice that they paid for, DO MAKE A BACKUP on a CD or other media in case of a hard drive crash. It will crash...it's just a matter of when!

3405

General Discussion / Brain me now or brain me later!

« on: May 29, 2005, 03:36:07 pm »

I came across this article and though sort of scary,
thought it quite interesting.
We all have different views regarding our brains
versus computer's ability, but this is something
that I envisioned several years ago.
Look out HAL...the future's getting closer all the time!

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/