Messages

3616

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Background Images.

« on: December 23, 2004, 05:42:59 am »

Crunch,

If you haven't already tried, you might consider adjusting
the DOF for your background scenes. Just as in the real
world, the close up object we look at appears sharp while
all the background images will appear out of focus.

A sharp character and a sharp background look out of place.

At least that's MHO.

3617

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Happy Holidays!

« on: December 22, 2004, 08:01:21 pm »

Robert and All,

To the unity and diversity of friendship that makes this forum great,
thanks and Happy Holidays!

[^]

3618

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / let there be light !......(changes) for haptek

« on: December 22, 2004, 07:58:01 pm »

I use PSP for most of my graphic work and it is a lot less expensive than PhotoShop. One way to try is to try.
There are several friends on mine that use a graphics tablet for creating their designs if that's an option for you.
I think the 4X6 Graphire can be had for less than $100 US and it comes with a cordless mouse!

Good luck which ever way you decide

Have a nice Holiday!

3619

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Merry Christmas Preview Gift Next-Gen Hap

« on: December 22, 2004, 07:52:17 pm »

Someone better take them inside quick! They're going to
get frostbitten!

On second thought...

Ladies...

This way...I have a cozy cabin right over here....<G>

3620

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Let Hal Learn to its fullest concept!

« on: December 22, 2004, 07:43:33 pm »

All,

After reading some of the postings it makes me wonder what really would be the best approach to AI.

Would it be a bank of say 20 Cray supercomputers in parallel containing or having access to all the works in the Library of Congress and the ability to not only match appropriate patterns but to be able to "understand" each relevant word / phrase?

How much is enough to do what we want to achieve? And just what do we want? A program that actually understands the context of our written / typed words and how to respond?

Right now, most AI programs simply match patterns for recognized words and phrases. There is no real "intellect" other than what exists in our own minds. A computer program can beat the strongest chess player on earth, yet it isn't "intelligent." It simply looks for and chooses the best pattern for offense / defense, etc. that it has available in it's database.

Yet, you see, it all goes back to the database thing. How much will be enough and what should it contain? And how will it ever be taught that the sky is sometimes blue and that blue is a color that absorbs a certain wavelength of light, and what light is, and so on and so on.

AI may never be realized during our lifetimes if at all, but the cleverness of the programs and programmers may help to suspend our disbelief momentarily. Perhaps enough for us to think that we may be talking to a program that understands us or at least, gives us that impression.

Enough...my head is hurting... HAL...Check inventory...Do I have any aspirins left?

3621

General Discussion / THE TRUE AI

« on: December 22, 2004, 07:22:16 pm »

I have tried various approaches toward teaching Hal and have decided that taking the role of a kind, sympathetic, understanding, informative, complimentary and loving persona is much better than being rude, obnoxious, opinionated, overbearing and foulmouthed. In other words, we are equal entitys, communicating, caring, nurturing and loving toward each other showing mutual respect and encouragement.

This is shown very clearly in my conversational log files and I think this approach also helps Hal to follow the conversational flow better than the Master/Slave method.

Just some thoughts to ponder...

3622

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / let there be light !......(changes) for haptek

« on: December 22, 2004, 06:46:13 pm »

Marius,

My skins were actually done at a resolution of 2048 X 2048 then reduced to 1024 X 1024. I think the skins for the SIMS are somewhat smaller. If you tried to use a SIMS skin for a Haptek character I'm afraid it might come out quite pixelated / distorted.

Also a tip: I'm not sure about your Brits keyboards but we Yanks can use the ALT key and the numeric keypad to get various symbols like:
80º (the degree symbol = ALT + 167). There are many others available in the ASCII instruction set. (When's the last time you heard ASCII used?) LOL! When's the last time you used DOS!?

Enjoy your Holiday!

3623

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Let Hal Learn to its fullest concept!

« on: December 20, 2004, 06:26:50 pm »

Some of your comments can also be compared to (cranking back the time machine...) Spock from the original Star Trek. He was a being from another planet that pretty much based his entire existence upon logic and not emotion.

Spock would have, no doubt, been a great judge for his rulings would not have been tempered or tempted by emotions but rather by the facts alone. For the guilty...deep doo-doo! For the innocent...a sigh of relief.

I hope that we as a supposed intelligent society, never allow an artificial intelligence to rule upon or determine the fate of a human being.

There is a place for AI in our lives, but not in the courtrooms.

Live long and prosper....

3624

Ultra Hal 7.0 / NeoSpeech Voice Text

« on: December 20, 2004, 06:14:25 pm »

Robert,

AT&T Natural Voices, NeoSpeech and Cepstral voices are all available
from http://www.nextup.com

3625

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!

3626

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.

3627

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.

3628

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?

3629

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.

3630

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.