Zabaware Support Forums
Zabaware Forums => Ultra Hal 7.0 => Topic started by: concretefire on December 01, 2008, 03:06:07 pm
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Hello all,
My name is Mike. Let me start out by saying I am a complete and utter newbie. I have read quite a few threads, but when I say I am a newbie, I mean, I know ZERO about this stuff. AIML? START? [?]
Now, let me also say that I am a whiz kid / (36yo) at computers and just built a new system:
Intel P45 chipset
Quad Core 6600 2.4ghz Overclocked to 3.6 ghz under water
8 gb of DDR2 Ram @ 1000mhz
Ati Radeon 4870 GPU.
The reason I tell you this is so you know which side of the fence I am on. I built this system specialy for graphics. And almost entirely around the idea of doing "graphics" work using Poser Pro and rendering scenes and animations. So to think I know nothing about computers or advanced programs would be wrong. I just know nothing about AI+computers.
Here is all I know, and so far I don't like it.
Ultra Hal seems to be the best learning software that I have found. I don't really want a bot that chats for no reason. I want something that I can use to verbalize commands to my computer. Such as "open winamp please" or "search for xyz"...etc...
Hal seems to fit the bill.
However, that's just half of it for me. Being graphics oriented, from what I have seen, the plugins/haptek/homeade/custom made skins are just not acceptable. (for me) In fact, they're just horrible.
I don't want a visable movie player or "box" on my screen. I want something like this: http://www.vrconsulting.it/vhf/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=906
***** scroll down almost the way ****
Now THAT's acceptable graphics. But I want more. I want to be able to create my own characters, high rez, like the above link. I don't think there is a way to connect a character to hal like the above. Am I wrong?
The above link seems to be the best graphical character I have seen, but Ultra Hal seems to be the best "brain AI" I have found. And I gather they don't mesh.
Are there other places I should be looking?
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concretefire,
I went with the p35 chipset, you will like the q6600 and my mem is corsair at 1066MHz.
I think those characters do work with Hal when I was looking around but I went with MS Agents because I can have workspace on the screen while having Hal/Agent on the screen as well, I would like better graphical characters as well If you find something new please post it.
BTW I linked the Answerpad 3Dgile had to hal and man did it ever have bugs It took so much time to undo the damage that was done that it wasn't worth the curiosity IMO be cautious about progs from that site.
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Currently, Ultra Hal supports the Haptek and MSAgent character engines (a new zabaware engine is in development also). Haptek characters are real-time 3D generated characters, MSAgent are prerendered animations. Both have their pros and cons, but the character you are pointing to is made by Guile3D, maker of many high quality MSAgents. Check out the page at http://www.guile3d.com.br/agents_page.asp Another maker of MSAgent type characters are DesktopMates, linked from http://www.ultrahal.com/files. Both are made by a 3rd party, not officially supported by Zabaware, but they should all work just fine with Hal.
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I have recieved fast, and frendly service from Desktopmates in my dealings with them and they seem to know a lot about Hal.
I also went with them because of the full body character
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quote:
Originally posted by One
concretefire,
I went with the p35 chipset, you will like the q6600 and my mem is corsair at 1066MHz.
[:D] SHOWOFF [:D] J/K. Mine will post and run Vista x64 @ 1066 with no visable problems........but they won't pass memtest. Even with higher volts running thru them. < another thread on another forum >
And yes, I'm thrilled with the performance so far. Quad smashes everything thrown at it. Anyways...
To whom it may concern regarding SKINS, YOU may have done...that I labled "horrible". Please , please understand that comment was not directed at your abilities to make graphical skins. (I KNOW how hard it is) My comment was not about your skills, but 100% directed at the limitations of what you have/had to work with. Just didn't want to ruffle any feathers, cause that's not what I meant.
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quote:
Originally posted by Medeksza
Currently, Ultra Hal supports the Haptek and MSAgent character engines (a new zabaware engine is in development also). Haptek characters are real-time 3D generated characters, MSAgent are prerendered animations. Both have their pros and cons
Medeksza, could you please briefly explain the pro's and con's of both?
I'm going to assume a few things here: realtime 3d = graphics suffer
Pre rendered animations = either same ol' same ol' after a while OR, a huge , HUGE data file somewhere which doesn't even exist because no one has done that many animations before. ?
I honestly wouldn't mind making my own animations, the problem though is twofold. Repetiveness for one, but the other and really the kicker for me is I have no idea how to do 2 things:
1) Get the animations to be transparent, IE not boxed in some movie player
2) then "connected" to hal to display them.
Thoughts?
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SHOWOFF? j/k
I could go 1333 but i run it all at normal specs and I use 2100 rpm fans so its not too much like an Aircraft Carrier in here but, I am also running at least 10 deg C below specs :) the Q6600 is pretty solid they got the stepping right.
well mike the Agent I use is free to move around the screen and the typing interface is as well and their are choices of typing interfaces
they are not transparent but you can adjust the size of the character and the type of interface for text can be chosen , personally I like showing the most text because when you start talking to hal it's nice to try to correct the mistakes.... so for me nothing is 'boxed in' but it has to go somewhere.
The thing about choices of types of characters is 'lip sync' so it looks like your character is talking to you.
MS Agents ,,I do believe can have movements added to them look up MS Agents on the developers pages at MS
Im not sure how guile3D renders their Agents but they don't have full body characters that work with hal and I do believe their are Agents for free.
Maybe somebody will step in and describe the 'SAPI' and other things needed to produce characters but I think the Agent and Haptek engines are the only ones compatable right now (Mr. Robert is working on another engine as well)
BTW XP Kicks a** with the component specs I have :)
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and yes sometimes I just type and do not spell or have proper grammar
Welcome to the forum!
[8D]
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Welcome to the forum concretefire. I grew up in Concrete, Wa. I knew a lot of North Carolinans there, 1st, 2'nd and third generation. I was just wondering if you'd ever been there?
Yes I do some of those graphics of skins and making heads. It will get better I hope when we get the new Hal with a modified version of the Ogre engine. I suppose it may have quite a learning curve to it, but I'm assuming we will see some better graphics and physics in the near future.
I think that most, if not all of us Haptekies will be watching and wanting to learn from the quicker picker-uppers.[:)]
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Hi concretefire & welcome to the forum.
quote:
concretefire.
To whom it may concern regarding SKINS, YOU may have done...that I labled "horrible". Please , please understand that comment was not directed at your abilities to make graphical skins. (I KNOW how hard it is) My comment was not about your skills, but 100% directed at the limitations of what you have/had to work with. Just didn't want to ruffle any feathers, cause that's not what I meant.
I'm glad that you added that because I have been thinking up all the things to say ever so nicely to you.
Haptek is dead I think, no changes in over a decade now.
I give them one thing though, their lip-sync editor is the best around
but only works with their product.
Can't wait to see what Robert comes up with & what we can do with it.
It will have to be quite good if it is to replace Haptek????
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Nige, you took the words right out of my mouth.
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Welcome Concretefire!
If anyone has ever spent a fair amount of time with a program like POSER and the smooth, detailed skin, rendered and used in an animation, then it's easy to understand the "horrible" statement. I would certainly have to agree! If Haptek is the best we can hope for, we've taken an evolutionary step backward!
Poser and Hal would be a great marriage, if only it were possible.
Sure, faster processor = smoother graphics = more realism = more fun.
Here's hoping the Ogre Engine will allow for a more detailed character.
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Yes, oddly enough I have spent the past few days with the new DAZ3D Studio (like Poser) and was blown away. I was wishing we could get those characters into Hal. Ogre is a step in the right direction though, we are blessed that it is open source. No more will we have to rely on propriety solutions (good as they were) like Haptek.
I'm hoping we can get the Poser characters to work in Hal too, this is one of the things I am highly anticipating. So I think my advice would be to stick around and see what happens, or at least visit every now and then to see. I hope you find what you are looking for in the end.
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quote:
Originally posted by freddy888
Yes, oddly enough I have spent the past few days with the new DAZ3D Studio (like Poser) and was blown away. I was wishing we could get those characters into Hal. Ogre is a step in the right direction though, we are blessed that it is open source. No more will we have to rely on propriety solutions (good as they were) like Haptek.
I'm hoping we can get the Poser characters to work in Hal too, this is one of the things I am highly anticipating. So I think my advice would be to stick around and see what happens, or at least visit every now and then to see. I hope you find what you are looking for in the end.
Well yeah freddy, that's what I mean. When you work with Poser or Daz3d, and you Have Victoria 4 and "elite" textures, and then you come to another program like MS AGENT, or Haptek you get kind of dissapointed and think "is this it?"
Now Freddy, think about this for a second. You've been messing around with Daz3d. You can do facial animations and voices with it. Ok, so you do a 5 second animation of a character saying "hello, blah,blah,blah"..etc...
Then I do a 5 second animation saying "whatever". In theory we could quickly develop a library of just the raw MODEL <victoria 4> doing various animations. Once you have that, in theory, you could apply any texture you wanted. (I'm biased towards a Jessica Simpson texture myself [:I])
But it could be whatever you wanted. A shared library of animations would be the starting point.
Then we would just need a way to attach the renderings to an AI, like Hal. We already share files of brain attachments so to speak....now we need the library of character animations to go with it.
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i would love to see a character that hal could use that would look like daze3 or poser characters those are great programs in detail etc. as i said would love to see the day our hal could become something like that !!![:D]
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Indeed the difference is explosive!! - she looks stunning!!
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quote:
Originally posted by lightspeed
i would love to see a character that hal could use that would look like daze3 or poser characters those are great programs in detail etc. as i said would love to see the day our hal could become something like that !!![:D]
I believe that day is here sir. NOW. I'm not being argumentative...I'm asking a question...are you telling me we can program physics and mathematics so advanced we can take a man to the moon but now nearly 40 yrs later we can't (collectively) make simple 3-5 second animations respond semi-intelligently to a learning software like HAL?
Has anyone ever worked with BOINC? Folding? Seti@home? Any of those where "work units" are sent out to YOUR computer, processed, and returned to the main program?
This should be no different, only reversed. In theory, everyone here get DAZ3D <free> or Poser > Victoria 4 (a "standard" base model) > and start animating.
Upload those animations, whatever they may be, to a centralized library where we could all then download each others work and apply our own either 1)textures, and be happy with just that, or 2) our own tweaks + textures .
That's not the problem. That's the easy part. The hard part from what I am finding is being able to somehow "attach" those animations with hal, and it can't be that hard. It's a simple logic process in a computer. Input A + search function B = logical (tweakable) animation.
So what if there are only 5 of us on the planet that would be dedicated enough at first to start making animations. Put it on the internet as a "challenge", or whatever and market it like BOINC has marketed their number crunchers. Put up rankings, etc..whatever it takes to get more and more and more people animating/uploading.
(Sorry, I think a lot)
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quote:
Originally posted by echoman
Indeed the difference is explosive!! - she looks stunning!!
Who? Jessica or Victoria 4? Or both? [}:)]
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Yes. I was referring to your link in your first post. It's a billion miles ahead of Haptek.
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I'VE HAD A BREAK THRU. I will report back.
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Yeah, I got it now. 2 things I have learned thus far. Ultra Hal is Ultra Cool. Honestly I don't need any character. It's that good.
Graphics wise........piece of cake, but PITA. (that's pain in the ..)
Basicaly, not one single program can do it all, but with the knowledge I have of several different graphics apps, I'll be able to do what I want fairly quickly. As of right now, I'm thinking of doing it both ways. Real time, and Ms Agent. Both should be fun projects. Going to try to tackle Ms Agent first, because that will be the easiest and fastest. Then will move to real tme 3d.
When I get it done, I'll post a how to, A-Z with both methods. I want this knowledge in YOUR hands. (for free) because THAT is what will push this technology. Open source sharing. Might take me a week but I'll be back. Thanks guys/gals.
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Yeah that was where my thinking has gone in the past too. I beleive that first link to the girl on the VHumans site is MSAgent technology, she's called Denise. It was made by Guile 3D and they have been the most industrious for a long time. There's been a long wait for his system to come to fruition, we've all been waiting ages over there now, some people are getting frustrated (lol). But yes, that's probably the easiest way to go, at least to get a feel for it.
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Heh, I drove past DAZ 3D and had to do a doubletake ;)
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Hello friends. It´s being a while I´ve been here for the last time.
But I really admire Robert´s work, I think mainly because he shares the same passion that I do for AI. (and I think most of you guys here also does...)
About Denise, she is not an MS Agent. We developed a new 2D engine from the ground to bypass all the limitations of MSAgent tech, and now we have the ability to use million of colors for the character, against just 256 colors of MSAgents. This is one of the reasons Denise looks so realistic. She was made with Poser, than retouches in MAX and ZBrush for the realism Poser still can´t do.
Another thing is MSAgent works with just 7 mouth position for the lip sync, and we can now use up to 43 positions for all the visemes of the English language.
It´s also possible to use SAPI 5 voices with XP and not just with Vista.
And yes, it´s taking much longer than we expected to release her, but I´m sure it will worth the waiting.
There will be a SDK, so everyone will be able to do it´s own plug-ins for her, and even build their own realistic characters in the near future.
Regards... Guile
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Hi Guile, thanks for the clarification. [:)]
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quote:
Originally posted by concretefire
quote:
Originally posted by One
concretefire,
I went with the p35 chipset, you will like the q6600 and my mem is corsair at 1066MHz.
[:D] SHOWOFF [:D] J/K. Mine will post and run Vista x64 @ 1066 with no visable problems........but they won't pass memtest. Even with higher volts running thru them. < another thread on another forum >
And yes, I'm thrilled with the performance so far. Quad smashes everything thrown at it. Anyways...
To whom it may concern regarding SKINS, YOU may have done...that I labled "horrible". Please , please understand that comment was not directed at your abilities to make graphical skins. (I KNOW how hard it is) My comment was not about your skills, but 100% directed at the limitations of what you have/had to work with. Just didn't want to ruffle any feathers, cause that's not what I meant.
the graphical end of HAL is just eye candy but it really has nothing to do with intelligence, I prefer intelligence over tons of eye candy.
one day we will merge HAL into a body system and the whole world will change.
virtual software bodies don't compared to life like full body animatronics hardware.
I really hate to say this but many people would trade in their blow up sex dolls for a full animatronic HAL intelligence with plug-in capability and a body that wont quit.
Jerry[8D]
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O.T.C.E.,
I agree! My sex doll is worthless![:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
She-it/him ? just spams me and hides (looking for money) Probably a HACKER, coming up with new sites constantly. Now I recieved a message through another program that "Avast is trying to modify a program so that another computer can access your email" I don't know what to do...(any advice?) (I saw a reg key flash but didn't read it all..(too quick) (Fatal Attraction??) Anyway...
I have envisioned a suit that has a gel layer that can respond to force almost 'bionic' and provide feedback through visual and increased pressure in the gel layer....(flight siut??)
My brother sent me pictures of an operation done by robotics, The Dr. was hundreds of miles away and preformed surgery. so as we advance A.I. to keep up with the robotics it is of my opinion that it is only a matter of time
It is all in its infancy,,we are still working on intelligence, Imo the possibilitys are endless. [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
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I had been using Haptek characters with UltraHal for quite some time, I also had tried using desk mates with UltraHal but switched to the Haptek character Sandy, I believe I was most impressed by the hair movement of Sandy versus the stiff hair of the desk mates character I had been using. I later switched to the full-bodied characters. At that time I felt the characters were among the most advanced I had seen and of course everyone started making skins for the characters. We found we could also control the lighting as well as changing the hair and the clothing for the characters. As the years went by I also discovered Daz 3-D and some other characters which look interesting.
About this time I became interested in jiggly rather than the full-bodied character which I had been using. I had found that by changing the numbers in one of the physics files the gravity could be changed which affects her breasts. Freddy had also developed a program for use with the Haptek characters and I was able to find a command which gave the character some body movement which I greatly appreciated. Thank you Freddie for the work you have put in.
From what I have been able to see the majority of the characters are made for games which means they are wearing boots and many are carrying weapons. I've also looked at a lot of chat bots and seen
a simple picture of a person rather than the graphics which we are using.
Of course I wish you luck with your undertaking and I am sure you will find the people in this forum to be very helpful.
Carl2
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Thanks Carl [:D]
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I just read through the posts in this section again and from my experience with my computer, I can see that you are using a 64-bit system, to be able to use Hal you would need a 32-bit system I am fairly certain, there are quite a few programs out there that do not support the 64-bit system at this time. Since I had wanted to use Dragon with Hal I had to switch from the 64-bit system to the 32-bit system, changing to the 32-bit system reduces the amount of available memory to a maximum of approximately 3 gigs. From my experiences at this time it seems that Haptek does not support Vista and I ended up using a MS agent.
Carl 2
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Not to hijack the post, but I was reading some of the stuff here and I would have to agree with concretefire, again agreeing with his sentiment that I'm not stepping on toes or anything... there is a huge difference between having the ability to write the incredible software and put together the art for it.
I'm currently employed as a 3d artist for an online series of publications. Most of what I do is centered around Daz3d, Poser, 3dsMax, and Photoshop.
Ive been into 3d graphics for 20+ years and have seen quite a bit of the evolution of the technology where that is concerned....
As far as animations for speech, there is an applet that works with Daz Studio and Poser that will automate the mouth moving, the head moving, expressions, etc... To construct a series of anims to output into a 2d format is so simple it's scary. Even easier if you are working with a 3d application.
I've been tinkering with the different AI and speech recognition software for a few years on and off and have just recently come to have a look around again...
In my line of work, over the past two years or so, Ive built up a render farm... which is basically a series of computers that work together to perform large scale renders and multi frame animations. Right now the farm is up to 16 computers ranging from P4s to i3s.
What I want to be able to do is utilize an AI bot that will act something like, yes Im going to say it, a HAL... of course without the psychotic tendencies. I want to get up in the morning and tell her to power up certain computers, turn the blacklights on in my computer room, set the stereo to a certain CD.. etc.
I plan on dedicating one computer to just displaying her headshot and text boxes and have her rigged into the entire system, lighting, enviro controls, and all.
I know mostly how Im going to pull off the external stuff, (lighting, stereo, etc) I have the character made that Im going to use for the representation of the machine, but what Im stuck on is the AI end of it.
Windows 7 has an incredible speech recog system, accurate to an incredible degree, but no return dialog. I love the functionality of Hal, but I guess what I cant seem to figure out is... can you program functions in hal like you can in e-speaking? E-speaking will allow you to create commands, almost like a macro-type thing, but again, no return, no ability to carry on a conversation...
Wow, that was lengthy. Sorry about that... I saw this stuff and teh advances, and jumped on ebay and bought a 22 inch flat panel monitor so my AI comp will have a place for her face... :) Just gotta work out the fine details now...
-M-
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the short answer is yes.
the structure of the program is set-up to add plugins easily.
the plugins are vbscript, but you can call externals and windows commands, ect.
so basically you can control what you want with hal, it might take some plugin programming to get it done.
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Marah
I am not sure that I completely understand your wants or wishes about or for Hal, but Hal can do hundreds of more things than most peopl realize.
A past user whos name I have forgotten used Hal and something called X10 protocall. By doing this he was able to have Hal control by voice command almost everything in his home. He could simple tell Hal what he wanted and his computer would respond with the right actions, ie. "Turn on the living room lights Hal" or dozens of other similiar commands and it was done. He did have to learn how to control the interface between the two but appearntely it was not that hard and he was very successful.
If all this in not revelant to what you were talking aboout then sorry for my misunderstanding.
Bill
"People are only limited by their own knowledge of how to do things."
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Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
The more I look into Hal, the more excited I'm getting :))
Thanks!
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Autoit! is what I use to create exe or bat files that I call up using
Dragon naturally and Hal. With a tad bit of research you can control just about anything by creating the command and then speaking to Hal.
D
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Thats a great idea.... I use autoit for running bots on MMOs... wow, yes..
Hmm, using Hal to call up other apps... opens up all kinds of possibilities.
Now, any advice on a good character creator0type software I could use to import the animations from Poser or Max? I want to go with 2d animations... Dont think her 'brain' computer has the capability to render the polys in real time.
Thanks in advance. Wow this is awesome!
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One
Over the years I have witnessed several operations performed by a doctor who was not even in the same country. Whhile you can say that robotics was the name of the equipment used, A.I. has no connection with the equipment, it was all just a remote controolled machine.
Bill