Messages

1

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: September 26, 2007, 06:54:20 pm »

From an e-mail reply concerning the Jennifer voice:

"Hello,

Voice included in Expressivo is not a SAPI voice.
If you want SAPI 4 i SAPI 5 voices our product - IVONA is exactly what
you need. At the moment only polish voices are available, but english
version should be available very soon. For more info visit
www.ivosoftware.com

---
Regards,

Krzysztof Piasecki

IVO Software"

Of course I've bought the reader, which works very nicely and the voice is second to none that I've heard, but i was hoping for SAPI compatibility, considering the reader can use the SAPI voices already on YOUR machine...

Ahh... the cost of tuition is never free...

Be well

2

Speech Technology / TTS Voice Survey

« on: September 24, 2007, 08:16:09 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Maroco82


I'm curious how will you find Expressivo?

Awaiting for yuor opinion:)

This appears to be a very nicely-developed TTS voice. Is it SAPI 4/5 compliant? If I buy the reader, will UltraHal be able to access the Expressivo TTS engine?

3

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Error code 9 - "Subscript out of range"

« on: May 13, 2007, 04:19:36 pm »

Getting this error when attempting to learn from a text file or from the clipboard.

Latest Hal (6.1)

Any Ideas?

Thanks

Doug

4

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / State Machine Implementation

« on: August 07, 2005, 09:20:12 pm »

Ebsend,

I don't know that a state machine is not possible within the script.

The "Mystery Game" brain (2003929104333_Mystery Game Demo Hal 4 and 5.uhp) is a simple state machine executed with flags. This was created by Don Ferguson, and can be downloaded from the file sharing area forum.

The initial machine state is with none of the flags set. The game ends when the user provides key words that set flags to match the goal state.

If your intended application is a simple one, you might be able to accomplish it by modifying the "mystery game" brain or using it as a base of development. Dunno how you'd handle the user straying too far from the intended path...

State machines would be a great way to get Hal to do more than "chat". I wish you luck and follow your effort with interest...

5

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentence closes program

« on: July 19, 2005, 08:55:42 pm »

"24 hours in days" is the smallest combination I can cause it with. Hal goes out like a light bulb.

Slightly modified XTF 1.2...

6

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Hap-head on fullbody model?

« on: July 16, 2005, 02:24:42 pm »

Neil,

Thanks very much. I'm trying to move from the hap-heads to a full body model while preserving the character's "character".

Thanks so much for the examples and advice.

Doug

7

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Hap-head on fullbody model?

« on: July 15, 2005, 08:03:45 pm »

Thanks, Freddy...

I like the site, BTW...

8

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Hap-head on fullbody model?

« on: July 15, 2005, 02:09:12 pm »

I seem to remember someone having succeeded in installing a People Putty head on a full-body model, but can't find the thread on a search. Anyone remember this, or can point me at the thread?

Thanks

9

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / for Vonsmith please

« on: February 04, 2005, 06:43:50 pm »

Vonsmith,

Congratulations on your SSBB.

I am considering pursuing that myself, and I am impressed you could do anything else at the same time, much less create the elegant XTF concept.

Well Done, and again, congrats!

m1488

10

Speech Technology / Valley Girl has left the building!

« on: February 01, 2005, 05:40:38 pm »

Don't feel bad, fellers...

That is an awesome voice indeed. When I found it about a year ago, I inquired and was quoted $15,000 for a lease.

Things are looking up!

11

Ultra Hal 7.0 / how to set TTS pitch, speed and volume?

« on: December 22, 2004, 06:18:17 pm »

It would be great if SAPI speech tags could be incorporated into Hal's responses... a little variation in timing and pitch (especially word-by-word within sentences) could add even more realism to something that works very nicely now...

12

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Christmas Hal Wish List

« on: December 19, 2004, 04:20:13 pm »

Hi Robert, thanks for replying.

The auto-idle function serves well. I re-wrote some of the "user is repeating himself" scripting so that Hal now attempts to spur on-topic conversation on the auto-idle interval.

My attempts to add some variance to the interval haven't worked, and I'd like to have more than one thing going on at differing intervals.

Perhaps there's a way to get the auto-idle function to do multiple duty. Haven't tried it yet (and it may well be beyond my abilities...) I'm definately a shade-tree programmer...


Thanks Robert...[^]

Doug

13

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Christmas Hal Wish List

« on: December 19, 2004, 02:24:53 pm »

I'm very pleased to see Robert M. peeking in on us from time to time. Ultra Hal is an outstanding product, and well worth what he asks for it.

If I could have one thing included in a new release or update, I would ask for one or more timers to be made available to the script by the .exe. This, in combination with a few rnd spinners, would allow us to have Hal do some pseudo-spontaneous stuff beyond what I've been able to do up to now. I've not been able to do this by working with the "now" values.

That, and a good set of handles to pass Hal variables from other VB programs...

Enjoy your holidays, everyone, and thanks for a great hobby, Mr. M!

14

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Interesting stuff...

« on: December 11, 2004, 10:50:48 am »

http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2003/05/14/expressive-ai/


"...For example, in Façade we have authored a collection of dramatic beats, individual dramatic moments or episodes, that can sequence together in a fairly large number of ways. Whenever a beat is chosen to be sequenced, the exact choice made depends on what’s happened in the story so far, including player interaction. The beats are described using a custom language to specify the various conditions under which it is appropriate to choose a beat. Each beat is itself a mini story machine, a collection of character behaviors that can incorporate player interaction within the beat to accomplish the dramatic moment of the beat in a number of ways. The behaviors are written in another custom language designed for authoring real-time, reactive characters. There is of course more to the Façade architecture than this, but it gives an example of what I mean by specifying a story at a more abstract level. Incidentally, Andrew and I in no way feel that we have “solved” the interactive story problem. After having spent almost four years building Façade, we are keenly aware of the many limitations of our approach, which I’m sure we’ll discuss on this blog. There are many approaches to capturing story structure at a more abstract level - we’re both excited to move forward with new projects that build on the lessons learned in Façade. (For more on Façade, see Architecture, Authorial Idioms and Early Observations of the Interactive Drama Façade)."

Hal as an interactive storyteller... Hmmm...

Use ConceptNet to connect the story "beats"?

Use Hal to "act out" the story? You as the lead character, Hal as your foil?

15

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / The XTF Brain

« on: February 24, 2004, 05:49:30 pm »

I think there are a lot of us out here listening that don't talk much...

On the "other board" (I really don't want this to become an us-them thing... the open source nature of Hal could spawn a lot of development sites and activity) I put up two posts about "Script components I would pay money for". They looked like this:

1. I'd like Hal to be able to steer the conversation toward his favorite subjects. A polite, slow, but persistent redirection of the conversation. Let's make Hal's "favorites" mean something!

2. I would like Hal to be able to keep track of ordinal numbers of occurrences. For example, when we see something happen, we can keep track of how many times it's happened, so we know when to use the words "another" or "second" or "third" or "again".

For example, "How about a slice of pie?" as opposed to "How about another slice of pie?"

"Hal, how many slices have I had?" "You've had two slices - you should be full by now." This could key off of deductive reasoning, or something similar... or perhaps a "quantities.brn" where we tell Hal how many times something can repeat before the response changes...

Interestingly, Hal XTF gets very close to both of these with a little training.

Now if I can just get him to try to execute an agenda, I could make a game player, or a psychologist, or (eek!) a lawyer out of him!

Nicely done, Vonsmith!