If you do get a brain that you think is worthy of the competition, it would be really cool if it could be made available to the community (whether it wins or not). Major cool if it wins, of course!
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#2
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Walmart animatronics
December 02, 2004, 10:44:41 PM
There were a series of posts last year (or very early this year) discussing a 5 ft high Santa & Snowman that were on sale at Walmart. These consisted of a metal frame with either a cloth Santa or snowman suit on it. It was jointed at the hip so that the hips could move left and right a couple of inches. It had a rigid plastic face with a movable mouth, and it could sing songs and lipsync to them while moving it's hips ("dancing").
The conversation was around hooking up UltraHal to these, and driving the mouth to match Hal's speaking.
The point is that they are back at Walmart (at least up here in Wisconsin). $50 for the Santa and Snowman, and this year they have a bear and a Grinch (ala Dr. Suess).
I never saw a post where someone claimed to have actually gotten Hal hooked up, but I was fairly tempted to buy one just to see what was inside. Luckily sanity grabbed me before I did so, but for the rest of you less sane, you might want to keep a look out for them.
Zen
The conversation was around hooking up UltraHal to these, and driving the mouth to match Hal's speaking.
The point is that they are back at Walmart (at least up here in Wisconsin). $50 for the Santa and Snowman, and this year they have a bear and a Grinch (ala Dr. Suess).
I never saw a post where someone claimed to have actually gotten Hal hooked up, but I was fairly tempted to buy one just to see what was inside. Luckily sanity grabbed me before I did so, but for the rest of you less sane, you might want to keep a look out for them.
Zen
#3
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Putting People Putty in its place
November 25, 2004, 12:30:13 AM
Oh, and you can use Poser textures just as you use a photo. I would suggest using only free, public domain textures, though. People who create textures for sale can be very cranky if the texture is used for anything else other than a Poser render.
#4
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Putting People Putty in its place
November 25, 2004, 12:19:16 AM
vonsmith, did you get my email?
#5
Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / My People Putty Char (revamp)
November 25, 2004, 12:17:44 AM
Just for fun, I figured out the torso figure texture map. A replacement map can be found at:
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/TorsoTexture.jpg
Apply this to the torso the same way the full body textures were applied.
If you don't have one of the torso figures, you are see one at:
http://educate.cchmc.org/
After it loads, you should be able to find the file "trinity_bio.htr" in your internet temp directory (or do a search on your drive for that file name).
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/TorsoTexture.jpg
Apply this to the torso the same way the full body textures were applied.
If you don't have one of the torso figures, you are see one at:
http://educate.cchmc.org/
After it loads, you should be able to find the file "trinity_bio.htr" in your internet temp directory (or do a search on your drive for that file name).
#6
Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / My People Putty Char (revamp)
November 24, 2004, 01:00:17 AM #7
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Putting People Putty in its place
November 23, 2004, 08:34:25 PM
As I mentioned above, using your own photo isn't that effective. Even using the "fine tuning" tools to define the mouth, nose and eyes, there are limitations. It does work to the extent that you can get a face on the front of the head mesh. But typically the neck and sides and back and top are not covered. People Putty handles this by allowing you to choose a "cover" which covers these areas. The cover is never going to match the coloration of the face unless you're really lucky. Once you have the cover in place, you can put hair on top (once again in the form of a texture). At this point you've gotten as good as you are going to get.
So I don't use this method; I paint the texture from existing photos. I use Paint Shop Pro 8 for texturing, but many paint packages will provide similar functionality. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on what each function mentioned below does; I'd have to write a book. So this assumes you have some limited knowledge of paint programs. Note that I don't consider my self an artist as I don't really do any painting. I'm really just a mechanic that follows a process.
What I did on my last Haptek character (not yet published) it to find a high resolution photo of someone. I've purchased photo collections that are designed to be used for texture creation, so I have a good selection, but a 800x600 texture from the net would work as well.
I start by loading an existing Haptek texture into PaintShop. I then resize it to 2048x2048.
I create a 2nd drawing layer above it. This allows me to have two images, one on top of the other, with the top layer transparent except for areas that I paint. I do this so that I can use the Haptek texture as a guide for the new texture.
I then copy sections of the photo onto the top layer using the bottom layer as a guide. For example, I select the left brow and eye of the photo using the "selection tool", and copy it into the clipboard buffer. Then I select the exact same section of the Haptek texture. Then I perform a "Copy into selection" function which copies the brow & eye into the selected area. Paintshop automatically resizes the photo selection to fit within the selected area. If I did a good job with my selection, the brow and eye fit nearly perfectly over the Haptek texture brow and eye. Sometimes I have to try two or three times to get a fit that I am happy with. I also set the transparency setting for the top layer to 50% so that I can see through it to the bottom layer to make sure my fit is exact.
I then repeat this step for the other eye, the nose, and the mouth and ears. It takes some trial and error to get it right. Now I have to fill in the gaps between these areas.
To do the gaps, I then copy sections of the photo into the other areas. For example, I copy the cheek from the photo onto the cheek section of the texture. Again, trial and error is needed to get the fit right. It doesn't have to be perfect, because I can cover up imperfections later. However, if I don't at least get it close, it takes forever to clean it up later.
After a while, I have every section of the photo copied into my top layer in exactly the right spots. At this point, I will load this into People Putty onto the head to see how it fits. If there are areas I don't like, I tweak them in Paintshop until I'm happy.
Now I have a texture that is the equivalent of the applying the photo using People Putty, but far more exact in it's representation of the photo. You could potentially skip all the above and instead use People Putty to get this far, but I haven't been happy with the results when I tried it.
At this point, you have to fill in everything else. What I typically do here is create a "skin texture sample". This is a square, 80x80 or so, of a section of the skin that I think is typical. I create it by selecting a section of skin, copying it to a separate image, then touching it up with the clone brush and paint brush and some of the other tools until I have a section of skin which is uniform, but not all one color. I then use the Paintbrush function to paint this image over the rest of the gaps between areas. This it typically the sides and back of the neck and the sides, back and top of the head.
At this point I have a bald head. There are typically some mismatches in the various texture copies, so I use the close brush and smudge brush to paint these out. I rarely RARELY paint color with the paint brush; as I said, I don't consider myself an artist.
Now I'm nearly finished. I load it back into People Putty and check the fit around the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and the overall general texure appearance. This generally results in more changes using the one of the techniques mentioned above (section copies, clone brush, etc.).
Whatever the size of the texture I load, People Putty resizes it to what I've selected via the interface (256x256, 512x512 or 1024x1024). This is the size that is saved when the haptar file is built.
The site www.renderosity.com is a Poser site with a number of tutorials, many of which describe similar or alternate painting techniques. Some of them describe actually painting an image; it's very hard to get a "photo-realistic" image by hand painting.
There are tons of detail I left out; hopefully some of it will be obvious when you're in the middle. This can be a tedious process which is why a number of my recent characters have the same or only slightly modified texture, and why I'm not doing some of the recent requests I've gotten.
So I don't use this method; I paint the texture from existing photos. I use Paint Shop Pro 8 for texturing, but many paint packages will provide similar functionality. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on what each function mentioned below does; I'd have to write a book. So this assumes you have some limited knowledge of paint programs. Note that I don't consider my self an artist as I don't really do any painting. I'm really just a mechanic that follows a process.
What I did on my last Haptek character (not yet published) it to find a high resolution photo of someone. I've purchased photo collections that are designed to be used for texture creation, so I have a good selection, but a 800x600 texture from the net would work as well.
I start by loading an existing Haptek texture into PaintShop. I then resize it to 2048x2048.
I create a 2nd drawing layer above it. This allows me to have two images, one on top of the other, with the top layer transparent except for areas that I paint. I do this so that I can use the Haptek texture as a guide for the new texture.
I then copy sections of the photo onto the top layer using the bottom layer as a guide. For example, I select the left brow and eye of the photo using the "selection tool", and copy it into the clipboard buffer. Then I select the exact same section of the Haptek texture. Then I perform a "Copy into selection" function which copies the brow & eye into the selected area. Paintshop automatically resizes the photo selection to fit within the selected area. If I did a good job with my selection, the brow and eye fit nearly perfectly over the Haptek texture brow and eye. Sometimes I have to try two or three times to get a fit that I am happy with. I also set the transparency setting for the top layer to 50% so that I can see through it to the bottom layer to make sure my fit is exact.
I then repeat this step for the other eye, the nose, and the mouth and ears. It takes some trial and error to get it right. Now I have to fill in the gaps between these areas.
To do the gaps, I then copy sections of the photo into the other areas. For example, I copy the cheek from the photo onto the cheek section of the texture. Again, trial and error is needed to get the fit right. It doesn't have to be perfect, because I can cover up imperfections later. However, if I don't at least get it close, it takes forever to clean it up later.
After a while, I have every section of the photo copied into my top layer in exactly the right spots. At this point, I will load this into People Putty onto the head to see how it fits. If there are areas I don't like, I tweak them in Paintshop until I'm happy.
Now I have a texture that is the equivalent of the applying the photo using People Putty, but far more exact in it's representation of the photo. You could potentially skip all the above and instead use People Putty to get this far, but I haven't been happy with the results when I tried it.
At this point, you have to fill in everything else. What I typically do here is create a "skin texture sample". This is a square, 80x80 or so, of a section of the skin that I think is typical. I create it by selecting a section of skin, copying it to a separate image, then touching it up with the clone brush and paint brush and some of the other tools until I have a section of skin which is uniform, but not all one color. I then use the Paintbrush function to paint this image over the rest of the gaps between areas. This it typically the sides and back of the neck and the sides, back and top of the head.
At this point I have a bald head. There are typically some mismatches in the various texture copies, so I use the close brush and smudge brush to paint these out. I rarely RARELY paint color with the paint brush; as I said, I don't consider myself an artist.
Now I'm nearly finished. I load it back into People Putty and check the fit around the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and the overall general texure appearance. This generally results in more changes using the one of the techniques mentioned above (section copies, clone brush, etc.).
Whatever the size of the texture I load, People Putty resizes it to what I've selected via the interface (256x256, 512x512 or 1024x1024). This is the size that is saved when the haptar file is built.
The site www.renderosity.com is a Poser site with a number of tutorials, many of which describe similar or alternate painting techniques. Some of them describe actually painting an image; it's very hard to get a "photo-realistic" image by hand painting.
There are tons of detail I left out; hopefully some of it will be obvious when you're in the middle. This can be a tedious process which is why a number of my recent characters have the same or only slightly modified texture, and why I'm not doing some of the recent requests I've gotten.
#8
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Putting People Putty in its place
November 21, 2004, 03:04:15 PM
I'm going to answer the question in the form of a review of the product, so I can point out the things I like and dislike about it.
People putty is a cute toy, but fairly limited. It uses a single object mesh for it's head with a set of 30 or so built in shape-tweaking morphs (i.e. nose up, nose wider, lips wider, chin longer, etc.), and 20 or so character morphs (monkey, cat, dragon, etc.). With this set of morphs, you can get some interesting characters. The tool allows you to apply the character morphs, and then modify the degree of application from 0% (no change) to 50% (half-way applied) to 100% (fully applied). You can also apply the morph in a negative percentage (e.g. -50%) which can give some interesting effects. For example, a nice female head can be created by applying one of the male head morphs and changing the application percent to -40%.
One interesting aspect of the program is that the shape-tweaking morphs will not allow you to create any of the character morphs. That is, you cannot create a monkey by using the shape-tweaking morphs. Which means that the character morphs were all created outside of the program.
You cannot replace the object mesh. This isn't too great a surprise, because shape-tweaking morphs only work with a particular mesh, and if you replace that mesh, you have to replace the shape-tweaking morphs as well.
The mesh itself is low poly, as is every other object. This is also expected since it is intended for real-time animation, and higher polys mean slower animation. But the angles of the polys can be seen fairly easily, and limit the extremes that morphs can be applied.
The textures for both the head mesh and all objects are very low resolution (max 512X512). Same reason as for the low-poly objects: fast animation. But the resulting character can look very blurry. It has the option of using 1024X1024 textures, but does not come with any.
You can bring in new head textures, either by applying a photo of someone, or by creating your own texture. Applying your own photo works adequately as a starting point, but doesn't give very satisfactory results unless you subsequently hand-modify the texture. The options supplied to use an existing photo and turn it into a reasonable texture are very limited. The max texture size you can import or create with a photo is 1024X1024.
One cute option that the full program gives is the ability to apply texture modifiers to any head texture. These modifiers are things such as scars, bruises, tattoos, and makeup of various sorts. It increases the range of textures that can be created. You can then save your modified texture for later use if you wish.
The program comes with a set of accessory objects that you apply, Mr. Potato-Head style, to your head. The accessories are limited (6 hair styles, a couple mustaches, some hats, cowls, helms, a few glasses, etc.). Perhaps they can seem adequate at first, but after spending years in the world of Poser, I'm used to having hundreds of objects available. There is no reason why the program could not provide an option to import an object with a texture; this is a very simple function. Then the list of accessories becomes near infinite (at least to the extent that someone can create one he needs).
The "expansion pack" that Haptek sells has a few more objects, but many of them are the same object with a different texture. Not much of an upgrade.
Overall, I would classify it in the range of a $20 program. Fun for a few hours, but too limiting in creativity and options. I personally have enjoyed it more than the average person might because I have a lot of experience creating textures, and have been trying to push the boundaries of the program. For example, for a recent Elf character I created, I used a hair texture from one of the existing hair props to put on my character texture, then used two hair props with some scaling changes to create a long-haired elf with pulled-back hair and braids. But I think that is about as far as the program can be pushed.
If I had one suggestion to Haptek to improve the program, it would be to allow the importation of objects & object textures. Then you could pull in glasses, earrings, necklaces, chokers, hats, headbands, sweatbands, horns, antlers, goggles, masks, beards, mustaches, goatees, eyebrows, ears, piercing rings, and any other thing you'd like to dress up a head with. It would greatly expand the variety you could create without having to change head meshes or existing morphs.
People putty is a cute toy, but fairly limited. It uses a single object mesh for it's head with a set of 30 or so built in shape-tweaking morphs (i.e. nose up, nose wider, lips wider, chin longer, etc.), and 20 or so character morphs (monkey, cat, dragon, etc.). With this set of morphs, you can get some interesting characters. The tool allows you to apply the character morphs, and then modify the degree of application from 0% (no change) to 50% (half-way applied) to 100% (fully applied). You can also apply the morph in a negative percentage (e.g. -50%) which can give some interesting effects. For example, a nice female head can be created by applying one of the male head morphs and changing the application percent to -40%.
One interesting aspect of the program is that the shape-tweaking morphs will not allow you to create any of the character morphs. That is, you cannot create a monkey by using the shape-tweaking morphs. Which means that the character morphs were all created outside of the program.
You cannot replace the object mesh. This isn't too great a surprise, because shape-tweaking morphs only work with a particular mesh, and if you replace that mesh, you have to replace the shape-tweaking morphs as well.
The mesh itself is low poly, as is every other object. This is also expected since it is intended for real-time animation, and higher polys mean slower animation. But the angles of the polys can be seen fairly easily, and limit the extremes that morphs can be applied.
The textures for both the head mesh and all objects are very low resolution (max 512X512). Same reason as for the low-poly objects: fast animation. But the resulting character can look very blurry. It has the option of using 1024X1024 textures, but does not come with any.
You can bring in new head textures, either by applying a photo of someone, or by creating your own texture. Applying your own photo works adequately as a starting point, but doesn't give very satisfactory results unless you subsequently hand-modify the texture. The options supplied to use an existing photo and turn it into a reasonable texture are very limited. The max texture size you can import or create with a photo is 1024X1024.
One cute option that the full program gives is the ability to apply texture modifiers to any head texture. These modifiers are things such as scars, bruises, tattoos, and makeup of various sorts. It increases the range of textures that can be created. You can then save your modified texture for later use if you wish.
The program comes with a set of accessory objects that you apply, Mr. Potato-Head style, to your head. The accessories are limited (6 hair styles, a couple mustaches, some hats, cowls, helms, a few glasses, etc.). Perhaps they can seem adequate at first, but after spending years in the world of Poser, I'm used to having hundreds of objects available. There is no reason why the program could not provide an option to import an object with a texture; this is a very simple function. Then the list of accessories becomes near infinite (at least to the extent that someone can create one he needs).
The "expansion pack" that Haptek sells has a few more objects, but many of them are the same object with a different texture. Not much of an upgrade.
Overall, I would classify it in the range of a $20 program. Fun for a few hours, but too limiting in creativity and options. I personally have enjoyed it more than the average person might because I have a lot of experience creating textures, and have been trying to push the boundaries of the program. For example, for a recent Elf character I created, I used a hair texture from one of the existing hair props to put on my character texture, then used two hair props with some scaling changes to create a long-haired elf with pulled-back hair and braids. But I think that is about as far as the program can be pushed.
If I had one suggestion to Haptek to improve the program, it would be to allow the importation of objects & object textures. Then you could pull in glasses, earrings, necklaces, chokers, hats, headbands, sweatbands, horns, antlers, goggles, masks, beards, mustaches, goatees, eyebrows, ears, piercing rings, and any other thing you'd like to dress up a head with. It would greatly expand the variety you could create without having to change head meshes or existing morphs.
#9
Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / My People Putty Char (revamp)
November 17, 2004, 10:35:33 PM
AARRGGGGG...Somebody stop me!!!
One more:
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Abby.zip
Cute punker.
Family Portrait. http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Portraits.jpg
One more:
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Abby.zip
Cute punker.
Family Portrait. http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Portraits.jpg
#10
Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / My People Putty Char (revamp)
November 17, 2004, 09:54:12 PM
I'm having a ball with People Putty. I've got a couple more chars that I really like. However, I can't fit them in the 10M of space I have from my web provider unless I delete the FullBody textures.
So ZAP!
Here is the current list of characters available on the website.
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Beth.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Carol.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Lenore.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/LotR.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Marion.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Santa.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Sarah.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Tigress.zip
Each zip has a jpg as well. See the attachment for pictures of each of the characters.
If you need the FullBody textures, and have an email space that can take 4M files, send me an email to let me know you want it and I'll email it to you.
Download Attachment:
Portraits.jpg
140.77 KB
So ZAP!
Here is the current list of characters available on the website.
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Beth.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Carol.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Lenore.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/LotR.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Marion.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Santa.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Sarah.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Tigress.zip
Each zip has a jpg as well. See the attachment for pictures of each of the characters.
If you need the FullBody textures, and have an email space that can take 4M files, send me an email to let me know you want it and I'll email it to you.
Download Attachment:
Portraits.jpg140.77 KB
#11
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / My People Putty Characters
November 15, 2004, 11:06:44 PM
Also, given the season, here's a 30 second effort...
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Santa.htr
Download Attachment: Santa.jpg
28.8 KB
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Santa.htr
Download Attachment:
Santa.jpg28.8 KB
#12
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / My People Putty Characters
November 15, 2004, 10:45:28 PM
The link to the forum topic that contains instructions for changing the texture of the FullBody character is:
http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1390
The post to look for is the one by CO6alt
http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1390
The post to look for is the one by CO6alt
#13
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / My People Putty Characters
November 12, 2004, 09:37:55 PM
Okay. Latest two. The poor man's LotR elv / elf, and a very cute Tigress.
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/lotr.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Tigress.zip
Update: I had to check capitalization on the Elf file; fixed now.
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/lotr.zip
http://home.wi.rr.com/wblair9/Tigress.zip
Update: I had to check capitalization on the Elf file; fixed now.
#14
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / My People Putty Characters
November 10, 2004, 05:24:43 PM
Hair models tend to be simple primarily to minimize polygons. Poser has some fairly huge (in terms of polys) hair models, but they are intended to be static, and not real-time animated. Given this, I understand why Haptek keeps their models simple. Nevertheless, I agree with you in that they could have both more sophisticated models, and absolutely could have more detailed textures (although for textures the argument is the same; smaller textures equals faster real-time animation).
I am familiar with other people who have argued with businesses to change their business model to include non-business buyers, and those attempts have always been up-hill battles. I agree with you that Poser is a good example of how the user community has keep the program viable with add-ons; if Curious Labs (or the previous Poser owner) had limited the ability for that, Poser would have been dead with ver. 3.0.
On the other hand, Poser evolves very slowly with new version releases every 3 years or so. This seems primarily due to the loss of income due to piracy. That may be why Haptek decided on their current business model (not too much piracy between corporations).
I am familiar with other people who have argued with businesses to change their business model to include non-business buyers, and those attempts have always been up-hill battles. I agree with you that Poser is a good example of how the user community has keep the program viable with add-ons; if Curious Labs (or the previous Poser owner) had limited the ability for that, Poser would have been dead with ver. 3.0.
On the other hand, Poser evolves very slowly with new version releases every 3 years or so. This seems primarily due to the loss of income due to piracy. That may be why Haptek decided on their current business model (not too much piracy between corporations).
#15
Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / My People Putty Characters
November 10, 2004, 10:52:51 AM
BTW: vonsmith, creating a character for one of the most helpful persons in these forums is the least I could do...:-)