Greek-Speaking Haptek characters

[wgb14]

Hi all,

I just wonder why Haptek characters do not work with my Greek T2S engine. I have loquendo's Greek T2S, but my full-body characters refuse to speak the text i enter. However, when i input people putty with Greek ogg files the lip-sync works just fine.

Thanks

[nosys70]

you have to set it as default voice for your system.
Possibly too, your version of loquendo is limited to work with the application it is delivered with.
(give more details how you get this voice, it is interesting me).

[wgb14]

Hi,

The default player of the haptek player is the Greek T2S engine and is not build in any application. I have an evaluation contract with loquendo (for research purposes) and the voice is installed with the loquendo's engine

[Art]

I was going to suggest that you run the Haptek SAPIConfig program but since you're using Loquendo's engine....

[wgb14]

My haptek's SAPI config has as a default engine the Greek T2S engine. It's just that the Haptek player does not accept greek text strings. Any ideas why?

[Dr.Benway]

Have you already looked at the config files in the map Haptek\player\data\HapTTS? It contains the tables that link faces to spoken syllables for different voice brands. It looks like it is not too difficult to make a new config file for a new language. I have never done that, of course.

[wgb14]

Hi,

thanks for the answers. I think that the problem lies in the fact that the Haptek's character engine can not handle text messages other than english and not in the actual T2S. Is there any way to modify that? any ideas?

[Dr.Benway]

I think if the engine really doesn't accept it it will be tricky. I just visited Clone3D. The Haptek bot Yuanlin tries to speak french words with characters like ç . I have no french voice installed, otherwise I could check if those characters are pronounced correctly. But if Mark Chavez put all those french words inside it than I guess the engine IS able to handle foreign characters. In that case you would only need a Haptek config file for loquendo voices.
Interesting problem tho, keep us informed if you decide to work on it. Perhaps you should just email Haptek. I always received a helpful response from them.

[wgb14]

Hi Dr.Benway

The problem with Greek is that the language is not latin-based, like English and french. The problem with Greek language is common in all computer systems. In any way i will contact haptek and i will let you know!!

Thanks

[Darius]

Maybe sound like a dumm question but ...

Why don't use a program to change the TTS to ogg.

BTW Haptek has a program something like "the fantabulous Phoneme Finesser"

check:
http://www.haptek.com/developers/HaptekGuide4/MakinContent/advanced/LipSync/HapPhonemeEdit/docs/HapPhonemeEdit.html

look like is free (for non comercial purpouses) but not found references to the whereabouts of this utility, if somebody knows where is please tell me.

note: The problem with greek is that uses unicode, I have seen LivingActor (something like MSAgent) using it but the PhonemeEditor could be your ticket.

[wgb14]

Ok, I think i have finally found the solution. It seesm that the only way that Haptek characters can become multilingual is if you buyt the ogg factory from Haptek ($300) and create an executable that will capture the input from the T2S engine convert it to ogg with lip-sync and upload it to the character. Let's hope that haptek will provide such executable along with Peopleputty in future version. The time that the Internet was purely English is coming slowly to an end.

Thanks

[spydaz]

on the microsoft website you will need to download the GREEK SAPI file. and the microsoft agent speech addin, as you may find when even using greek with msagent characters you need an extra plugin
this is for all different languages except english. even for german there are 2 speech files to be installed ttsGD (GERMAN) & AGT0414 (GERMAN LIPSYNC), as the haptek also uses the same speech engine this may be the cause.... they are free by the way.

[spydaz]

http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/user.asp#core

the select the greek component a very small file

[Darius]

You can use "Lernout & Hauspie" that is free (MS) as spydaz said or loquendo but change it to ogg (maybe you will need to change to wav an then to ogg), the Haptek head will use it more or less fine.

[Dr.Benway]

quote:It seesm that the only way that Haptek characters can become multilingual is if you buyt the ogg factory from Haptek ($300) and create an executable that will capture the input from the T2S engine convert it to ogg with lip-sync and upload it to the character.

I don't know, wgb14, it all sounds cumbersome to me. Too bad I don't know a thing about non-latin based language, because I would try to find an easier way for you to fix your problem. There must be a better way.