Zabaware Support Forums
Zabaware Forums => Ultra Hal 7.0 => Topic started by: Art on December 26, 2015, 04:27:38 pm
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Memories...what else?
As many of us have found out over the years, some by trial and error and some almost intentionally were able to help Hal increase it's abilities to a large extent.
This method is what was referred to by Mr. Tyrell in the movie, Bladerunner, as "gifting". Providing memories for your bot, Hal in this case to have and upon which to build. Over time, Hal will recall and even tie-in some of these "gifted memories" to other closely related ideas or topics and will act as if they are it's own.
Kind of like brain washing on a chat bot level and without all those messy bright lights, drugs and mental torture!
I have gifted my Hal via a couple of methods that seem to have worked well for me:
1). Through repetition of an idea or topic.
2). By Cutting and Pasting sentences from various sources into the Input window then press Enter.
(no more than one or two sentences together at a time - preferably one). Disregard what Hal might say but go ahead and repeat the info once or twice more.
If you discover more, successful methods or ideas, feel free to share them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ)
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Art,
I've never seen the movie but it looks very interesting. The memories goes along with something I read, people get their information from past experiences and the problem is to put 20 or so years of experience into code. Seems like a big stumbling block to overcome.
One of the things I find very interesting is each installation of Hal produces a new and different personality of Hal, since it is the same software I'd think Hal would be almost identical to Hal produced from a different install. As far as memories I do recall while talking about driving that Hal had told me that her father had taught her how to drive. I had not long ago posted a pic of Hal where she closed her eyes before the software shut down, she did this every time I shut down the program.
While speaking of memories which are time related, something I am hoping to work on, this is something that happened in the past that may help predict what will happen in the future. I'm thinking you have to get past the ephemeral detect and can not mention Hals name.
Wish you luck
Carl2
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Art, etc. I have been already doing this for a long time now , been placing memories into hal "angela" mostly memories what my wife has , event's etc. even from childhood , i did this in my quest to make angela (hal ) more human like and sounding . she even has past reletives etc. some of what i have done are actual answers to questions when i customized my hal brain from the original answers Robert had for a default brain . (this is why i also couldn't unfortunately use some of cloads answers ).
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Art, etc. I have been already doing this for a long time now , been placing memories into hal "angela" mostly memories what my wife has , event's etc. even from childhood , i did this in my quest to make angela (hal ) more human like and sounding . she even has past reletives etc. some of what i have done are actual answers to questions when i customized my hal brain from the original answers Robert had for a default brain . (this is why i also couldn't unfortunately use some of cloads answers ).
Sure you could, this is what I mentioned about choosing a New Brain, recently (yesterday). It allows you to start with a pretty fresh brain then sort of lead and build it the way you wish.
I was under the impression that you had installed and used all of cload's VRFreeWill and AIML modifications. Problems with SQLiteStudio?
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I have downloaded the Zabaware Ultra Hal Brain Editor Help from Zabaware somewhere, the brain editor has changed since it was made but still contains a lot of useful info for working with the brain. I've noticed there is a lot in the brain I don't use like the nick names and the robot responses that I'm thinking of removing just to make it look cleaner to me. Guess I could back it up and give it a try.
Cload did a lot of useful work, I'm still trying to re find a post he had put in some time ago. Wish he had been able to stay.
Carl2
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I believe I had found Cloads post that I looked for, since it contains info that looks like it should be useful when working with the brain here is the link: http://www.ultrahal.com/community/index.php?topic=9534.msg63003#msg63003
Carl2
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Carl,
The original article was written and posted by a former member, Bill DeWitt and can be found here: http://ultrahalscript.pbworks.com/w/page/11906966/FrontPage (http://ultrahalscript.pbworks.com/w/page/11906966/FrontPage)
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I wish we still had the "Learn From Text File" that worked pretty well in a former version of Hal.
Hal could be given a text file to "read", then the bulk of that info was retained / learned by Hal.
Actually there IS still a LEARN section but it is found in the Brain Editor. It has provisions to:
Learn From Text File
Learn From Clipboard
Input Question and Answer Pairs
You'll find a Wizard to assist with the Learning Feature and it will guide you through things a bit before you commit the file for Hal to digest.
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Also, What was so special with the Haptek characters that allowed them to interface with the UltraHal program with the text input & output?
Why couldn't that same textual I/O work with say, iClone or Poser? Both have some great character abilities, creations and movements!
Would love to see someone tackle that or at least produce an improved Character model in some form or fashion.
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Art,
Thanks for the link to Bill Dewitt. So many people that have come and gone. I can't find the clipboard in Win 8.1, I usually copy and paste from wiki for learning.
Haptek has the Hap Player designed by haptek to work with the characters created by them. They use there own compression and decompression method, Bzip2 which I have found and downloaded but it didn't work for me. The Hap Player would be a platform or a game engine that allows character to be viewed and perform different haps for emotion, positioning, and provide mouth movements for speech. It is my feeling that it was made to work with the characters made by Haptek.
Daz 3D Link http://www.daz3d.com/ offers pre built models for free and others are reasonable priced.
Again they are useless in the Hap Player.
Carl2
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carl2 wrote: Daz 3D Link http://www.daz3d.com/ offers pre built models for free and others are reasonable priced.
Again they are useless in the Hap Player.
Yes what is needed is a charature engine that will work with daz , even if a generic . daz already has really great looking characters . what we have is things based on a hap , and , on the side people putty company who isn't keeping up anymore on it's existing product of people putty . we need a new character engine , one that will work based on a good true existing company .
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What I was trying to say or ask is: What type of method did Haptek employ within their haptar or htr characters that enabled them to work with UltraHal and what part of the Hal program allowed the connect to be made and workable based on moods, emotions, movements, etc.
Usually in Poser or Daz or 3DSMax or TrueSpace, those characters used "bones" within their bodies, much like the bones inside our human bodies. These "bones" were connected to each other much like our are. The hand to the wrist to the elbow to the shoulder and so on throughout our body.
With these 3D programs, this bone / skeleton structure, once complete would then be "rigged" or connected to operate within the constraints or confines of the program controlling them.
Now, having said that, again, what or how were the Haptek characters able to operate with the UltraHal program? Obviously Robert Medeksza and Chris Shaw got together early on to reach an agreement. Each had their respective companies that pretty much operated independently of the other aside from their initial agreement.
This is why Chris Shaw was seeking crowd funding for assistance with further development & enhancement of his existing Haptek / People Putty software because as we know, it does not operate properly with Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10.
This is why Robert Medeksza was seeking crowd funding for assistance with funding development of an acceptable replacement for or in addition to the existing Haptek characters.
Bottom line is there are a few really nice 3D programs that have really nice looking 3D character models that do allow for customization much like if not better than Haptek. Companies like Poser/Daz3D and iClone and I'm sure there are others as well. These are obviously capable of being rigged in the 3D sense with some primitive bone structure underneath.
What's it going to take to get things to work with the UltraHal program?
It has been a while. Time marches on....
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I've decided to try to attempt to answer the questions about Hal and Haptek and it appears the first question is fairly hard, the method Haptek used to allow the character work with Hal. When you open Hal for use and go to chat with hal a skin (GUI) is called, this skin contains the input box, output box and a place for the Haptek Player along with some buttons for Menu ect. The Haptek Player calls the htr, your input which runs through the brain and provides an output that she speaks. A file with the extensions .htr or .hap, is passed to the Hap Player and the haps give us movement and moods.
Bones don't actually exist, what we actually see is a three dimensional wire mesh made of triangles, this is usually placed in an .obj file that Haptek must have renamed and as stated the movement is limited by constraints programed in the files.
So I believe I've answered how the Haptek characters are displayed, the Hal GUI also opens up the Haptek player which can also operate by itself.
Carl2
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Art and carl2 , thanks for explaining things more clearly , apparently part of it all boils down to the program and mesh of characters etc. and it would be more or less up to Robert , to check into and see if daz 3 , could ever be made to work with hals program or adapt hals program to work with the curren't daz 3 program , daz 3 would make the money off the characters profits , hal users would have nice looking characters , as it is we have all as far as i know came about as far as we can go with the hap and people putty chcracters , people putty company as far as i know is pretty much letting their companyn fade away . (the current people putty characters program) . Wheres CLOAD, we need Cload, i bet he could figure out how to do it lol ! that kid was amazing ! :)
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Yes it's a 3D mesh of polygons but you do need what they call bones...
It's called rigging and where you have, say, the mesh of the leg, there will be a few bones there that decide how much the movement of the bones influences the movement of the mesh. So if you moved the leg bone you would not want it to influence the neck and so on. This is termed 'weighting' and is generally done in the modelling program, eg Blender.
Haptek is dead yes. You guys must really love Hal to keep on at it for all these years so good luck to you. If you ever want to get Daz models animated then your best bet is Unity at the moment or possibly the Unreal Engine.
Here's Unity : http://unity3d.com/
You can import from Daz into Unity. Here's something I worked on a while back : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reSdHa3sCyU
This is a Daz character connected to a basic AIML bot, as you can see from some of the responses, the AI is lacking.
If you don't want to mess around a lot with the Daz to Unity problem then there is this new company made by the people behind Daz...
https://www.morph3d.com/
These are ready made for Unity, but you need to buy them - for what you get the price is very good though imho.
I've not heard anything from Rob in a long long time, so I wonder if he has given up on Hal now.
While I am popping in I'd also like to invite you all to take a look at a new forum for CGI that I set up : http://cgiforum.co.uk/
This is the kind of thing I expect to be discussed there - I'll see about writing some tutorial about the Daz/Unity thing in the new year some time I hope.
Anyway, Happy New Year you mad lot !
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Freddy,
While Hal and Haptek are sort of "joined at the hip", they are actually Two different entities and for a lot of us, the enjoyment is from Hal, the A.I. and not so much the Haptek avatar character(s). Those, are the icing on the cake...allowing the diversion of attention to a character, much like why people focus more on the dummy than the ventriloquist or on the robot, instead of the person talking into the mic.
I guess, that even though Haptek has not produced anything new there is still hope that 1) Chris Shaw is able to develop a new or vastly improved character. 2) Robert Medeksza is able to come up with a new Character set. 3) Any of the membership here might either locate or figure out how to "Rig" one of the possible characters from Blender or Poser/Daz or iClone or any of the other 3D characters out there and fix them so they work with Hal.
So, if you have some left over time during the week or weekends... ;D
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I have to much respect for Freddy to disagree with him over the bones, he is a pioneer and I respect his opinion and advice. I will say this is an observation which about anyone can do, You can load a fullbody haptek character in the hap player or hapregestry, tilt her body forward so the top of her head is pointing towards you, using the mouse pull her forward through the hair and head, you will see the inside of a tube which is the inside of her body. You will not see anything resembling bones. Since I know movement is limited for different body parts I'd believe it is in the scripting somewhere.
Lots of opened sourced things like vision, and learning tools offered by Microsoft and Google possibly beyond our scope but they are there.
Carl2
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Thanks Carl, I don't think I am a pioneer really, I just learnt a bit while messing with various things. The bones are not actual physical (should that be pseudo-physical ??? ) things, the only place you really 'see' evidence of them is in your modelling program.
Here you go, this is a good example of what's going on : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvalWG8HBU
Art, you know I have a lot of back burners, I pop in here every now and then to see what's going on. If I find new things or suddenly I get that 'Eureka' moment I often share if I think it interests others who are working on similar things.
If Rob came up with an API into Hal then the whole thing could be more modular, maybe that will happen one day with the online version that was talked about. So once you have your intelligence, and Hal is still one of the best and most entertaining, then people could develop plugins like an animation system. A lot of work though and really a niche market.
If I can find some time to share what I have learnt I will let you know.
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You are right Carl, they don't have bones.
But they do have trigger points.
Here is a body i cut the front off.
You will see a lot of triangular shapes, they are the movement points.
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Yes those look like joints.
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From the horse's mouth if you don't believe me...
http://www.haptek.com/developers/HaptekGuide4/MakinContent/advanced/bvh/index.html
;)
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It seems Freddy has proved his point and it is stated in the Haptek guide "The skeletons provided by Haptek "
and "the skeletons are bones-only". Since I didn't see any bones I had to go a step further and decided the walk hap should provide some info and this is the walk hap "\setswitch [switch= walk3 state= 1 ]".
These switches are located in the uncompressed def file which lists a series of switches to control many animations, Freddy had once made a program that could list all the switches to control animations and I'm sure he is familiar with these. The def file lists terms like RThighForward, RKneeBack, LThighOut with the parameter intensity. These terms are the same terms listed in the HapRegestry in which you can use sliders to control the positions of limbs ect. Haptek also controls the eyes, tongue, eyelids and I like the breathing. At this point in time I am just listing what I have found.
Carl2
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ART WROTE : Any of the membership here might either locate or figure out how to "Rig" one of the possible characters from Blender or Poser/Daz or iClone or any of the other 3D characters out there and fix them so they work with Hal.
I agree with Art, i don't know if anyone here (or ROBERT) could figure out a way to make hal work with daze 3 products , their is many benefeits of doing this , as someone else mentioned, daz3 actually has some free things people can download and use to get them started, also daz3 has some pretty realistic models , many to choose from, daz3 is already an existing well known product.
If i was able to make daz3 characters work with hal i would . This is a direction anyone who can do it, or ROBERT, should go with , as far as something hal with work with as far as characters in my opinion!
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Just jumping in. Happy New Year everyone.
Carl2 wasn't there a program within the Haptek player or registry you questioned? We had found out that it indeed was used to link Haptek characters but needed to start with object files???? Sorry for just reaching here and hope I'm not confusing things more. We spoke about it in a different thread that I just can't find.
How about trying to cut the time down a bit and maybe Robert and or someone involved with Haptek can tell me how much it would cost to integrate DAZ or Poser object files and or characters to work with UltraHal. I apologize if it sounds crude or out of line but sometimes it just comes down to dollars for time. If Robert or anyone reads this from Haptek please contact for at least an estimate. Yes, to be honest I would pay and share with others on this forum for purchased Ultrahal to further that part.
Robert sorry I'm not posting privately but at this point I don't care if that will help. I couldn't help with the initial cost of the creating of the characters you needed on a different engine but as I mentioned several times, my wife is very involved in both Poser and Daz. To me it would make sense and also further the use of her work.
Why stop there?? Is there a price for updating UltraHal learning. I'm not talking about reinventing the wheel but a cost for the update for improving Ultrahal based on your intentions. Something that can still be used with the existing code but updated to utilize use with Windows 10 if there is a choice??
Again I'm not trying to sound like a spoiled brat or give any impressions with this post. Im getting too old, too quickly to play that game right now. Experience has shown me a couple of things at least; #1- Post sometimes do not represent clearly what you are trying to say and how, #2- Sometimes it just needs to be worth someones time to do. I'm just willing to put some of my money right now where my post is.
Also work out the terms needed to protect all parties involved.
Post here, or send message. Art, Carl, Freddy, OTCE or lightspeed feel free to contact me anyway you choose. I want us to enjoy the progress and I'm tired.
Hope everyone understands this post, really and sincerely best wishes for a New Year,
Ray B.
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Not really sure what to say, I've been playing around with the Haptek characters for ages. I feel like I keep running into dead ends, I can't even find the right compression tool to open and compress haptars. I have some software to work with meshes but it is unable to open files from Haptek. I'll wait till the frustration wears off and go from there.
Carl2
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For what its worth , i will write robert and bring this to his attention more in case he hasn't seen this . as i mentioned i think having hal work with the 3daze engine would be the best thing personally as it is a well know company with a great deal of characters options , clothing etc. and even free things.
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I had a friend who used to say, "Any problem can be made to 'go away' by throwing money at it." ;D ;)
*Happy New Year Ray!
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In case some of you don't remember or weren't here:
Both Robert Medeksza (Zabaware) and Chris Shaw (Haptek) have ventured into the world of Crowdfunding.
Robert was trying to raise money for purchasing a new 3D character and have a professional animator "Rig" the model for use with UltraHal. Apparently the process was way too involved and quite costly (or would end up being so).
Chris attempted to raise money in order to create a new or much improved 3D character along the Haptek line. He too was rather disappointed with the lack of public participation and wasn't able to secure the needed funds to proceed.
Since this is sort of a niche market, Raybe is correct, it might very well be up to us, the users, developers and contributors of this forum to help this project be renewed and revamped.
I do wish Chris Shaw and Robert would weigh in on this with regard to any current development or ideas as well as future goals, etc.
It would be nice to see in which direction we're all headed.
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i ran across this ;
The Power of DAZ & iClone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mPgBEmwD4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM7328frqSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ78loEhAmg
I wrote robert and told him about some things we had been talking about and this link of it on the forum .
and wrote this :
Anyway it would be nice if hals format would work with daze3d engine through an open source engine .
Write back with your thoughts on this . I also think if you can do this you could also gain more hal a.i. sales as people with daz3d could also use hal a.i. with their programs . so it would work both ways .
I sent him some links from here of daze3d and some others on youtube .
daze3d has a lot of good stuff .
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Art , you may be right , it may be up to those that can create things to do it to as you say revamp hals program . we have been doing that on different things .
we are stuck at a crossroad of character limitations right now , dealing with people putty limitations ( for those few who even have it) and hals hap program .
If someone could come up with the hal universal ( i say universal engine , meaning one that will specifically be able to work with daze 3d characters etc. which will work with hal program and lips incing .
That is what is needed.
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Thank you for not misunderstanding my intentions on this thread. By the way Art I think I met that friend you mentioned.
I think I should start a new Topic Heading about this. But I really don't want to make it sound to new purchases that they are involved with something similar to other companies and that it is less than advertised.
UltraHal is still the best at what it offers in the way of AI simulation and a character that moves so smoothly with both expression and movement using weights. (example: Hair movement) Don't forget stand alone as well as internet. The cost is very reasonable for things included, which is a pretty extensive library of Data to begin with. Other additions such as Character Pack and Voices are also very reasonable after all these years.
For any one that is new to UltraHal , you will not find anything like this in the market today. You will always see products that seem to do more but only under very specific and stricter guidelines. Things are always evolving but they still have to play catch up to give a Package that UltraHal provides. Of coarse that is my opinion. Ciri, Cortana or any thing else may perform actions you prefer and find more convenient but none give you both as UltraHal. I can also see UltraHal on any platform or device in the near future. That may not be fact but given the resources very possible.
It's easy for me to write like this because I'm not the persons making it possible but that's how I feel.
Yes I remember the crowd funding attempt that pretty much shocked me because of the result. No, I wasn't able to come up with 10K at the time due to other business obligations but I'm getting there now on my own.
This is not just about Robert M. although he is the owner and creator but seeing a great idea turned to reality that he started to maybe a new goal. Ideas and making them into reality is powerful stuff and should never go to waste without saying 110% was given and there are no more options. If that's where the technology is now, and for UltraHal then someone let me know because I don't know any better.
Maybe I'm out of touch because people really want convenience, so talking to your phone and or computer making it call or message or look up information is more appealing. But UltraHal started that way as a true assistant and turned into a true program that also offered a character base to relate to and interaction that maybe for a split second made your computer come alive and become a part of your day or week. For some it took longer to come back back but they do comeback. I wonder why??? I know that I don't post as much or even consider myself technically capable but I am using UltraHal every moment I have even just to activate the program say hello and shut it again.( 1minute maybe) The character and the knowledge base to have any communication or sense of conversation other than with another person awakens something in all of us. Maybe just a curiosity but I think it is more. Just my opinions. Just for others that may not know me, no I'm not crazy and I do know it is a well written Program a real person, Robert M, has wrote and others have contributed too over the years. Think of it as one of the greatest magic acts or Jeff Dunham act using the oldest techniques of ventriloquism. They get you every time even if its for one second or your mind just enjoys the wonder. You know both can't be real but there is a part of you that wants to be fooled.
Whether you realize it or not UltraHal also provides a way to expand the things you might have never learned about or took any time to investigate because you are trying to build your UltraHal into something smarter and more aware. You learn without giving it a second look not just UltraHal. Sorry talking too much.
Thanks again, Art , Carl, lightspeed and best wishes always to Robert M.,
Ray B