Messages

1

General Discussion / HoloHal?

« on: March 06, 2006, 04:12:17 pm »

Just had a thought on a (expensive) upgrade for hal.  How about (faked) holographic display?  I was digging into this today, and found that for about 4 or 5 grand you can actually fake a good holigraphic display.  Basically, you use a video projector (check out tiger or newegg) onto a special type of screen.  If you want to check out the screens, here are the links.

http://www.mountsandmore.com/Draper-HoloView-Series-2080DR1256.html
or
http://www.laser-magic.com/transscreen.html

The second one is the effect used in the movie Minority Report.

Can anybody imagine a life sized Hal?

2

General Discussion / Flash Drive

« on: February 24, 2006, 11:22:37 pm »

Thanks all!

I was thinking of getting a 4 gig for this (and a few other programs) to get the speed up (and for the portability).  I didn't know about the .dll's though.  By the way, anybody know if this voilates copyrights?  (running on multiple computers from one copy)  I don't want to do anything accidentally illegal.  I didn't see anything about that in the license agreement, but one never knows.

Rokusan2001

3

General Discussion / story board

« on: February 24, 2006, 02:09:26 pm »

Here is a small idea for outputting to video.  I have a NVidia video card that allows me to put out to TV, and also a Digital video recorder.   So, just resize the Haptek output window on the TV, and then, hook up the Digital Video recorder between the TV and the computer, (heck, use a VCR, if people still have one), and then play your animation while recording.  With a Digital Video recorder, you can just copy the files back onto the computer, and presto!  Or, with a VCR,  you would just need a video imput card.  Hope it helps!
Rokusan2001

4

General Discussion / Flash Drive

« on: February 24, 2006, 01:58:59 pm »

Has anybody ever tried to install Hal onto a USB flash drive, or other type of media?  I was just thinking that, since the hard drive is the slowest part of the computer, I might speed up the response/animation time.

Also, how about taking Hal with you when you go? (without having to try and copy the brain over)

Any thoughts, or has anybody tried this?

5

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / use of .wav files

« on: February 12, 2006, 11:02:14 am »

Here's a thought everybody....
If you buy a Cepstral voice, it comes with a program called "Swifttalker".  In that you can record a wav file of what you want her to speak.  So, create a wav file of her saying what you want, convert to ogg, convert in People Putty, and there is your sound/comment/voice.  

Let me know if this works out for anybody.
Hope I could help, taglag.
Rokusan2001

6

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 09, 2006, 10:09:49 pm »

Thanks all for the helpful advice!  Got the responses working after changing back to the standard mode in the brain editor.  

Rokusan2001

7

General Discussion / musician bot ?

« on: February 09, 2006, 01:56:31 am »

Update -

I THINK (don't quote me) the name of the program was Tone-ation.
It was supposed to provide insperation for musical artist.  And I'm positive it ran on dos.

Hope it helps,

Rokusan2001

8

General Discussion / musician bot ?

« on: February 09, 2006, 01:45:50 am »

All right...

I'll beg appoligies here first if this is a little bit inapropriate.

This discussion reminds me of a program that was debuting at COMDEX a few years back.  The program was supposed to "generate" a... porn picture out of any executible over 2 meg.  The problem was that a "innocent bystandard" sugested they try using it on it's own executable.  Can anybody guess the picture that developed?

Needless to say they were thrown out of COMDEX and arrested by Las Vegas police for voilating some law or another.  Guess some things are illegal in Vegas.

Now, to answer the question serously.  The last that I heard of a computer music generation program was a few years back.  It took a sample from the ram (128 bits) and assigned a tone to each bit according to the value.  I believe it generated a midi file out of it.  The problem was that you couldn't really concider it music.  But it would be interesting if you could do something similar, except instead of assigning notes to the value of the bit, you assign a word.  Then you maybe could use Hal to fill in the proper phrasing?

Either way, it's quite a task to get something truly "musical", as apposed to the computer version of "Hiphop" meets "Rap" meets "Ugly".  I suppose you could run the generated speech/music thru filters to tame it toward what you personally concider music, but still difficult.

Rokusan2001

9

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 08, 2006, 01:47:50 pm »

Okay... I just figured out something...
One of the problems was getting her to respond to the trigger words.
If I put the trigger word "Strangers" she wouldn't even respond to the word with the predefind text repsonse.  But it was because I was keeping the brain in the EXPERT MODE.  The second I changed back to the standard mode in the brain editor, she started responding.

It seems that if you save the brain, and leave it in the EXPERT MODE, she won't respond to the custom responses.  
Thank you all!!

It's really amazing how customizable this piece of software is.  I definately can see how everybody loves it.

I have gotten a full body Haptek charactor, but it seems to be the wrong one to work with the animation files I got from the previous forum.  So, just have to match up versions, I supose.

Now, one other question.  If this is the wrong forum for it, I'll appologize in advance.  I will be switching over to the Haptek charactors for the animations, it looks like you need to have the People Putty software.  Does anybody know how expensive the full body charactors are?  And is it as easy to use the software with full body charactor animations, as it is for just head animation?

Thanks again!!!  
Rokusan2001

10

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 07, 2006, 10:15:07 pm »

Starting to get it now.  Sorry about being such a newbe.
I didn't see anything in the forums discussing the difference's between the Haptek charactors and MSAgents.  I guess I'll need to switch to Haptek charactors for this to work.  

Now if I do that, is there a way to call the animation files from the brain with a trigger word?  Idea is the same as the above mentioned thread, but like I said in the previous post, I don't see how to call the animation when certain words are said.

EX.
"Be afraid of STRANGERS" and she act's affraid. (STRANGERS being the key word)

Or should I not be calling the animation files from the brain, but elsewhere?  

Thank you,
Rokusan2001

11

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 07, 2006, 06:34:10 pm »

Forgive the newbe!

I think I'm seeing the problem here.  I thought you could just drop in the code and have the animations customized, but it's dependent on what type of charactor it is.  Am I right?

So, if I used MASH or Haptek, to program the animations into the .htr files, then I could use them for the specific type of charactor (MSAgent or Haptek)....

But where do you insert the code to call the animations?  I can't find where it is calling them from.  I've been up and down the brain code, and don't see an animation file call.  The best I can find is the EmotionalReaction area, but it doesn't call the animations.  How do you do that?  I know the Defalt.psn is related to the calling, but as far as I can tell, I can't add custom animations...

So confused...

I have done some programming (2 and a half years in college) But I am a little rusty.  

Thanks for any help/straightening out/strangling in advance! :->
Rokusan2001

P.S. Message board here is great, I've learned alot already, even though I've only had Hal for 2 weeks.

12

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 07, 2006, 04:50:54 pm »

Hi, Carl2
Let me see if I understand your questions here.  Like I said, I'm a little new to all this, so I might not understand all the terminology and such.

Yes, I have Hal6.  As to the difference between Haptek charactors or MSAgent charactors, I am attempting to use it with a charactor I purchased from Desktopmates.com.  I don't know which they use.  Third, I don't have the expansion pack.  

I thought they were editing the brain code for Hal 6 to get the animations to work, but if this is in the programing of the charactors themselves, then I guess I'm barking up the wrong tree.  They are refering to where to put the "trigger words" into the Hal brain, but can't find where to put the "trigger words".  

Thanks in advance,
Rokusan2001

13

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Charactor Animations/Responses in Hal 6

« on: February 05, 2006, 09:19:47 pm »

Hi, I have been trying all night to put in different animations and responses for charactors as described in an article by Dr. Benway and DuskRider:

http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2268

Of course, I realize that the version of Hal is different than the one they were using, but I can't figure out how to adapt it.  Or I could be dead wrong and they are the same (both version 6) and I just have been barking up the wrong tree.  I'm new to all this, so a little guidence would be really apriciated.  
Thanks!