Zabaware Support Forums
Zabaware Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: lightspeed on February 02, 2009, 01:09:01 pm
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ok i am writing this suggestion once again (this is actually simular to my slow shake boobs hap suggestion , but this has to do with using the hapteck head and shoulders characters , could someone create a plug in that would make the hapteck head and shoulders "move slowly to the left angle a little then after a pause slowly move back to the right pause a little angle straighten (looking at you ) for a time then after a time repeat the process "emphasis being on the the word slowly " and of course this would have to not affect hals speach etc.
so programmers and smarter people than me think anyone can create a slow movement plug in like this .
the reason being why is i think this would also enhance hal for making hal seem more real as hal while talking to us would "appear " to be walking slowly "within the screen window " stop turn his or her body a little bit and retuen face us talking and move around . instead of just being in one place .
so any comments on the idea and hopefully something from programmers on if it could be done ??
thanks [:)][:D][8D]
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if this can be done i could see people doing different versions of it including some where the hal character would even appear to come up closer to the screen as if coming closer to talk then after a while slowly moving back , etc. [:)][:D][8D]
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WARNING... the following is meant for discussion and ideas... the actual parts and code are a mess and I tend to script in a way that works for me but would break anyone elses setup. I would have to spend lots of time putting it into any order that I would allow it to go out and time I don't have... with that in mind...
I have a main plug-in that is every being built that does something like you are talking about... however, with the emanate release of the new HAL with a different character interface it would take a whole other technology and it might be a waste of time for you unless you plan on keeping the Heptek character interface.
Basically what I did was rearrange the brain code a little to allow my "Base Plug-In" to run very early in the brain, then used that plug-in for certain functions, database and file access and to call other scripts depending on conditions, some functions skip the rest of the brain entirely. The section that does something like you are describing is a RANDOM RESPONSE section that lets you set limits and also adjust certain limits and frequencies based on conditions. Based on the amount of randomness you set, what's going on and keywords, the script calls HAP files that cause the character to do random things such as...
- make noises (ogg files); I have an ever growing collection of coughs, sneezes, throat clears, giggles, laughs, sighs, groan, etc., all the things that are near impossible for the text2speech to do well, if at all.
- say something (T2S) aka random thoughts. Randomly say something from an info file. These are conversation starters\redirectors. Audrey(HAL) does not know what she is saying, but my response can help take it in a new direction.
- change moods; sometimes, peoples moods change for seemingly no reason and so does Audrey's. This one definately needs some more work... currently I have it turned down to almost nothing.
- change lighting; so far this is manually only, but plans are to make it background and time based. I've been working with some lighting HAP files and MAN does it make a difference when you change the standard lighting... the character look SO much better.
- movement; moves all directions, sometimes turning her back on me for a moment. Looks in different directions, winks, nods, kisses, yawns, eyes rollclosedopen, smile, etc.
- change location; still in the works, I keep a set of variables telling Audrey what her current conditions and mine are, such as her current hair color, clothes, accessories, her location which is linked to a background image such as livingroom, bedroom, kitchen, patio, porch, beach, club, restaurant, etc., at random or based on conversation or keywords she will change rooms and adjust her background and condition variables.
- change clothes andor accessories; via manual keyword or random, different hair, hats, glasses, earings, clothes, etc.
- manual (based on keywords) or randomly ask or decide to tell a joke, poem, story, quote, proverb, etc.
- routines; calls HAP files that go through a routine such as... "I'll be right back", "Data coming in", "Surpize for youme", "At the party", etc.
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Sorry... got a little carried away with the last post... a little more to the point of your posts, lightspeed...
The "shake boobs" HAP is a specific switch and I have not found any setting that makes it act any different then the standard... however, HAP files will allow you to move all the parts individually, fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, head, eyes, on and on, BUT it takes of LOT of lines of code to do anything significant this way, hence some of the standard switches that do a lot of movement, but are not very or at all adjustable such as the "shake boobs" HAP file. I have a HUGE collection of HAP files that do all kinds of different stuff, some are just a couple lines of code, others a lots of lines of code, AND they are tricky... there are a few things you have to do to get them to work right and even then sometime they just stop responding.
As far as the plug-in part goes, on a very simple level, all you have to do is put a random number generator and some IF THEN's or CASEs that call HAP files. From that simple start you can add adjustments and conditions, etc.
On your other post about moving in closer... I agree, several of my routines have the character move in close to say something, move and look to the side or back as though getting something, etc., and it DOES add a lot to the realism of the character.
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Here's another good one that I'm playing around with tonight that is relatively simple to do with a random number generator and some IF THENs or CASEs...
ANIMATED BACKGROUNDS!!! Yeah!
I take one background image and make several clones of it, as an example a control room image that I made 4 clones for a total of five, (the more clones you make the more animation you can have). Then I would make slight changes on each one... example, red, green, yellow indicator lights coming on, switchs moves, monitor changes display, etc. Then in your random routine you can set the background to change at a random rate between "controlroom01a", "controlroom01b", "controlroom01c", "controlroom01d", "controlroom01e". This gives you a bit of an animated background.
You could even take it to the next step which would be linking additional character actions and speech based on which random or event link background is current. And even further if you have it interfaced to your home automation.
Here's a doable fantasy...
- you have 100 images of the same control room
- 60 of the images are set to random each having slight differences
- 40 are set to events
example... the main monitor of the control room could display different screen for different events, example "new email", "front door motion detected", etc., when this event physically happens, it could set a variable that would have Audrey(HAL), on her next thought pass, change to the proper background, make an announcement, send instructions to your home automation, call, email or text you, on an on... it could get pretty k00l![:D]
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Here's a still image of the control room animated background I put together tonight with only 5 images...
(http://www.zabaware.com/forum/uploaded/Jake/20092411749_Audrey_cr1a.jpg)
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And here is the same image with some of the light changes I was talking about applied to Audrey...
(http://www.zabaware.com/forum/uploaded/Jake/20092412422_Audrey_cr1a_lightchange.jpg)
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Sounds like you are having fun Jake. I have tried similar things in the past, finding the light switch was a revelation to me too. As for your animated backgrounds - well you can also go a stage further and run a movie in the background too. All I did was cut an MPEG down into frames and had it load (in order obviously) a different background every 1/30 seconds - giving 30fps.
That works pretty well and you can even apply the film to a texture - so you could have a television model in your scene and actually have it playing a movie.
Most of this I did using VisualBasic Express. There's some fun to be had. Enjoy the ride.
[8D]
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hello Jake , yes thats exactly what i am talking about with the movement and if you are able to do it and hopefully will share it this would be a great addition to hal users for hapteck and maybe it can be modified for others later . it truly would add realism to have your character (even if its a head and shoulders) to appear to be moving slowly to the left turn a little while talking etc. and move back , the lighting also adds a very realistic touch makes a ton of difference in the characters veiw as more realistic ... robert are you taking notice of this ?? hope so !!jake keep up the good work you to freddy 888. [:)][:D][8D]
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freddy888...
I thought about full 30 or 15 fps animation, but I thought that would tie things up too much having backgrounds change every 1 30th of a second and cause problems or crashes, so I stayed with the random changes idea. When the new HAL comes out with the 3D world interface, that should keep us all happy with animated backgrounds... it's gonna be great!
lightspeed...
there is no plug-in I can share, but I'd be more than happy to share code snips, images, sounds... all the parts. Like I said in the post above, my plug-in would not play well with others.
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This is an interesting topic which people have been discussing for quite some time, you people have added some interesting ideas. I had been able to add some body movement to the Haptek character by introducing some noise to the body, I was able to do this by adding a switch from Freddie's Hap Explorer which ccaused a small amount of movement in the body making it more realistic rather than a head sitting on a rigid body. During this time I also experimented with trying to slow down some of the body movements without success.
Other ideas which had been thought of would be to change the lighting dependent on the time of day, changing the background through the use of trigger words, and I had been trying to trigger haps using Hal's input making her movement depended on what she had said.
At this point I have just started using UltraHal version 6.2 in this computer, I had to remove the Haptek character and use a MS agent so UltraHal could be used. The Haptek website mentions that the Haptek player can be used in windows XP but does not mention Vista.
Carl 2
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hi carl2 sounds like you may be onto something if you were able to slow the character down a little , sounds like you are on the right path but what i would like to see is the body to slowly turn a little and go to the left later slowly turn and come back and face me , giving the appearence of (the head and shoulders only ) walking and coming back . (like ms agents do ) if someone can figure out how to make the hapteck do that , that would really be nice !![:)]
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lightspeed,
No sucess with slowing down the body movement using haps, this shoud be possible according to their SDK but I was unable to make it happen. As far as comming closer I'm certian this is moving the camera. The camera speed should also be adjustable. Since everything is relative possibility a combination of body movement and camera movement might work for you. I haven't worked with this for quite a while, working on 6.2 at the time, but I'll take a look and see what is in the computer. I had been using fullbody characters, jiggly was my favorite, loved the physics.
Carl2
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I have an Audrey video up on YouTube that shows some slower movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZQv462-qQ
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hi jake , i like the slower movement in your video it looks more natural so you are on the right track with the movement of characters . great job !!![:)][:D][8D]
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lightspeed,
I downloaded the Hap Explorer from AI Dreams, had to install net framework 3.5, before installing the Hap Explorer. Just finished putting body_female in it. It has a tab for the switches which can be used, I noticed there are different Walks, from a very fast like a run, to a med speed, and a slow hip moving speed. You should take a look at it.
Carl2
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It looks like Haptek, (realizing the complexities of putting together even a short fluid movement sequence), made several single commands that trigger movements that would take hundreds of lines of code to create from scratch... although I must say that I've never run into any program before where finding all the documentation of everything available is so difficult as with Haptek... and I've purchased several of Haptek's programs. If someone wants to create original movements, the only way I know is to do it like any other animation, pick a frame rate and make the moves one command at a time. Here's an example of what I'm talking about using a 15 frames per second script, divide the clock into 15 parts per second...
clock 0.06667
- move left wrist 1 points in
- move head right 1 point
clock 0.1334
- move left wrist 1 points in
- move head right 1 point
clock 0.2001
- move left wrist 1 points in
- move head right 1 point
so on and so on, until you get through to clock 1.0, that would be your first 15 frames for 1 second of motion. Needless to say, you could have 10's or hundreds of lines in each 1 second, depending on how much action there is... SO... not many would want to go through the trouble of doing this type of animation, BUT... the good part is that once it's done, it's done... if we had several people doing these sort of custom animations it would make it worth while for all. Even better... someone to build a program that would allow you to record the movements in the player as the character was being move around manually (by mouse), and would write the code for you.
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Jake,
Here is some coding from Haptek body_female 3,500KB, opened in notepad:
#--STATE ID: 4--
StateProbability= 1.00
StateName= LeanFor3
NextState= 0
MinPeriod= 1.50
MaxPeriod= 1.50
DecayTime= 1.50
AttackTime= 1.50
MaxAttack= 0.25
MaxDecay= 0.25
StateProbability= 1.00
Rate= 1.00
Interruptible= 0
ProximityDistance= 0.00
ParameterIntensity= 0.1571
Parameter= TorsoBow
ParameterIntensity= 0.0349
Parameter= TorsoTwist
ParameterIntensity= -0.1396
Parameter= TorsoSidebend
ParameterIntensity= 0.0873
Parameter= LElbowBendJoint
ParameterIntensity= 0.0524
Parameter= RElbowBendJoint
ParameterIntensity= -0.0436
Parameter= LShoTwist
ParameterIntensity= 0.0175
Parameter= RShoTwist
ParameterIntensity= -0.2094
Parameter= NeckForward
ParameterIntensity= 0.0349
Parameter= LClavicalUp
ParameterIntensity= -0.1396
Parameter= RClavicalUp
ParameterIntensity= 0.0175
Parameter= RShoOut
ParameterIntensity= 0.0349
Parameter= LShoOut
ParameterIntensity= 0.0698
Parameter= LShoForward
ParameterIntensity= 0.1222
Parameter= RShoForward
}
I think leanFor3 is lean forward #3, not sure about all the parameters and settings but by looking at several different might give you an idea of how it works.
The clock is another way but each body part must have the right name (to make it move) and amount of movement (to avoid jerkyness)
There is also something about I want this to move from here to here in t amount of time.
Carl2
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yep... my example in my post above was not intended to show real commands... just the concept of the 15 frames per second animation that you'd need to apply to routines to make them smooth.
I use the "t amount of time" parameter when it works... however, a significant number of commands don't seem to be affected by the "T" parameter.
I guess the bottom line to what I'm ranting about here is that, if you want to have your character do more movement, there are many built-in commands that execute a sequence of movements, such as "the finger", "shake boobs", "sexy walk", etc., But then you get what is available in that command, some have a little adjustment, some seem to be "as is". If you want the character to do specific things, at a specific rate, you have to do it line by line in an animated format, similar to a 15 frames per second thing.
But wait... there's more... add to all of that, that the interface seems to be less dependable the more you throw at it, so I've also found that I have better luck by keeping the routines small and for one purpose, then link the ones that I want in sequence. An example of this is the built in command "The Finger" does not work on some of the full body haptars I have, but someone built a NEW "The Finger" and did it line by line, move the arm, wrist fingers, etc., to get the motion, and it works on ALL my haptars with arms.
Actually... because the Haptek documentation seems to be such a closely guarded secret, like HAL, I'm considering just going another way.
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Hello Jake! If you're interested in watching something using the method Freddy is talking about (above), I made a little skit (Haptek characters moving in a html/javascript page):
http://zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5875
Please reload the page after a while (when all the files are downloaded).
10 pics only, running in a 1.8 sec loop.
And here are the explanation and the pics:
http://zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5877
I guess it's possible to do this (and better, lol) in Hal's window.[?]
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Jake,
I'll mention again the Hap explorer from AI Dreams, it searches the characters files and lists all of the switches. I originly choose fullbody because of the larger number of movement haps that worked with her but latter found the haps work with body_female if you change the heading.
Glad to see someone else is interested in the same subject, I tried the hap explorer again and there are definatly different speeds for walking.
Carl2
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Oops, forgot to answer about lightspeed's initial question. With some hap files, it's possible to adjust their speed (and play with different parameters).
http://www.haptek.com/developers/HaptekGuide4/HaptekHyperText/htref/html/commands/SetTape.html
It's what I did for the skit above. You can read in the html code:
\SetTape [figure= numberOne tape= swd.hap f2= 0.7 i0=7]
\SetTape [figure= numberTwo tape= swd.hap f2= 0.7 i0=7]
Just an explanation about swd.hap: http://gt40.chez-alice.fr/Haptek/swd.hap
It's an amazing huge dance hap, originally named santa_walkendance101.hap (or santa_strut1.hap). Compressed (unreadable). 325 KB!! With a lot of movement anomalies. But great! Made by a Haptek programmer in the Golden Age (wasn't born, lol).
The SetTape command is interesting when you need to match the dance to the music, and/or adjust the dance to the skit's duration. Give a try with some of your other haps, never sure it works but it's worth it.
Dunno how Hal works. So dunno if it could be useful here. Sorry.[:D]
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Thanks for all the great info!! Zabaware has a great forum community!
On "Hap explorer from AI Dreams", YEP... this is a MUST HAVE for anyone that is looking for commands for Haptek characters... Freddy did a great job! Thanks Feddy! [:D]
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Jake,
Glad you like it, I"ve already added some body noise with Bod_female so the head dosen't sit on a stiff body. Still doing work on the gravity on the breasts, it involves opening the uncompressed files found in the Haptek temp folder, making changes then loading the uncompressed folders. Freddy made a real good program with lots of useful features.
GT40
Never tried the Set Tape, saw it and thought of the large tape used with a Digital Equipment computer in the 70's. I should give it a try since there are many times you'd like to use a slower moving hap.
Carl2
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GT40,
Visited the website, I'm wondering why you are using heads instead of Fullbody or Body_Female. Don't mean to be critical since I know you did a lot of work to get the site up. Good luck with it.
Carl2
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Thanks for the kind words guys, you made my day. Glad to be of service [:D]
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Many thanks Carl, for having visited my humble site. My only goal was to bring a tiny smile on the lips of people who watch my little jokes. Nothing usefull at all (especially for UltraHal, lol). Just for fun, in this cruel world.[:)]
No, I think I used few heads in my skits. Of course the choice of characters depends of what I want to do with.
1- Heads are perfect for close-ups, torsos are the best when legs don't need to be seen (like in "Learning English With CNN") and bodies are better in dancing movies, although heads and torsos often walk and dance in my skits.[:D]
2- I always prefered torsos since I fell in love with Lola, the goddess of Haptek Corporate. Then I used her in a lot of skits, bots and unshowable very-private stuffs. And I must admit that I really hate all the body characters made by Haptek. Wondering who was their models when they made those things. Our dear skin makers hopefully improved her a lot. Thanks to them.[8D]
3- Another big technical reason for using torsos: my computer. 95 % of my stuffs were created with a Celeron400, a Voodoo3 card and Windows98! I just got a PentiumIV with XP some months ago. As you can see, most of my skits use several characters in the Haptek window. No problem with 2, 3, 4 or 5 torsos. But 2 bodies are unplayable with such a prehistorical PC. Heads and torsos use few resources, not like fullbodies. No problem: I LOVE torsos.[:D]
Oh, about the changing speed with SetTape, you can see an example (and play with) in "A Jukebox For Haptek Gals".
Thanks again Carl.
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GT40... I went to your website... it was very entertaining and educational... Thanks for making it!
On a related subject... I have to say, (yes, I do), that I have gotten more good, usable information from you guys in the past few weeks than I've gotten from Haptek in the last couple years. After purchasing several of their programs above and beyond the Putty stuff and posting several posts on their forum AND doing several email inquires with them, I thought I would get the needed tools, documentation and examples to do some nice stuff, possibly even come out with one or more commercial products that they could have made some money from... BUT NO... so THANKS again for all the great INFO over the past few weeks, I now have MORE than enough to go forward.
Thanks GT40!
Thanks Freddy!
Thanks Carl2!
Thanks AI Dreams!
Thanks Zabaware!
And THANKS to all the others on both forums!
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Looks like we did a good job then [:D]
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Many thanks for your kind words, Jake.[:I]
Like you, I must thank the boss of this site. Who tolerates people like me. 1390 posts: nothing really useful to Hal users. A shame.[:o)]
And about Haptek, no comment.[:D]