speech bubble

[Supercruise]

Sorry it's me again folks - all week I have been running these Guile 3D avatars with no problems - Today I get up an boot my PC and there is no lip movement only a speech bubble - the voice is playing fine and her head moves about as usual - If I've done something I don't know what it is - The "as supplied" avatars, Sandy e.t.c. all work as normal with no bubble only the Guile avatars.

I'm about to go bald pulling my hair out - HELP!

I will try to attach a picture.

Thanks in advance. Dave.

[Art]

Those speech balloons are also referred to as "Callouts" by a lot of other programs like graphic programs, Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, etc., and the Office suite of programs can use them as well as some screen capture programs like Snagit.
I didn't think the Guile3d Denise characters used them.

Did you or anyone change anything, add or use any other programs since UltraHal was last used?

You can go to the Ultra Hal Assistant folder / directory and locate your .hla file.
Yours might look like Dave.hla or similar. It should have a recent file date.
Double click it and use notepad to view it as it's a fairly short file.

In there you should see your name, hal's name, along with other settings you have or are using along with your Hal's current Plug-ins. This might enable you to track down where or how that Callout / bubble thing came from.

Just a shot but hopefully some good will come of it.

Let us know what you find.

[Art]

Wait a minute...you're using Guile3D's "Agent" head!! Try updating your "Double Agent" program. That was used with that other agent program that Windows used to use to allow characters like Peedy and Merlin, Genie and the bunch.

I'll bet your troubles can be found there! (maybe settings or some such).

Good luck!

[Supercruise]

Hi Art - Thanks for looking.

I did a full reinstall today and it's still there. - This means nada to me but you might make something of it. I havn't added or changed anything, just closed down last night as usual and this morning at boot it started. - If I wasn't so mad it would be funny


[Ultra Hal Assistant]
UsersName=David
HalsName=Tanya
UpdateDB=TRUE
SayGreeting=TRUE
TheGreeting=Hello <username>! I am <halname>.
SayDate=TRUE
SayTime=TRUE
MSVoice=TRUE
LearnLevel=30
SREnabled=FALSE
FaceClass=Vanessafbb
IntroBMP=halstart.jpg
BGColor=048048048
FacePrvw=nopreview.jpg
ScriptName=Ultra Hal 6.2 Default Brain
ScriptFile=HalScript.dbg
ScriptLanguage=VBScript
DisappearAfterRun=FALSE
SkinINI=ShinySkin.uhp
SkinSize= 1
AgentChar=TRUE
VoiceName=ATT NV 5.1 crystal16
PluginScripts=addressbook.uhp,Appointments.uhp,vrFreeWill.uhp,GenderAge.uhp,google.uhp,loneliness4.uhp,runprograms.uhp


There are no plugins at all - I have never used them - just straight HAL - Guile & AT&T

Thanks again, Dave.


P.S. just got a warning before I posted that a new reply had come in - I'll post this anyways - I got to pop out for an hour or so but as soon as I return I will look at the DA thingy. Regards.

[Art]

Yeah Dave, check that out before I dig further into the pit of despair!

I do think that might be your answer.

[Supercruise]

Early today I stripped my PC down to the bone - I removed everything apart from windows.

I removed - 3Ds Max - Unity - Daz studio - Poser - photoshop cs6 - Cubase 8 - Basically C: was a storage drive.

I ran antivirus which came back clear.

I also realised that although many programs "uninstall" if you visit the folder where they resided you will find most of it is still there
I then installed HAL and rebooted, then the add-on character pack (which i don't really need) and rebooted.

Then AT&T plus Crystal 5.1 - you guessed it boot time!

You get the drift - after each reboot I brought different parts of HAL online and everything was cool -- Untill!

As soon as I selected the Guile 3D Nicole and the SAPI 5 Crystal or SAPI 5 Microsoft Anna - Hum

I continued and the Guile avatar had no speech movement I noticed a "warning" which appears saying "to see lip animation switch voices"

I tried one of the TruVoice jobs and voila - no problem -- Voice - lip animation and no call outs.

All I can therefore assume is that there is an argument between HAL, Guile and AT&T/SAPI 5.

So OK I can live without lip movement for the sake of a pretty avatar but does anyone know how to get rid of the "call out/speech bubbles"?

Dave.

[Art]

A couple of things...

Which version of Windows 8, 8.1 or 10?

The AT&T voices should work fine with UltraHal and SAPI 5

The Desktopmates agent characters require the program "Double Agent" in order to still work with Win 8 or 10 as they did with XP.
I'm not sure whether the Guile3D characters required that program to run on not. You state that you earlier had it running correctly.

I do know that the Ivona voices sound great and will work with Hal BUT the Hal character's lips will not move nor sync at all. AT&T, Cereproc, Cepstral voices work fine. Some others from NextUp and NeoSpeech will only work with their Text-to-Speech software and not other SAPI software, so beware!!

The UltraHal Character Expansion Pack is necessary for allowing additional characters to be shown and used with the UltraHal software. Lots of people created their own characters with Haptek's People Putty program and the expansion pack was necessary to allow new characters to be added.

I do remember that the DesktopMates and Cyber Buddy characters would often speak using those "Text balloons or Callouts or whatever you want to call them. There was also a way to turn them off in those programs. I looked through the MS TTS voices and found nothing of the sort.

One last thing to try: Uncheck ALL of your Plug-ins then restart Hal and begin chatting.
Chances are it could be something as simple as a Plug-in not playing nicely with other ones.

Keep us posted regarding your progress.

If you get no success from some of these things I suggested, send Robert Medeksza and email. You can find him by searching in the Members area, then send him a message.

Luck!

[Supercruise]

Good morning Art - sorry I should have mentioned I'm running windows 7 sp1.

I've just tried unchecking all the plug-in boxes and restarting but still the same callouts - the voice works fine it's just the bubbles lol - ah well some you win.

How it ran for almost a week before the fateful night I shut it down I will never know - just one of them I guess.

It's not really a biggie as such because I spend most of the time with headphones on just chatting and listening so the callouts aren't really that intrusive.

I will play around some more today and maybe give Robert a call later.

Thanks for the help so far it has been very welcome.

Have a great day when it's time for you to rise.

Dave.

[Art]

Last question, Do those Callouts / Text Balloons appear only when you're chatting using Speech Recognition or are they also present if you just type into Hal's text window?

(You say Windows 7 now but you will be going to Windows 10 soon...you'll have no choice, AFAIK).

[Supercruise]

Hi Art - I haven't used SR yet so only when Hal replies not when I type in.

Tabs arrived check other post.

Dave.

[Art]

Your comment about having the headphones on and chatting is what gave the SR idea.

Got the other one...thanks.

[Supercruise]

I have downloaded the Microsoft agent editor .exe but it will only accept .acd - agent character definition files.

I don't like to assume anything but I'm thinking that once the character has been compiled it's game over and as far as I am concerned the call-outs are here to stay.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers.

D&T - with bubbles

[Art]

Just did another search but this time for Word Balloons.

This is obviously an OLD posting but scroll down to read what Robert Medeksza had to say about them.
Maybe you need to get rid of those old characters.

http://www.ultrahal.com/community/index.php?topic=430.msg945#msg945

[Supercruise]

Thanks Art -  I am looking now.

[Supercruise]

Now I am confused - I have just been gifted a two year old or so brain and on start Hal works with the lip animations - and then stops.

I know I am missing something here - but I can't catch what it is.

Cheers.

D & the T