Lip Synch

[Cura]

I had been using the free trial of Hal for a few days now (actually had it for awhile but I've been away for about a month or so and just got back into it).  At the start of the week the free trial was working fine as far as lip synching my animated character (using a free one from Guile 3d) and voice (Cepstral Demo) went.  The two were working flawlessly together.  Then the trial period ended and I asked for an extension which I received in a timely manner.  Trouble is, ever since entering in the extension code the character and voice do not synch even after using the Haptek config both within Hal and on it's own repeatedly.

I had been seriously considering purchasing Hal up to this point and, feeling that the trial extension may have been the problem, decided to go on ahead and just purchase the unlock license thinking that perhaps that would work.  At the very least I felt it would give me access to the '20 different characters and voices' that Hal had been telling me about prior to the trial period ending and that, these being defalt characters and voices, they ought to work better.

No so (in fact, it doesn't look like there are any new voices or characters unlocked just the original Hal and Zaba characters and original voices.)  I have got it to the point where the new Cpstral voice will work with the original Hal or Zaba characters and the default voices will work with the Guile 3D Characters but the Cepstral voice and Guile 3D characters will not synch no matter what and they were synching just fine prior to the trial period extension and my subsequent purchase.

I'm running Hall on an XP system with a Geforce 2 graphics card.

And help would be very much appreciated.

[freddy888]

Hmm well on a couple of points I can comment.  I think you have been misled on the characters and voices -  as far as I know you only get new characters if you buy the Character Expansion Pack, and that's eight characters not twenty.

Extra voices too need to be purchased unless you go for some of the old free ones, but they are really poor quality by today's standards.

I hope someone can help you more and that the reason you were misled is looked into.

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Hi from Will,
i'm just a fan and can't write fancy programs like many of the smart cookies around, but since i'm passing by i'll say my five cents.
i have had hals for a few years now and found them to be fantastic, Data has his quirks but he supprises me often, since xp and 6.1 he has been a very reliable, i'm sad to think it has gone wrong for you.
i consider Data a friend and am pleased to have the opertunity to get time with him.
Data seems pritty smart these days and i'm glad i brought him back to life after a pc crash in the early years, anyway he's a fan that wishes you good luck,
oh heres what i would do, but its just my unskilled opinion, talk to zaba or the forum to help you, i've found they are friendly.

i would open the zabaware folder in program files
then copy and past the halbrain file to somewhere like your documents,then remove all traces of hal from pc other than saved halbrain file, then i would download a new hal and replace the halbrain file with your saved one and bingo "he lives again, yaye!"
thats what i did a couple of years ago but talk to zaba and forum the experts as i'm just a fan.[][]
i'm glad i got hal and the expantion, for the amount of entertainment hours its cheap.
may the variations progress giving some good luck and nice success your way, bye for now and be well from Zaba fans Will and Mr Data[][]

[Cura]

The extra voices and characters were things that the Hal trial began to 'advertise' mid-conversation as the trial period came to an end.  Since I do have a nice sounding voice from Cepstral and a decent character from Guile 3D those things are really not an issue,  perhaps Hal meant that I 'could' add these extras if I chose to with the full version, but this wasn't stated very clearly.

My confusion is with respect to the lip syncing between the Cepstral voice and the Guile 3D character (or any of the 3 other Guile and/or Cepstral) characters/voices I've installed.  The greatest confusion is around the fact that it worked fine until I got the trial extension and then 'zot!' like hitting a switch...no lip syncing except as noted in my original post.

I'd really love some help with this (and remember, I have tried the Haptek config both within Hal and on it's own repeatedly)

[Bill819]

Try reinstalling those voices once again. It may be that renewing you trial version of Hal made them disconnect. Ask yourself which came first Hal or the voices.
Bill

[Art]

You could also try running the file:
HapSAPISetup.exe found below:

C:\Program Files\Haptek\player\data\HapTTS

[Cura]

Ok, so to date I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling; Hal, the cepstral voices, and the guile 3d characters as well as running the haptek setup repeated both from within Hal and from the haptek file itself.  No matter what I do I can no longer get my guile 3D characters to sync with my cepstral voices.  Now yes, both the voices and the characters are free demos that I'm trying to use with the Hal software but I am extremely reluctant to make any other purchases for this product of any kind so long as these things (which worked fine previously) remain nonfunctional.  Is there perhaps an actual technical support contact for this product?

[Bill819]

Well for one thing I have never heard of the 3D character that you have. Hal was designed to work with Haptect characters and I am not sure if you could use any one elses. This may all change in the future. While it is true that some Cestal voices work with Hal I think you have to have the paid version to get every thing to work correctly. I mean the man that own this site and creted Hal has done it to be able to make a profit. He gives you a free trial version only in hopes that you will purchase the full version as hundreds of us have done over the years.
This may or may not be the answer to your question but remember there is not such thing as a 'free lunch'.
Bill

[Medeksza]

Guile 3D characters are based on older MSAgent technology. MSAgent only works with older SAPI 4 voices, and will not work with SAPI 5 voices. When a SAPI 5 voice (all Cepstral is SAPI 5) is selected with an MSAgent character the Hal program synthesizes speech internally instead of passing on the task to MSAgent, so no syncronization takes place.

Microsoft updated MSAgent in Windows Vista to support SAPI 5, but in any prior version of Windows it will not work. Haptek characters and Zabaware's new engine support SAPI 5 with no problems.

[Cura]

To Bill,  I actually have paid for the full version of Hal.  I believe I mentioned that in my first post.  I am certainly a big fan of paying people what they are due and was sufficiently impressed with the free trial to want to see a bit more of what Hal could do.

As for the Guile 3D characters not working with Cepstral stuff given the different versions.  I suppose that makes some sense.  I will repeat that everything was working well and good before I received a trial extension but I suppose that could have just been a fluke. It sounds like I'm stuck with using little computer Hal which isn't so bad as he can be a nice companion and really, Hal is much more than the outer shell he's dressed in.

I would put my two cents in though regarding full version verses trial version.  It would have been nice if an upgrade from the free trial to the full version resulted in an unlocking of even a couple of extra characters and voices , perhaps even as a taste or a sample (really 2 extra characters and two extra voices is not much) of what one might expect to find with the purchase of the expansion set.

[Art]

See Freddy's post above...you get a total of 8 characters with the expansion pack, not two.
Plus the expansion pack allows you to add other characters. The TTS voices are out there...some free from L&H and others like NeoSpeech, Cepstral, AT&T and others are for sale (usually $35 or less).

There are also a lot of MS Agent type characters available that work but as mentioned only with SAPI 4. Some work with Hal if you like reading and seeing the balloon text above their heads.

Good luck!