making a Complete Character Set character speak

[Frank Verberne]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get one of the avatars from the Complete Character Set to speak, using vizact.speak(). However, the error message that the character does not have a jaw bone appears, and nothing happens. Furthermore, I found an old post by Farshizzo (http://forum.worldviz.com/showthread...lete+character) stating that the complete characters don't have a jaw bone and therefore cannot speak.

But, on the website http://www.worldviz.com/products/vizard/videos.html, in the video facial animation, a character from the complete character set is shown, that can move it's jaw bone! Furthermore, the vcc_male and vcc_female characters can also speak, and they seem to have the exact same bonestructure as the complete characters. I've tried using the skeleton and talk morph to make a complete character talk. However, that did not work. Any suggestions for solving this problem?

On a side note: it's rather strange that in a demo movie, a 'talking' complete character is shown, while they cannot make use of the vizact.speak() function. I know about the bio head that can speak as well, but I would like to use one of the avatars from the complete character set for this.

Kind regards,
Frank

[Frank Verberne]

I've found a solution to my problem and I thought it would be nice to share it with you. The example that I give here is based on the avatar 'casual20_m_highpoly' from the complete character set. The steps are the same for all the other male avatars of the complete character set.

The solution in second steps:
- First, you need to follow the steps of the document 'Use Characters in Vizard.pdf' which is on DVD 1 of the complete character set. After those steps, you should have a folder (in this example the folder is: casual20_highpoly) with all the files for your avatar.
- Second, open 'casual20_m_highpoly.cfg' and add the line speak_morph=casual20_m_highpoly_talk.CMF at the end of the .cfg file.

Now, with this code, you can make your complete character move it's mouth in sync with a .wav file:

avatar = viz.add('casual20_highpoly/casual20_m_highpoly.cfg', pos = [0,.15,.5], euler = [180,0,0])
speech = vizact.speak('YOUR .WAV FILE HERE',1, sync = True)
avatar.addAction(speech, pool = 1)

I have not tested this solution for all the complete characters, but I assume it should work for all of them similarly.

[Jeff]

Sorry for not replying earlier. This is only necessary for Complete Characters that were purchased several years ago. Now the cfg files of the characters should include that line.

[Frank Verberne]

That's strange, because we've purchased the Complete Character set in 2011. Could we somehow get the correct .cfg files for the Complete Characters? I assume that you would need some kind of proof of the date we've purchased, but that can be arranged, probably.

[mspusch]

Hi Frank,

Please email sales@worldviz.com about this -- there should be no problem to correct this.

All best,

Matthias