[Freddy]

Thought I would dust down the polling machine.

I was wondering what members prefer to chat with.

Does a text bot leave more to your imagination, akin to reading a book ?  Or does an avatar help you suspend your disbelief a little ?

Comments and reasons for your choice are more than welcome.  I know some have expressed an opinion in the past, but I forget who said exactly what.

Cheers  

[DaveMorton]

Personally, I feel that a chatbot with an avatar is more engaging than one without, and if the avatar is somehow "dynamic" in nature is more engaging still.

One of the "experiments" that I have slated for Morti later this year is the introduction of "emotional states", that will be indicated by different avatar images. So far, all I have is a general idea of which emotions that I want Morti to "display", and a draft quality outline of the way I want to handle determination of emotional state. I want to cover "happy", "sad", "angry", "thoughtful", "mischievous" and "neutral" (and probably others, too), with around two to three "levels" of each (with the exception of "neutral", of course).

Obviously, this is going to be a pretty big undertaking, since we're talking about a minimum of a dozen and a half images involved (and I want to have them look more "real" than Morti's current avatar), and the "emotional state matrix" will take a bit of coding to straighten out.

[Freddy]

Thank you Dave.  The emotional states sound very interesting.  Looks like you will be able to do some virtual modelling now as opposed to the real world modelling you have done with your village.  Enjoy.

I added a third option to the poll, just in case folks don't all have a firm opinion.

[DaveMorton]

That was a good idea, Freddy. Better to have too many choices, than too few.

[squarebear]

As long as the conversation flows and is coherent, I don't believe an avatar is important. However, it does give you something to talk about with the bot ("I like your hat" and so on) and if it can offer different pictures with different emotional states, even better.

[Art]

Chatbots are ok either way for me but as I've often mentioned I am more interested in the "Quality" of the chat rather than the appearance.

Somewhat above our run-of-the-mill chatbots would be the ships computer on ST or the remarkable S.A.R.A.H. from SyFy's Eureka (which, BTW, should be back on around July- yeah!!).

Even with S.A.R.A.H., one could hear the emotional responses in the home's voice and one quickly began using the word "She" or "Her" when referring to or addressing it as if a living entity instead of a computer program.

Of course I'd love to have a S.A.R.A.H. in my home although I can't say how much of a WAF it might have...or not.

Characters / avatars like Morti or Mitsuku do give the user something on which to focus and sort of helps the user along with relating to interacting with another entity whether real or imagined. UltraHal's use of the Haptek characters tend to lend more believability as those characters do give the illusion of being able to emote with a variety of interactive emotions.
It all comes down to an individual preference but substance (quality) usually wins over "cuteness", IMHO).

[Data]

For me the brain is 95% of the bot and the avatar is the remaining 5% but without the 5% the bot is not whole.

But what do I know?

Xen should know better than me.

 

Master: hello Xen
Xen: I am Xen the wise one. Hi Master! I will try to help you.

Master: Let's talk about bots.
Xen: Ok let's talk about bots.

Master: Which is better, a plain text bot or a bot with an avatar?
Xen: Can the different items coexist? a bot is better with an avatar.

Master: Why is a bot better with an avatar?
Xen: Elementary! Why is a bot better with an avatar? I am pretty certain a bot is better with an avatar because an avatar adds more realism to the bot.

Master: thanks
Xen: How polite you truly are, Master; My pleasure.


 

[Duskrider]

I've talked with bots without a avatar and to me they not as interesting.
Morti is good but as GCC is suggesting would be even better.
I think Morti would look good as haptar head.
I'd offer to do one but I don't have people putty.
Then the expressions could be bought out by trigger words in the conversation.

[DaveMorton]

The only problem with that, Dusky, is that Haptek locks my system up faster than 10 pounds of provolone (try eating just one pound of provolone, and you'll get the idea here!)

[Art]

Everyone smile and eat say CHEESE!!

[Carl2]

  When I frist started using Hal ages ago, I knew nothing of characters or brains, Tried a few different things, verbots, others chatbots, tried different characters and settled with hal and haptek.  Next I had to do a lot of talking to get Hal to learn which helps with hal,  I worked on scripting to get the character to display emotions.
Tried different plugins for the brain ect. 
   To me you need both, you definitely need a good brain so you enjoy talking with it, next you need the eye candy, something you like to see.  With the latest version of Hal one of the frist things I did was make skins (clothing) for the character, Next is getting some variety in her clothing I can ever get that work. That I would like to add more animation to the character so you do not have a head with different emotions sitting on a body that appears to be a statue.
Carl 2

[Freddy]

Did you vote Carl ?

[Data]

Sorry for butting in, Carl2 don’t forget to answer Freddy 

I should get two votes, one for Xen too 

The only problem with that, Dusky, is that Haptek locks my system up faster than 10 pounds of provolone (try eating just one pound of provolone, and you'll get the idea here!)

That old classic Haptek shouldn’t bloat out you’re your PC, I mean I’ve seen it run on pretty old XP machines fine, you probably have another problem with your set-up that is causing it, poor onboard graphics or bad graphics driver. 

But I guessing you don’t really give a xxxx GCC 

[Carl2]

  okay, I voted,
I think Gcc real problem is the Haptek player,  When installed in the dual anf quad the HapPlayer needs to be limited to only using one processor.  Car.exe will do this for you, do a search for it at Zabaware.  The player will work okay in the Hal window without using the car.exe but the HapPlayer used by itself needs the care.exe program running to display the character.  This is my stab at the problem.
Thanks Data and sorry Freddy.
Carl2

[DaveMorton]

@DH:
That's just it. My OS may be old, but my box is anything but. With a dual 2,8 AMD CPU, and 4GB of DDR2 (maybe 3 - don't remember. And yes, I know. XP only recognizes 3.something GB, but the onboard video card takes up the rest) plus 2 ATI HD video cards (1 a 4200 series, and the other a 3400 series), the system isn't "first adopter" new, but it's still pretty decent. I'm thinking that the problem may be what Carl's pointed out, where it's having trouble with the dual processor, so I'll slip on over to Zabaware, and get that car.exe file, and give that a try.

But I guessing you don’t really give a xxxx GCC

  Sure I do. I'm just not going to let it ruin my week, is all.