[Freddy]

Ok Carl, keep at it and good luck with your experiments..

[Carl2]

Freddy,
  Just to keep you informed, I'm still working with body_female, Just tried loading her with torso noise into the Hal program, she loads but the noise is not present which I swore I had working,  I went back to the Hap explorer and loaded my modified htr
#HaptekSDK Version= 1.0  HeaderLines= 2 HapType= command FileType= text
#Name= haptek_scene Icon= [ websters_icon ]

\load   [file= data\body_female\body_femaleDef.hap]
\load [file= [D:\Hal X\SavedThis\FBC\Body_F\body_femaleStartup.hap]]
#\load [file= [D:\Hal X\SavedThis\FBC\Body_F\LoadSn.hap]]
\load   [file= data\body_female\TorsoNoise4.hap]

This loads the character with the torso noise,  I'm pretty sure loading the original uncompressed htr takes to long for the files to uncompress so the Torsonoise hap will not work.  Another interesting  side effect is since I'm using uncompressed files the files do not appear in the Hap_temp directory,
and in the explorer. 
Carl2

[Freddy]

The Player uncompresses htr files into the hap_temp folder.  The only files that end up in hap_temp are those that are uncompressed from an htr/haptar file.  Dropping other files or loading them into the player does not make them appear in hap_temp.

HapExplorer scans the hap_temp folder to see what files have been packaged with the models (these appear in the 'built in' drop down lists), so unless there is something in there it won't show anything.

I hope that helps.

I think you are probably right about the files taking too long to load.  Those load commands will be executed as soon as the player can do them and with no preferences.  In that process it may mean your noise commands are not getting done after the model fully loads.  One thing I can suggest off the top of my head is to use the \clock command to time the loads, but I don't think that's a perfect solution.

[Carl2]

Freddy,
  I read something about the problem I'm having in the Haptek SDK and thay did offer a solution, if I can get it to work.  Right now I'm in an in between state, I have the uncompressed files I can modify and load but I'm still working on them. At the same time I'm working on lighting and skins. I'm hoping to choose the setting I think are right and change the files to load the corrected settings that I like.  It would be nice if the  compressor worked backwards and could make the files into a htr.
  Really didn't mean to take you off your work and thanks for the help.
Carl2

[Freddy]

Yes it would be nice if the compression worked backwards, but alas we have to buy HapTargh for that...

Good luck again and you weren't taking me away from my work, I was happy to try and help

[turtlekid]

Freddy I have been working with Explorer foe about 4 or 5 weeks (old and hard headed) I like it real well. Useing it to find out  ways to move. Thanks and kept up the good work Thanks

[Freddy]

Thanks TurtleKid, it makes all the difference to hear that people find it useful.  Thanks for letting me know and I am glad you like it  .

[Freddy]

While I am down here muddying the waters...if any of the other members who have downloaded the program would be so kind as to tell me if they found it useful then it would make me very happy indeed 

[Chischis]

Bumping this because I've just registered and discovered this software.

I just want to take a full body model, change the skin, then save it as an HTR file to use in Ultra Hal.  How do I do this?  I can change the skin in Hap Explorer, but can't work out how to save the file back.  I would appreciate any help you guys can give.

[Freddy]

To make new HTR files you will need to buy some software from Haptek.  My program only allows you to 'explore' HTR files and play around with skins, settings and things like that - there is no way of creating new ones.  I'm guessing you know about dragging and dropping skins onto a character...  You could also use HAP files (called from within the HAL brain file) to load the appropriate skin once your fullbody has loaded, obviously that is going to take a little work on coding.  But if you want an all-in-one HTR file then it means spending some money at Haptek.

Hope that helps.

[Chischis]

To make new HTR files you will need to buy some software from Haptek.  My program only allows you to 'explore' HTR files and play around with skins, settings and things like that - there is no way of creating new ones.  I'm guessing you know about dragging and dropping skins onto a character...  You could also use HAP files (called from within the HAL brain file) to load the appropriate skin once your fullbody has loaded, obviously that is going to take a little work on coding.  But if you want an all-in-one HTR file then it means spending some money at Haptek.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Freddy, I guess I can live without having a recompiled HTR file if there's another method, but I've only had Hal for a few days now, so I'm not sure how to achieve loading a new skin inside Ultra Hal (I've got the full-body HTR of course, and loaded that as a character, but I'd definitely like to change her appearance if I can, hair as well).  Any chance you could point me in the right direction?

[Freddy]

I'm not that familiar with Hal 6.x, I used to play with Hal 5 but I never moved up.  Basically Hal consists of a main program and also a body of VBScript that passes as the 'brains'.  Within that scripting (which you can alter yourself) you can do a lot of tricks.  Your best starting point would probably be to familiarise yourself with the Brain Editor.

On coding a start-up skin...I think a good bet is to ask over on the Zabaware forums, someone there is sure to know how to get it working in Hal 6.  There may already be a plugin you can use too, so I'd search that forum as well.

Sorry I couldn't be more help but I'd rather point you in a good direction than guess on the coding, but it is probably best that you get used to programming Hal before I go any further anyway.  You may find some of the tutorials in the Haptek section here useful at some point.  Also, if you get more involved I recommend downloading the Haptek SDK or the unofficial guide that can also be found in our Haptek tutorial section.

Whatever you do, good luck with it 

P.S. There are plenty of characters, skins, heads and accessories about so you will be able to get a character you like.  Also, things like wigs can be skinned too so there are a lot of options.

[Chischis]

Thanks Freddy.  I guess I'll just have to look for some tutorials.  So far, I'm not getting on with the Brain Editor at all.  Seems rather counter-intuitive at times, clunky, and desperately needs a "doesn't look like it came from a Windows 3.1 app"-makeover.  Verbot's editor is much easier, but it's harder to get Verbot to talk to you at random.  At least Hal has a brain that does this.

[Carl2]

 Chischis
    Just read the last few posts, there is a plugin form Virtual humans that allows you to load fullbody with a different skin, and also has more features for fullbody characters.  I had a problem with the loading of the different skin for the character and found other people had a similar problem.  My solution was to use the uncompressed hap files in the Htr which can be changed without being corrupted.
Carl2

[Freddy]

Is it the plugin on this page Carl ?

http://www.vrconsulting.it/halplugins/vr_hal00.html

It looks like the one to me....here's the help page associated with it too :

http://www.vrconsulting.it/halhelp/vrHaptekHelp.html