Putting a (Sometimes) Pretty Face on the Web
If you've ever wanted your Web conversations to be a little more animated, you might want to check out some software from Haptek: You can manipulate VirtualFriends that resemble talking aliens, animals, clowns, and even a talking hamburger.
The software works with Ergo
Linguistic Technologies' Chatterbox language-parsing software, which will give the character the intelligence to answer questions, as well as just reciting a script. The characters are highly detailed and do not resemble the cartoon-like characters that work with most agents.
The digitized animations include voices that you can switch, and whose pitch and speed you can change. The characters can morph into other characters, and can be "aware" of the presence of other characters, so that they face each other when addressing them, and so on. The characters can speak written text, or the text box below the image can serve as captioning for the spoken words.
VirtualFriends are available as a free download or in two license versions. The free download includes three characters, some scenes, automatic emotions, and computer generated "wisdom."
