You can download characters at http://www.cantoche.com/english/gallery/msagent.htm, or,you can design your own with the Microsoft Agent Character Editor. It is available at http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/.
When you load a character through Microsoft Agent, a "character icon"
appears in the taskbar. If you move your mouse over the icon, a tool
tip appears, telling you the name of the character. Single-clicking the
icon displays the character. When the character is displayed, it is
displayed in it's own window. The user can move the character by
dragging it with the left mouse button. Note:
You do not have to click on the character icon to show the character;
you can also do it in code, how to do that will be shown later.
In addition to the talking, the character displays a word balloon that
shows what is saying, the balloon hides when the character is finished
talking. Note: You can disable the word balloon in the code, how to do that will be shown later.
If speech input is enabled, when the user presses the character's
push-to-talk button on the keyboard, a listening tool tip is displayed
notifying the user that the character is listening. If the character
recognizes something that the user spoke through the microphone, the
listening tool tip displays what the character heard, and if programmed
to, the character will respond. The character will not recognize
anything the user speaks unless it was added as a command to the
character in the code. How to add commands to characters will be shown
later.
Part 2 - Begin using Microsoft Agent
2.1 Loading the Microsoft Agent control
To load the Microsoft Agent control, click on the Tools
toolbar and select Customize Toolbox. Once you are in the Customize
Toolbox dialog, select the COM Components tab, and choose the Microsoft
Agent Control 2.0. Put the Microsoft Agent control on the form and
change its Name property to agtAgent.
If you don't have the Microsoft Agent 2.0 control in your list of COM
Components, you need to download the Microsoft Agent 2.0 SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/msagent
2.2 Loading a character and showing it
To load a character add this code into your Form_Load section.
Dim Character As AgentObjects.IAgentCtlCharacter
Dim sChar As String
Try
' The path to the character file
sChar = "file path"
' Load the character
agtAgent.Characters.Load("CharacterID", sChar)
' Set the "Character" declaration to be the character
' just loaded
Character = agtAgent.Characters("CharacterID")
' Set the character's language to english
Character.LanguageID = &H409
' Show the character
Character.Show()
Catch ex As Exception
MessageBox.Show("Description: " & _
ex.Message, "Error!", MessageBoxButtons.OK, _
MessageBoxIcon.Warning)
End Try
2.3 Getting a character's information
To get a character's name, description, and extra data, add this to your code:
Dim sName As String
Dim sDescription As String
Dim sExtraData As String
sName = Character.Name ' Character's Name property
sDescription = Character.Description ' Character's Description
sExtraData = Character.ExtraData ' Character's ExtraData
2.4 Getting the names of the character's animations
This part uses a ComboBox with the Name cboCombo.
To get the names of the character's animations, add this to your code:
Dim animationName As String
' Clear the ComboBox
cboCombo.Items.Clear()
' Load each animation the currently selected character
' has into the ComboBox
For Each animationName In Character.AnimationNames
cboCombo.Items.Add(animationName)
Next
2.5 Hiding a character
To hide a character, add this to your code.
Part 3 - Make a character talk and play out animations
3.1 Make a character talk
To make a character talk, first, of course, you must load the character
(Chapter 2 shows how to load a character), and then, add this to your
code:
This code will make the character say "Hello".
3.2 Make a character play out an animationTo make a character
play out an animation, first, of course, you need to find out which
animations the character has (Chapter 2 shows how to find out which
animations a character has), and then, add this to your code:
It is good to have error handling here because, if the
character has the "Sad" animation, the character act sad; if the
character doesn't have the Sad animation, an error will be generated.
Part 4 - Movement and gesturing
4.1 Moving a character
To make a character move a character, add this to your code:
This will make the character move to X coordinate 20, and Y coordinate 45.
4.2 Making a character gesture at (point to) certain places
To make a character gesture towards somewhere, add this to your code:
Character.GestureAt(20, 45)
This will make the character gesture at X coordinate 20, and Y coordinate 45.
Part 5 - Speech recognition, unloading, and credits
5.1 Adding commands to a characterCommands are the words or
sentences that the user speaks through the microphone, but, the
character will not recognize any command given by the user unless you
program a command into it. To add a command to your character, add this
to your code:
Character.Commands.Add("LetsGoForLunch.", , _
"Lets go for lunch.", True, False)
5.2 Making a character respond to a command
To make a character respond to the "LetsGoForLunch" command, add this to your code:
Private SubagtAgent_Command(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As AxAgentObjects._AgentEvents_CommandEvent) _
Handles agtAgent.Command
Dim command As AgentObjects.IAgentCtlUserInput = _
CType (e.userInput, AgentObjects.IAgentCtlUserInput)
If command.Name = "LetsGoForLunch" Then
Character.Speak("No thanks, I'm not hungry.")
End If
End Sub
5.3 Making it easier
To make programming commands easier, you can add brackets ([ ]), stars
(*), addition signs (+), and vertical bars (|) into the command Name.
You use the star to specify zero or more instances of the word, like this: "Don't* kill me!"
Don't can be said zero or more times and the character will still recognize it as "Don't kill me!"
You use the vertical bar to let the character know that the word can be
said different ways or that it can be said multiple times, like this:
"Sayev|Save". People with a accent might say "Sayev", while others
would say "Save". You would do it like this so that something could be
said multiple times:
"call (one|two|three|four|five|six|seven|eight|nine|zero)",
This way the person can say "call 123-455-9321" and so on.
You can use the plus sign the same way you use the star, except with the plus sign its one or more instances of the word.
You can use brackets to tell the character that a person can say a
word, but they don't have to, like this: "(hello|hi [there])", this
means that the person doesn't have to say "there", and they can say a
combination of "hello there", or "hi there", or "hello", and so on.
5.4 Unloading the character
Unloading the character is extremely simple:
agtAgent.Characters.Unload("CharacterID")
5.5 Closing
Now you should have a basic knowledge of how to use Microsoft Agent; so
why don't you email me and tell me what you think. How was the
tutorial? Was there something more you wanted to learn? I want to know.
5.6 Something else you should get: AgentX
AgentX is my "Agent Character Previewer", a full, object-oriented
example on how to use Microsoft Agent 2.0 in Visual Basic .Net. You
should download it from Planet-Source-Code. |