Installing the toolkit

• After the download is complete, start the installer. It might take some time for the installer window to show up during the extraction process. If you have trouble opening the installer from your browser, please go to the actual folder you downloaded to the installer to, and open it manually from there.
• Click Next and select the location in which to install the toolkit. The default is c:\vhtoolkit. Be aware that any existing files will be overwritten by new files, while no files will be deleted. To ensure a completely clean installation, it is therefore recommended to first delete any old installation of the toolkit. Be sure to backup any personal data first.
• Click Next and select which components to install. It is recommended to install all components (default option).
• Click Next and select which 3rd party components to install. Users should install all user software, developers should install all 3rd party software. 3rd party software only needs to be installed the first time the toolkit is installed, or when the toolkit has updated to using a newer version of the 3rd party software.
• Click Next and select whether to set some environment variables. This is only necessary for developers, and only the first time the toolkit is installed.
• Click Install. All files will be copied to the selected location, after which third party software will either be copied, or their installers launched.
• After the installation is complete, one can choose to run the Launcher on exit.

If you run into any problems, please see the FAQ for possible solutions.

Running the Example Character Brad

• If you checked the "Run Virtual Human Toolkit Launcher" option at the end of the installation, the launcher will begin automatically. Otherwise, use "run-launcher.bat" in your installation folder ("c:\vhtoolkit" by default).
• The launcher allows users to launch and kill entire scenarios or a subset of the needed components. See the Launcher documentation for more detail.
• In order to launch all components needed for Brad, click the Launch button in the Run Checked row, under the Run It All section. Be sure to quickly click OK in the settings window that will pop up.
• All kinds of windows will now pop up. After a while all the rows in the Launcher that have a checked check box should be green. If all of them are orange, make sure ActiveMQ is running. If a few are orange, try to load those manually.
• When all modules are up and running correctly, select the VHToolkitGB window (the renderer, Gamebryo), and AcquireSpeech, a Java program. These are the only two windows you need in order to interact with Brad.
• In AcquireSpeech, go to the Player tab, type in a question in the Text field and hit Enter or click Send. Try saying "hello", for example. Brad should greet you back. You should hear him talk and his lips should be moving. As the toolkit is currently not providing many animations, he might come across as a bit static, although he should be moving his body a little bit. For short answers he might not use any gestures, for longer answers Brad is more likely to gesture. Blinking is currently disabled. You can ask Brad high level questions about the toolkit and himself. Brad is not meant to be an online tutor on how to use the toolkit. If he does not answer some of your questions, we would love to hear which ones.

Notes:

• A renderer needs to be up and running before SmartBody starts. Both Gamebryo and Ogre will present you with a small settings window in which you can change settings like resolution. By default, all modules wait for 15 seconds on the renderer before starting. This means you need to quickly select OK in order for the renderer to start loading. If the renderer has not finished loading before all other modules start, go to the Launcher, kill the renderer and SmartBody, and manually launch the renderer again. This time, wait till it has finished loading and then launch Smartbody.
• You can disable the Gamebryo settings window from popping up by checking "Do not show this dialog again". If you have changed the settings, also check "Save settings" so that the next time Gamebryo loads, it has your preferred settings. You can get the settings window back by deleting "c:\svn_vhtoolkit_trunk\core\vhtoolkitGB\AppSettings.ini".
• For better graphics, try increasing the resolution or the multisampling. The latter will show Brad with less hard edges. To do this, click Advanced and select a value from the Multisampling drop down menu. 2 or 4 multisamples should provide a noticeable difference.
• If the graphics seem sluggish, select the Gamebryo window and hit the Z key on your keyboard. This will show the framerate at the top left of the screen. If this is low (under 20 to 30 frames per second), select the '-' key (minus, next to zero) on your keyboard to disable dynamic shadows. This should improve the framerate considerably, although the graphics will look a lot less good. We are currently working on a happy medium.
• If you run into any problems, please see the FAQ for possible solutions.