Release Notes

0.9.58.11441, Aug 23 2022

Release notes:

  • Updated 3rd party installer to be compatible with both Windows 10 and 11
  • Updated Unity to 2022.1.0f1
0.9.56.11300, Jan 14 2020

Release notes:

  • Updated Unity to 2019.2.1f1
0.9.54.11006, Nov 17 2018

Release notes:

  • Updated Unity to 2018.2.2f1
  • Fixed ExampleSpeechRecognition
0.9.52.9101, Jul 26, 2017

Release notes:

  • Unity
    • Updated Unity to 2017.1.0f3
    • DebugConsole and DebugInfo components have been converted to uGUI.

  • Fixed VHBuilder loading scenario bug
  • Added python version of VHMsg
  • vhAssets

    • Updated to latest version
    • Moved example project from \lib to \core
    • Re-organized vhassets folder structure. This was done to better split out functionality and plugins. With this change, VHMsg and SmartBody can be completely removed from the project by deleting their respective folders. Many other utilities and components were cleaned up as well.

  • Updated SmartBody to latest version
  • A lot of work has been done on our Mecanim versions of our characters. Still work in progress, but an example scene is provided in VHAssets.
  • MultiSense

    • Upgraded to VS2015
    • Upgraded SSI core to newest version
    • Upgraded OpenCV dependency to v.3.1.0
    • Integrated OpenFace module, an opensource software that can provide: 3DHeadpose, 68 facial point tracking, eye gaze, facial action units (AUs -including smile, frown, eyebrows up etc).
    • SSI is now linked dynamically

0.9.50.7842, Jun 6, 2016

Note that there is a new 3rd party installer, which is required for this version of the Toolkit. This installer is included with the download, and can also be downloaded separately.

Release notes:

  • Updated Unity to 5.3
  • vhtoolkitUnity main menu re-written in uGUI
  • vhtoolkitUnity – compiled as 64-bit
  • VS2015 Update 2 support
  • Updated to Java 8u60
  • Mecanim Preview – vhassets level showing Mecanim setup and functionality
  • New version of Multisense.  Multithreaded refactoring.  Removal of Intel license.

Known problems:

  • Microphone icon cannot be toggled invisible
  • Certain characters in the Line-up scene don’t initialize correctly
0.9.48.6023, Jun 13, 2015

Release notes:

  • Unity upgraded to 5.1
    • Bonebus mode no longer needed for Unity Free (SmartBody loads automatically as a plugin, just as it always did with Unity Pro)
    • 32-bit and 64-bit compatible.  Build now creates both sets of libraries.  vhAssetsPackage contains both sets.

  • Added basic character customization for Brad and Rachel in the Character Customizer
  • Updated character and environment art

    • Lighting
    • Shaders

  • Added Unity Asset Store characters
  • Pruned Rapport; ask us directly if you are interested in obtaining Rapport

0.9.46.5754, Feb 2, 2015

Release notes:

  • SB motion sets can now be prefabs, can attach them to character prefabs
  • Upgraded unity to 4.6.1f1
  • Added menu stub preview
  • Added Google Maps API example
  • Lineup characters can be loaded individually; still need content work
0.9.45.5594, Sep 17, 2014

Release notes:

  • Fixed Bonebus, allowing SmartBody to run as a stand-alone process, which is required to use the free Unity version
0.9.44.5560, Aug 28, 2014

Release notes:

  • Updated SmartBody
  • Updated Unity to 4.5
  • New vhtoolkitUnity loading/menu screen
  • vhtoolkitUnity source pruned from released, binary executable still available.  vhAssets source remains as VHToolkit example
  • MultiSense subcomponents now dynamically linked
  • Compiles as 64-bit under Windows, still experimental
  • Updated java to 1.6.0_45

0.9.42.5141, Nov 11, 2013

Release notes:

  • Fixed cross-platform issues; Unity projects now build and run on OS X, iOS, and Android again
  • Added tech preview of OS X version with installer, with major components ported over
  • Added several background characters
  • Upgraded Unity to 4.2
  • Replaced VisemeSchedulerSox by VisemeSchedulerSphinx4; improves TTS lip synching
  • Fixed various VHBuilder and Character Customizer bugs
  • Removed some 3rd party dependencies, swing-layout, absolutelayout, appframework, piccolo, rsyntaxarea, npceditor jars
  • Removed VHTSpeechRecorder
  • Removed C++ NVBG
  • Moved Charniak parser to its own folder (core\charniak)
  • Updated SmartBody to using Boost 1.51 and Python 2.7

Known issues:

  • CC video does not always record correctly
  • Various OS X issues, including Unity not loading in windowed mode, characters responding slowly, characters not gesturing and TTS not yet implemented

0.9.40.4298, Aug 8, 2013

Release notes:

  • Character Customizer fixes
  • VHBuilder fixes
  • 3rd Person Perspective view
  • Multisense demo fixed
  • TTSRelay startup delay fixed
  • Installers now have 3rd party installer bundled
  • Crash fixed in pocket-sphinx-sonic-server

Known issues:

  • OSX and mobile builds broken

0.9.38.4200, Jul 25, 2013

Release notes:

  • Added Character Customizer tool
  • Added VHMsg Lisp
  • Added online motion retargeting
  • Added support for Oculus Rift
  • Significant Machimina Maker fixes and features
  • Ogre viewer works again
  • New installer (.zip + .exe + .dat)
  • Updated to the newest SmartBody
  • Updated to newest version of Unity
  • Updated to newest ActiveMQ version (activemq server and java components)

Known issues:

  • OSX and mobile builds broken
0.9.36.3626, Apr 4 2013
  • Bonebus fixes (works again in Unity Free)
  • TtsRelay fixes when run on a clean install
  • Smartbody fix when running the Unity scene twice in a row
0.9.34.3615, Mar 24 2013
  • VHBuilder fixes
  • Unity 4.1 support
  • Smartbody updated to the trunk
  • Java updated to 1.6.0_43
0.9.32.3585, Mar 6 2013

Release notes:

  • Added VHBuilder tool
  • Added Machinima Maker tool
  • Added Gunslinger characters (Harmony, Pedro, Rio, Utah)
  • Added JustinIct character
  • Improved Locomotion
0.9.30.3444, Feb 12 2013

Release notes:

  • Updated to Unity 4.0.1
  • Fixed bug with java/platform detection on 32-bit OSes.
  • Updated ActiveMQ server installer to include above java fix
  • Added PostLoad event to SmartbodyCharacterInit to do other initializes tasks after the character has been loaded
  • Fixed iOS and OSX builds
  • Added locomotion and reach samples to vhAssets test scene
  • Removed duplication of the .dll’s when building a unity executable, saving disk space.
  • Fixed bug with TTS example button
  • Fixed SBMonitor not connecting correctly
  • Re-organized SBM Window in Unity to be cleaner and more functional
0.9.28.3330, Jan 11 2013

Beta Release. Changes:

  • Updated to Unity 4
  • Updated to Ogre 1.8.1
  • Java JRE and JDK now included with the distribution.  Java is no longer an external 3rd party dependency
  • Added SmartbodyFaceDefinition and SmartbodyJointMap classes for attaching to characters (instead of hard-coded in SmartbodyManager),  Further simplifies character creation.
  • Smartbody assets can now be individually loaded to improve load times.  This improves mobile apps as well as adding potential improvements to desktop apps’ experience for loading multiple scenes
0.9.26.3174, Oct 31 2012

Beta Release. Changes:

  • The Toolkit now includes 2 scenes which the users can toggle (house/campus)
  • Users can now interact with 2 characters, one male and one female, at once in the ‘campus’ scene
  • Character setup in Unity is now just a drag and drop feature and setting them up is much easier
  • Mixamo characters have been added to the available assets and can now be setup as SmartBody characters in Unity; note that these characters are not yet able to talk, a feature that will be added in the future
  • New character and environment art, including new suite of animations
  • New festival CMU arctic voices have been added for use with the Festival TTS engine
  • NVBG now supports multiple characters in one process
  • NVBG now supports config files for character setup and also VHMsgs for individual character behaviors (idle-fidgets, gazes, saliency, xml rule-file)
  • New response modes of the characters to MultiSense have been added: mirroring and gaze following
  • Updated documentation for the Toolkit
0.9.24.817, July 11 2012

Beta Release. Changes:

  • Fixed minor Ogre/Unity/SB integration issues
  • Fixed issue with SBMonitor where character’s would not correctly be displayed in the render view
  • Updated Unity to version 3.5.3
  • Separated Unity package build from vhtoolkit
0.9.22.782, May 31 2012

Beta Release. Changes:

  • Added and integrated new vision components (in collaboration with the Multicomp Lab), including FAAST library (in association with the Mixed Reality Lab)
  • Kinect functionality requires Kinect redist. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/develop/overview.aspx
  • Added Rapport research platform
  • Added SBMonitor tool for interfacing with the smartbody library within your renderer
  • Updated to VS2010
  • Updated to Ogre 1.7.4
  • Updated to Unity 3.5.2
  • Removed log4cxx as a dependency
  • FbxViewer renamed to FbxPrint. FbxConverter renamed to FbxToSBConverter

Known issues:

  • MultiSense does not currently conform to vrKillComponent message which means it does not get killed from the launcher and turns yellow when the users tries to kill from the launcher.
  • Rapport components don’t send out a vrProcEnd message, so the Launcher tool lines will remain orange
  • All behaviors for Rapport have been turned on and could interfere with each other
0.9.20.664, March 2 2012

Beta release. Changes:

  • Updated to Unity 3.5
  • Improved Unity / SmartBody debug tools (VH Window in Unity Editor, etc.)
  • Added FBX converter, so that non-Maya art assets can be loaded with SmartBody
  • Added secondary camera speed, hold SHIFT while moving
  • Preview of SBM Debugger
0.9.18.601, December 22 2011

Beta release. Changes:

  • Brad can now be interrupted while he is talking
  • Brad’s intro can now be toggled on/off in the Launcher (delete ‘-intro’ from the text field in the Renderer line)
  • Added support for setting Unity resolution and full screen toggle in Launcher
  • Added a Saliency Map to NVBG, allowing characters to have knowledge of objects in their surroundings, which is used for idle glances
  • Implemented saccaddes (rapid eye movement)
  • Fixed an issue with text-to-speech not properly working
  • Added a new module, TTSRelay, which combines all interfaces to the various text-to-speech engines
  • Added initial python interface to SmartBody
  • Capped Unity frame rate at 60 FPS
  • Removed all Gamebryo related files
0.9.16.464, August 10 2011

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added support for the free, basic version of Unity 3D, allowing developers to create their own scenes with the Unity Editor. See the toolkit documentation on how to use Unity: https://uscict.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/VHTK/pages/14581906/vhtoolkitUnity. See the Unity website for downloads:http://unity3d.com/.
  • Upgraded toolkit to use version 3.4 of Unity 3D.
  • Unity now starts in full screen mode. Default resolution is 1280×1024; this can be changed in the Unity console (~ key) with ‘set_resolution x y’.
  • Improved interaction through full-screen Unity; added visual icon for when mouse click allows verbal interaction with microphone (toggle with M key); added visual feedback for how speech has been recognized (toggle with O key); add full GUI toggle (P key).
  • Added basic lip sync solution for pre-recorded audio.
  • Implemented component launch order dependency support in Launcher; split up launch of ASR server (PocketSphinx) and client (AcquireSpeech).
  • Re-engineered AcquireSpeech to offer more flexibility in setup and usage.
  • Added interface improvements to NPCEditor for more visual feedback about internal workings.
  • Minor tweaks and fixes with Brad verbal interaction.
  • Fixed culling problem with Brad’s hands.
  • Updated 3rd party software version requirements (included in 3rd party installer versions):
    • ActiveMQ Server 5.4.2
    • Java Runtime JRE 6 update 26

0.9.14.334, May 4 2011

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added prerecorded speech. Brad is now configured such that he will automatically use prerecorded audio files, but will fall back to the Text-To-Speech solution when no audio file for the given line is present. Questions that purposefully trigger TTS responses are:
    • “Can you demo text to speech?”
    • “Can you demonstrate TTS?”
    • “Can you speak like a robot?

  • You can now interact with Brad through Unity, in addition to the AcquireSpeech client. You can type in questions in the text box, which can toggled with the L key. You can also use a microphone to talk to Brad, after you toggle to speech mode with the M key (you can see if you’re in speech mode if the mouse cursor has disappeared; we’ll make this clearer in a future release). When using the microphone, hold the left mouse button while asking your question, and release when you’re done, just like a walky talky.
  • Brad will now introduce himself and the toolkit on startup.
  • Unity is now the default renderer for the toolkit. This means Gamebryo is now deprecated and will not receive subsequent updates. It will likely be removed in a future release of the toolkit. Ogre will remain available, but only as an open source example; it will be unsupported and will not receive any feature updates.
  • Improved the lighting of Brad’s scene in Unity.
  • The Logger will now always launch by default.
  • Installer options have been simplified.
Known issues:

  • When launching Unity in full screen, Java application like AcquireSpeech may crash. This is due to a conflict of the renderer and Java both trying to get the DirectX device, and Java not gracefully failing.
  • Brad sounds fairly soft. This is due to using 3D localized sound, and the camera being quite far from Brad. For now, please turn up the volume of your speakers / Windows sound.
0.9.12.258, March 28 2011

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added SmartBody locomotion, resulting in Brad being able to walk around with the T, G, F and H keys. See the SmartBodysection for more detailed information.
  • Added SmartBody Data and BML viewers, allowing developers to take a more in-depth look at SmartBody’s internal workings. See the SmartBody section for more detailed information.
  • Added subtitles for Brad in all three renderers.
  • Changed user ID from ‘brad’ to ‘user’ in both AcquireSpeech as well as NPCEditor order to avoid confusion. This change may require existing users of the toolkit to manually delete their local NPCEditor user settings in their Windows application data director. See the NPCEditor FAQ for details on how to do this.
  • There are now 4 installer versions, offering choice in full or binary-only, and with or without 3rd party software. For users, the functionality is exactly the same for all versions. Developers might want to download the full toolkit, instead of the binary-only version.
    • Full toolkit, plus all 3rd party software
    • Full toolkit
    • Binary and data only toolkit, plus all 3rd party software
    • Binary and data only toolkit

0.9.10.201, February 25 2011

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added Unity version of Brad. Select the Unity profile from the Launcher to use. Developers that want to use Unity with Virtual Human Toolkit need Unity Pro, since SmartBody is linked in as a DLL.
  • Changed the default voice for Brad to a Festival voice. This results in Brad no longer sounding like a woman in Windows Vista and 7. The quality of the voice leaves something to be desired; we are currently looking for better alternatives. You can still change the voice back to MS SAPI by selecting MSSpeechRelay in the Text to Speech line in the Launcher. You can also change the voice or the TTS engine, as described here.
  • Added debug console to Gamebryo. Use ~ to open, type help for currently supported commands.
  • Various bug fixes and general improvements in SmartBody, NPCEditor and Logger.
0.9.9.137, October 8 2010

Beta release. Changes:

  • Bug fixes for NPCEditor
  • Added tool (jasr) to create language models for use with pocketsphinx-sonic-server
  • Updates and fixes to SmartBody
0.9.7.107, September 17 2010

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added FestivalRelay, an open source text to speech relay based on the Festival text to speech engine.
  • Several improvements, updates and bug fixes for SmartBody, Nonverbal Behavior Generator, Gamebryo, NPCEditor and Launcher.
0.9.5.93, July 28 2010

Beta release. Changes:

  • Changed installer to not set JAVA_HOME environment variable. All Java programs now point to the default Java version, on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows OS’s. Users can set JAVA_HOME to override this. Note that the toolkit only supports Java 32-bit.
0.9.5.92, July 9 2010

Beta release. Changes:

  • Added speech recognition, use the Start button in the AcquireSpeech module (speech client) to use.
  • Added example questions in AcquireSpeech module, see Player tab.
  • Integrated SmartBody with Gamebryo, which is now one process; there’s no need launch SmartBody separately. Ogre and SmartBody are still two processes.
  • Added Launcher profiles for Gamebryo and Ogre. Default is Gamebryo.
  • Minimized background windows on start-up.
  • Improved Nonverbal Behavior Generator output.
  • Improved SmartBody realization of requested behavior and added debug tools.
  • Improved animations.
  • Improved NPCEditor user interface.
  • Improved Launcher functionality and usablity.
  • Improved Logger functionality and usability.
  • Updated 3rd party requirements:
    • Visual Studio 2008 Redistributable
    • .NET Framework 3.5 Redistributable
    • DirectX Redistributable (August 2009)
    • jre-6u20-windows-i586 ( Java runtime environment – Java SE 6 Update 20)
    • apache-activemq-5.3.0.1
    • jdk-6u20-windows-i586 – ( Java development kit – Java SE 6 Update 20)
    • apache-ant-1.8.1

0.9.4.58, January 27 2010

Beta release. Changes:

  • Windows 7 is now supported. Note that due to non-backwards compatibility of the Microsoft SAPI interface in Windows 7, lip synching is likely off. This issue is being looked into.
  • Improved GUI for NPCEditor.
  • Improved art assets.
  • Updates and fixes in SmartBody, VHGB libraries and renderers, including improvements to how coordinate systems and units are handled.
  • Improved NPCEditor content (plist); changed ‘I’ in ‘I C T’ to ‘EYE’ to avoid having Brad point at himself, included topics regarding background in Gamebryo.
0.9.2.42, December 10 2009

First public beta.