Haptek, the developers of Virtual Friend software, invented the word "COOL."
All you have to do is download their free demo to see if I am right.
Virtual Friend creates an immersive experience with
a 3D interactive animated character of your choosing. The company's mascot is Roswell, a
friendly, talkative alien who teaches you how to use Virtual Friend software. He/she jokes
with you, calls you by your name, waits for your typed responses and responds accordingly.
Roswell even serenades you with "Summer Time" and "Happy Birthday."
The animation is astounding: rendering is done in real-time, lip synching to words is
perfect, and the voice does not sound mechanical. As you go through the demo, Roswell even
morphs into multiple characters, some humanoid and some not. In fact, there is a separate
training module led by two photo-realistic chimpanzees that will tickle you as they teach
you.
If you want to create your own creature, it's easy. You merely pick a face, change a
texture, select a shape and start typing what you want it to say. Instantly your creation
comes alive and interacts with you.
Now apart from the sheer entertainment value of this software (we played with it for
hours on end), it has many other business uses. First, there is an entire programming
system behind the demo which can be unlocked once you pay a nominal license fee. Secondly,
you can send an email message using these creatures to others. Lastly, you can embed these
creatures into your web site to entertain, amuse, and instruct your visitors.
Don't mistake this software as a toy. It's far more clever and feature-rich than that.
And the future even looks brighter for Haptek when they promise to put 3D animation and
authoring into the hands of the rest of us mortals by mid-2000.
The folks at Haptek are extraordinarily
accomodating. Their technical support team and management are very responsive which is
unusual for a small technology company. No doubt this consideration of their users coupled
with their incredibly innovative technology makes them the darling of the Internet and the
entertainment industry. Already they are being beseiged by the likes of Sony, Intel, and
Columbia Tri-star to create virtual characters for web sites and custom applications. In
fact, if you visit www.stuartlittle.com you can
see their work in action as a Haptek-generated Stuart attempts to dunk Snowball the cat.
You will be playing this game for hours.
Companies can use this software to provide business and academic training.
Computer-based training never looked so good. Ergo
Linguistics presently offers an English course using Roswell. And other companies are
rushing to add personalized 3D characters to their corporate web sites even as we speak.
And the really great thing about Haptek software is that even their web-based animation
looks great as it streams across the web into your browser using their thin plug-in.
While there are a few other companies who can provide animated cartoon characters which
resemble Microsoft Agents, nothing quite compares to the magical experience provided by
Haptek's Virtual Friend software. Visit their site today to download the demo. We bet
you'll be registering your software within an hour of playing with it. Go there now.
