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MikuChatbox

Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
So I'm sure that most, if not at least many, of you have heard about this thing called Gatebox.
(If you have no clue what I am talking about look it up on Google or something)
Anyways, what's your opinion on it overall? How about the collab between CFM/Piapro and Gatebox with the Hatsune Miku "Living With" project?
Heck, look at DECO*27 swagging out with a Gatebox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ0ZFu1Qr8A

Most importantly (getting to the crux here), my weebness has obviously dragged my interest in programming and the occasional music-making into this. Knowing that I will never be able to afford one or have the willpower to spend that much money (298,000 yen / $2600 .-.), I've decided a couple weeks ago that I would begin making a prototype of a freeware version of something like this that you would run on a computer instead of a standalone machine. If that became a reality, how excited would you guys be?

Just gauging for interest here. :ia_chickadee:
 
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maple

russian translator
Apr 18, 2018
69
Russia
Would you program Artificial Intelligence? It is hard task. Besides, you should make visible moving of figure.
It is doubtful that you will capture Miku's spirit there. : )
(Spirit in machine, he...)
 
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hamano

ミクさんマジ天使
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
1,789
31
mobile.twitter.com
Indeed it is a huge task. Would you make it just a chat buddy or include other features of Gatebox too? Alarm clock is simple to program I believe, and reading weather forecasts etc., but what about stuff like connectivity with your phone and so on?

Also I'm concerned about the fact that Gatebox probably wouldn't be too happy about someone copying what they've developed. So basically you'd need to develop everything by yourself and make it different than Gatebox. While I'm very much interested and I wish I'd afford a Miku Gatebox myself, I still wouldn't want something that could be considered leaning towards being illegal or even just shady.
Especially with Miku I'm very sensitive when it comes to stuff like bootlegging and piracy. For example, if someone offered me a bootleg Miku figure for free, I wouldn't take it just because it's not the real deal.
So basically my concern is the legal (and ethic) side of your intentions. Are you going to develop something that's only a bit similar to Gatebox or try to replicate it?
 
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Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
@ZAR-PARTY Yeah, Miku's voice is the one part that I know I will struggle with — since I have to render *each and every audio file* of Miku's responses to requests. My plan is to use English for a earlier version, and once I've progressed past a point where I feel it's "acceptable", move onto Japanese (I am fluent in it, but it's just that the language processing is drastically different).

@maple Artificial intelligence... hehe, I've already been doing research into that for a good half-year and I believe I can make something as simple as a chatbot within hours. Think about it, from what I've seen Gatebox is just a chatbot with voice recognition and an auditory response. Visible moving figures... I took a summer course on 3D modeling and I can probably pick it up again and use Autodesk Maya for that task.

@hamano My original idea was (not miku-related) a smart assistant to do things such as run a complicated command in Terminal or open a specific email inbox (I have a ton of them). But then I realized I am a weeb (:len_lili:) and proposed this idea. Regarding legitimacy and legal problems, I feel like this project is more of a test for myself to just see how far I can get with my own skills while making something that heck, I might use myself. Since (if I remember correctly) Miku's figure is CC BY-NC and this is purely for fun and I do not plan to monetize this, I doubt this will be a problem for me. Hey, Miku is already built upon fandom, why not add more?
Also, my image of the final product isn't likely going to end up being similar to Gatebox since I won't get a chance to look at one (ever). I just felt like I would do a simple Vocaloid-themed chatbot that when you get bored you can ask to play music on Spotify or recommend a new Vocaloid song or something.

Also, although I do have a lot of knowledge (trying not to brag :p) in programming, I only have limited knowledge in shipping software, so I probably will keep this Mac-only for a while. Sorry Windows people, I respect you guys but I just can't do it. (Unless someone knows how to mess with py2exe)

Thanks for the replies btw!
 
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hamano

ミクさんマジ天使
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
1,789
31
mobile.twitter.com
Thanks for explaining further. Miku as a character is indeed free to use for non-commercial purposes. My concern was solely the Gatebox resemblance. Maybe it was just me, but your choice of words in the original post gave me some wrong impressions (especially when you were talking about a "freeware version" of Gatebox). Thanks for clearing that up!
Your project sounds interesting and I hope to hear more!
 

Jikyusan

Producer in Training
Apr 8, 2018
34
26
USA
jikyusan.carrd.co
So I'm sure that most, if not at least many, of you have heard about this thing called Gatebox.
(If you have no clue what I am talking about look it up on Google or something)
Anyways, what's your opinion on it overall? How about the collab between CFM/Piapro and Gatebox with the Hatsune Miku "Living With" project?
Heck, look at DECO*27 swagging out with a Gatebox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ0ZFu1Qr8A

Most importantly (getting to the crux here), my weebness has obviously dragged my interest in programming and the occasional music-making into this. Knowing that I will never be able to afford one or have the willpower to spend that much money (298,000 yen / $2600 .-.), I've decided a couple weeks ago that I would begin making a prototype of a freeware version of this that you would run on a computer instead of a standalone machine. If that became a reality, how excited would you guys be?

Just gauging for interest here. :ia_chickadee:
Well, I'm interested to see what the outcome will be in the future. Sadly, I don't have a Mac but I hope there will be a way for you to create a Windows version the future. It would be cool if it was also an interactive phone app and/or companion app(Sorry, the app idea does sound a bit like Gatebox) that interacts with the computer when you're away. Hopefully, you could find a way to make it more interactive then Gatebox (while keeping it free).
 

Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
Recently I've been hard at work (? grinding at maimai machines *cough) to get a release of the software done; and at long last, a relatively functional version of the program (which I am going to call MikuChatbox) is out! However, be warned that this is a very early pre-release for what's actually in stock for y'all later, so any inconsistencies and potential unexpected behaviors has likely already been brought to my attention and I am working to fix it ASAP, although it wouldn't hurt for you guys to spam me with bug reports.

You can access MikuChatbox at http://miku.jerrybibo.com.

Thanks for the support! This is probably the one project that I haven't given up within a week of me starting it. And feel free to suggest any features, whether it be technical or just another built-in response you would like to see (DM me).
 
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Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
tl;dr: A system overhaul is in place. Check out miku.jerrybibo.com again, changes are live now.

1. What? Why?
- Previously I have coded all of the software for MikuChatbox in Python 3, which may have required additional downloads and complicated setups and all that fun *cough* stuff. And that wasn't good enough. I thought that it was bad practice to make end users go and download a crap ton of stuff without knowing what they're doing to their computers. So I threw that away. (ok I didn't, but I made it better.)
2. So where?
- miku.jerrybibo.com, instead of being a redirect to my developer blog (it will still be there; miku.jerrybibo.com/blog) will now lead you to the all-new, website-embedded MikuChatbox (shoutout to Google's Dialogflow for making everything simple). It will all be self-explanatory from there.
This update will be in place in around 6 to 8 weeks 1 or 2 days.


The update has been implemented. Go ahead and visit the website for an updated look.
Sorry for those on mobile. You're gonna start having nightmares about that squished miku on the bottom right. ... I'll fix that soon. promise.

Feel free to bombard me with any questions you may have.
Also, shoutout to @Move->Forward and @GreenFantasy64 for helping out with the dialog specifications and intent development.
Spoiler:
you might be able to text Miku on your phone later. Like, text to an actual number and she'll reply. #TwilioAPI
...I need a real girlfriend lol
 
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Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
I'm gonna keep this post spot here as a changelog.
v0.1: nothing much. just starting off. You can use voice recognition, which is cool.
- Implemented change of platform; now hosted on Google's Dialogflow API
- Embedded into webpage
- Got rid of Miku's voice for now. Sorry, I gotta figure this out soon (cuz that was my point.)
v0.2: trying to catch my breath from the conversation implementation
- A Japanese chatbot is in the works. I'll try and get it up @ http://miku.jerrybibo.com/jp.html in the next 1-2 days.
 
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Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
How do you feed/teach a chatbot? Most of the time she only responds "Can you say that again?"
Training a chatbot is... painful work, because I have to come up with a wide range of possible queries from the users and program a variety of potential responses. I'll look into this issue and improve it as I work on it.
 
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Jerrybibo

ボカロ廃人
May 31, 2018
17
You think I was slacking off over the past 4 months??? You're terribly mistaken.

One of the hardest parts of the projects is finally coming to fruition!!

Text-to-Speech synthesis using samples rendered from a Hatsune Miku voicebank is now available for demonstration.

Uncountable number of hours of work and some email correspondence with the cool professors at Nara Institute of Technology on their Open-JTalk project has all brewed down into this.

Try it out yourself here! http://35.196.4.18/miku_tts.php

Warning: Cannot assure quality and rendered files may clip/play at very high volumes. Currently diagnosing the cause.

In the end, this will tie together with the chatbot and a voice recognition algorithm for a complete end-user experience, hopefully in a couple of months. Stay tuned!
 

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