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Speak Method

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[Microsoft Agent is deprecated as of Windows 7, and may be unavailable in subsequent versions of Windows.]

Description

Speaks the specified text or sound file for the specified character.

Syntax

agent**.Characters ("CharacterID").Speak** [Text], [Url]

Part Description
Text Optional. A string that specifies what the character says.
Url Optional. A string expression specifying the location of an audio file (.WAV or .LWV format). The location can be specified as a file (including a UNC path specification) or URL (when character animation data is also being retrieved via HTTP protocol).

 

Remarks

Although the Text and Url parameters are optional, one of them must be supplied. To use this method with a character configured to speak only in its word balloon or using a text-to-speech (TTS) engine, simply provide the Text parameter. Include a space between words to define appropriate word breaks in the word balloon, even for languages that do not traditionally include spaces.

You can also include vertical bar characters (|) in the Text parameter to designate alternative strings, so that the server randomly chooses a different string each time it processes the method.

Character support of TTS output is defined when the character is compiled using the Microsoft Agent Character Editor. To generate TTS output, a compatible TTS engine must already be installed before calling this method. For further information, see Accessing Speech Services.

If you use recorded sound-file (.WAV or .LWV format only) output for the character, specify the file's location in the Url parameter. This file specification can include a local (absolute or relative) or universal naming convention (UNC) path. The filename cannot include any characters not included in the US code page 1252. However, if you are using the HTTP protocol to access the character animation data, use the Get method to load the animation before calling the Speak method. See Using the Microsoft Linguistic Information Sound Editing Tool for information about creative .LWV files.

When using recorded sound-file output, you can still use the Text parameter to specify the words that appear in the character's word balloon. However, if you specify a linguistically enhanced sound file (.LWV) for the Url parameter and do not specify text for the word balloon, the Text parameter uses the text stored in the file.

You can also vary parameters of the speech output with special tags that you include in the Text parameter. For more information, see Microsoft Agent Speech Output Tags.

If you declare an object reference and set it to this method, it returns a Request object. You can use this to synchronize other parts of your code with the character's spoken output, as in the following example:

   Dim SpeakRequest as Object
...
   Set SpeakRequest = Genie.Speak ("And here it is.")
...
   Sub Agent1_RequestComplete (ByVal Request as Object)
   ' Make certain the request exists
   If SpeakRequest Not Nothing Then
      ' See if it was this request
      If Request = SpeakRequest Then
         ' Display the message box 
         Msgbox "Ta da!"
      End If
   End If
   End Sub

You can also use a Request object to check for certain error conditions. For example, if you use the Speak method to speak and do not have a compatible TTS engine installed, the server sets the Request object's Status property to "failed" with its Description property to "Class not registered" or "Unknown or object returned error". To determine if you have a TTS engine installed, use the TTSModeID property.

Similarly, if you have the character attempt to speak a sound file, and if the file has not been loaded or there is a problem with the audio device, the server also sets the Request object's Status property to "failed" with an appropriate error code number.

You can also include bookmark speech tags in your Speak text to synchronize your code:

   Dim SpeakRequest as Object
...
   Set SpeakRequest = Genie.Speak ("And here \mrk=100\it is.")
...
   Sub Agent1_Bookmark (ByVal BookmarkID As Long)
   If BookmarkID = 100 Then
      ' Display the message box 
         Msgbox "Tada!"
      End If
   End Sub

For more information on the bookmark speech tag, see Speech Output Tags.

The Speak method uses the last action played to determine which speaking animation to play. For example, if you preceded the Speak command with a Play "GestureRight", the server will play GestureRight and then the GestureRight speaking animation. If the last animation played has no speaking animation, Agent plays the animation assigned to the character's Speaking state.

If you call Speak and the audio channel is busy, the character's audio output will not be heard, but the text will display in the word balloon.

Agent's automatic word breaking in the word balloon breaks words using white-space characters (for example, Space or Tab). However, if it cannot, it may break a word to fit the balloon. In languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Thai, where spaces are not used to break words, insert a Unicode zero-width space character (0x200B) between characters to define logical word breaks.

Note

The word balloon's Enabled property must also be True for text to display.

 

Note

Set the character's language ID (by setting the character's LanguageID before using the Speak method to ensure appropriate text display within the word balloon.

 

See Also

Bookmark event, RequestStart event, RequestComplete event