🧙Making Custom Liteforms
The Liteforms app allows you to create custom Liteforms with custom personas and knowledge.
To make your own custom Liteform, press the "Create Liteform" button on the left panel.
This will take you to a Liteform creation screen. Here, you have several options to customize your Liteform.
Navigating the UI
Side Nav
In the left section, you'll see the section headers for how you can customize your Liteform. Clicking these headings will snap you to that section in the UI. Additionally, there is a "Chat" button that allows you to test your Liteform, once you have filled out the requisite fields.
When editing custom Liteforms, you'll see a "Delete" button that allows you to delete your Liteform.
Liteform Details
In the main section of the UI, you'll see options to set the details of who your Liteform is, how they'll sound, and what they'll know. There are options to set their basic information, their persona, and more, detailed below.
Liteform Info
This section lets you set the basic info for your Liteform, and has two fields:
Name - your Liteform's name (50 characters or fewer)
Pronouns - choose between "he/him," "she/her," and "they/them."
Persona
Description - write a description of your character (500 characters or fewer)
Use the "Refine with AI" button to flesh out your description (optional)
Use the "Revert" button to revert the text generated by AI
Voice - select between 18 different voice options
You can hear what each voice sounds like by selecting the "Test" button
There are two ways to define the personality for your Liteform. You can either define the personality yourself by typing your character description into the text field, or you can input a rough sketch of a personality and click the "Refine with AI" button. This will generate a fully fleshed-out character persona for your Liteform.
Once the personality is refined with AI, you can edit it by selecting the text input field, go back to your original description by clicking the "Revert" button, or refine it again by pressing the "Refine with AI" button. Test out different personalities by pressing the "Chat" button on the left panel.
Upload
Knowledge - upload a text document (1mb or less) to have your Liteform know specific information
Currently, you need to create your Liteform first and then edit it in order to upload a document
Create Avatar - create an avatar to be the visual embodiment of your Liteform character
Liteforms are powered by ChatGPT. Responses may be incorrect, not factual, and do not represent the views of Looking Glass. Customized characters may provide responses some users deem offensive. Deliberately creating characters that defy our code of conduct may result in account suspension. See our terms of service for more information.
Avatar Selection
On the right side of the app, you will see your Liteform's selected avatar. You can press the left and right buttons to scroll through the available avatars.
In addition to the three standard avatars we provide for your convenience, any custom avatars you create in-app or upload will be added to this list of available avatars. Custom avatars have an additional "Edit" button to the top-right that will allow you to edit, delete, or replace the avatar.
Testing and Saving
Once you've filled out the required fields and chosen an avatar, you can test your Liteform by pressing the "Chat" button on the left panel. When you're happy with your Liteform, click "Create" to save them to your account! Now, on any computer you run Liteforms on, your custom Liteform will appear in the character selection menu. You can also edit or delete your character from this menu.
Different subscription tiers can store different numbers of custom Liteforms at a time. See our pricing page for more details on the difference between the tiers.
Free: 1 custom Liteform
Basic ($10/month): 2 custom Liteforms
Pro ($250/month): 5 custom Liteforms
Enterprise (contact us): more than 5 custom Liteforms
Custom Knowledge
You can now give your Liteform specific information that they'll use to inform their responses!
Knowledge must be uploaded as a text file that is 1mb or less. This amounts to roughly 1 million characters (including spaces).
To give your Liteform custom knowledge, take whatever documents you have containing relevant information and consolidate them into a single text file. Then, upload this file to Liteforms by selecting the "Upload Document" button under the "Upload" section.
Note that you must create your Liteform first before giving it knowledge - the UI will notify you if you haven't done so.
How to Structure Knowledge Data
A Liteform's ability to use the uploaded knowledge will depend in large part on the quality of the data provided. Liteforms work best with what is called "unstructured data." This is data that looks like normal, human-readable text.
Think of it this way - Liteforms understand information in a way that's modelled on how humans understand information. For example, if the information provided is a list of dates and times with no context provided as to what these times refer to, the Liteform won't know to reference these dates and times when a user asks a relevant query. So, the biggest rule when creating data is - be sure there is sufficient context.
Below, you can see a sample text file for a fictional conference in Cincinatti. You'll notice that most of the data is in paragraph form and is very human-readable (and therefore Liteform-readable).
Additionally, you'll notice that sections of information are separated by the --- character sequence. This isn't required but can help ensure context is included next to relevant data and is especially useful for cutting a long list into separate chunks.
Creating Avatars In-App
You can create and customize cartoon-style human avatars within the Liteforms app itself. You can set your avatar's face, hair, skin tone, clothes, accessories, and more. You can even upload a photo to generate an avatar.
This feature will be available across our subscriptions tiers, including the free tier, though there are limitations on the number of avatars you can store on your account at one time. See our tiers feature and pricing breakdown for more details.
To access this functionality, select "Create Liteform."
Then select "Create Avatar."
On the following scene, you'll see two options - "Create In-App" and "Upload .VRM" (which is currently available for Pro subscribers only). Select "Create In-App."
After can selecting a body type, you can then choose to take a photo to be the basis of your avatar, upload a photo from your hard drive, or select a preset to start editing. You can change the avatars skin tone, facial features, hair style, outfit, and accessories.
When you're done, click "Next," give your avatar a name so it's easier to remember, and click "Create." The avatar can now be assigned to be the embodiment of your Liteform via the "Create Liteform" screen.
Your avatar can be used for multiple Liteforms if you want to have the same visuals but a different personality or knowledge set!
Custom Avatar Uploading (Pro only)
Currently this feature is only available for users on our Pro Tier. See our tier feature lists and pricing breakdown here.
Pro users have the ability to upload avatar models made in external applications. Our implementation leverages the VRM avatar model format. VRM extends the glTF standard to include specifications for elements critical to the creation of avatars and characters, like bone structure and facial blend shapes. You can see the full details of the specification here.
Specifications
Supports the VRM 1.0 avatar model format
Model file size must be 25mb or smaller
Avatar rigging setup must be a humanoid rig
Supports spring bones for hair and other dynamic elements
Walkthrough
To upload a model, select "Create Liteform."
Then select "Create Avatar."
Select "Upload .VRM," navigate to the VRM file on your hard drive, and select it.
Your VRM avatar will appear in a new UI where you can check that the rig has been loaded correctly. Give your avatar a name to help identify it, and click "Create."
The avatar can now be assigned to be the embodiment of your Liteform via the "Create Liteform" screen. Your avatar can be used for multiple Liteforms if you want to have the same visuals but a different personality or knowledge set!
Custom Model Design Considerations
Because our setup is particular, there are some additional considerations to keep in mind when designing your VRM avatar. The following is a list of guidelines to make sure your avatar works well in our system:
Avoid opening the avatar's mouth in emotion blend shapes - this can conflict with our setup that handles their speech.
Avoid adjusting the amount eyes are open or closed in emotion blend shapes - this can make our blinking setup behave strangely.
Avoid changing the eye direction in emotion blend shapes - our setup will handle eye motion automatically with either a bone setup or a blend shape setup for the eye positions.
Bend elbow and knee joints slightly in your rig to help the IK solver know the correct angle.
What Kind of Avatars Can I Use, and How Do I Make Them?
As long as your model follows the VRM 1.0 standard, you have a great deal of control over the design and aesthetic of your character, and there are great tools out there for you to get started.
Stylized or Cartoon-y Avatars
Our application has easy-to-use, built-in controls to make stylized, cartoon-y avatars. See above for more information.
If you want a different aesthetic, however, you can use third party software like Blender with the VRM add-on. Within Blender, you can create characters with any visual style. Just make sure your model follows the VRM 1.0 standard for the rig, materials, and blend shapes, and that you keep your textures relatively small so you don't surpass the 25mb file size limit.
If you work outside of Blender, you may be able to find a VRM plugin for your tool of choice. If not, you can export avatar models in other standards (like glTF/glb or FBX) and import them into Blender or Unity to do the final export as a VRM.
To do the final VRM export in Blender, use the VRM Add-on for Blender.
To do the final VRM export in Unity, use UniVRM.
Photorealistic Avatars
We at Looking Glass believe that cartoon-style characters are ideal for Liteforms as they provide lifelike, engaging interactions without falling into the uncanny valley. However, our system supports photorealistic avatars.
If you want to make a photorealist avatar, we recommend starting with Reallusion's Character Creator 4. See their documentation for more details on how to get started, specifically how to export your character.
You can even make avatars of real-world people by rigging volumetric captures. Please note, however, that volumetric captures require specialized rigs like those provided by Evercoast or Arcturus, and this process will take significant effort to get right.
Once you have made your character in Character Creator 4 or any other software, the easiest way to convert it to the VRM standard is to export it as a standard format (glTF/glb or FBX, for example) and import it into Blender. You can use the VRM Add-on for Blender to export the model as a .vrm. Then you're ready to import your avatar into Liteforms!
Anime-Style Avatars
The VRM standard is very popular in Japan and, as such, there is a wealth of anime-style characters, in particular on VRoid Hub. Additionally, VRoid Studio can be used to easily create VRM avatars with an anime aesthetic.
Tools like Blender can also be used to make anime-style characters, giving you full control over the aesthetic of your Liteform's avatar.
Other Avatar Styles
Want to branch out into other aesthetics? Go for it! We feel there's lots of room for creativity and playfulness in Liteforms - just look at Uncle Rabbit, Lil Inu, and Android Andi.
To create avatars with your own unique aesthetic, we recommend using Blender with the VRM add-on. Within Blender, you can create characters with any aesthetic style. Just make sure your model follows the VRM 1.0 standard for the rig, materials, and blend shapes, and that you keep your textures relatively small so you don't surpass the 25mb file size limit.
If you work outside of Blender, you may be able to find a VRM plugin for your tool of choice. If not, you can export avatar models in other standards (like glTF/glb or FBX) and import them into Blender or Unity to do the final export as a VRM.
To do the final VRM export in Blender, use the VRM Add-on for Blender.
To do the final VRM export in Unity, use UniVRM.
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