FAQ

1. Can I play with Toys2Life on a mac/Chromebook/phone/Windows8? 
   Not yet, but we hope to add this over the next twelve months. 
2. How do I turn on the system?
   Start the Toys2Life DialogEngine software on your Windows 10 computer and shake the toys/radios to wake them up.  They will blink when awake.
3. Are the batteries included? 
   Yes, five CR2032 coin cell batteries are included.
4. How long do the batteries last? 
   Approximately three hours of playtime or three months of sitting on the shelf waiting to be shaken awake.
5. How do I get a specific character onto a specific doll/Action-Figure/Miniature/Toy?
   Ensure you have your radios shaken awake and blinking.  Click on the assign radio button.  Select the character you want to assign.  Shake the radio-toy you want to go with the character and choose OK.
6. Can I create my own character?
   Yes.  Click on create and follow the wizards to add lines to your new character.
7. How do I play two characters against one another if they were made on separate computers?
   Click create, but go to “edit existing” instead of making a new character.  Click on the character you want to put on the other machine and choose the export button.  Put the exported .t2lf file on a thumb drive, or email it to the other computer.  On the second machine import the character’s .t2lf file to bring the character into the second machine.
8. Can more than two characters have a conversation?
   Not yet, it is always just the closest two that will talk to one another.  We hope to add group conversations soon.
9. How do the radio medallions know which characters are the two closest?
   We use the signal strength of the Bluetooth Low Energy radio to know approximately how far apart the various radios are.  If you go into debug mode, you can see the signal strengths update in real-time and watch different character pair’s radios turn red when they become the strongest pair.
10. What do the different parameters in the settings do?
    1. Complete anyway after stop.  This is the number of seconds a character can continue to complete their line after you have moved to a new pair of active characters.
    2. Current parental rating.  You can limit the system to lines that are G, PG, PG13, or R rated.  Almost all of the lines in the system are labeled PG as that is the default when creating lines.
    3. The delay between phrases.  The amount of time the characters pause between speaking to one another.
    4. Ignore Radio Signals.  If you don’t want the radios to change the system into radio-selection mode and want to stay in the avatar-arena character selection mode.
    5. Debug Mode.  Opens an extra set of windows you can select to see errors, warnings, the radio’s heat map of signal strengths and motion, or added info about dialog models, characters, and lines selected.
    6. Radio move’s time sensitivity.  Radio selection only happens when a radios accelerometer shows motion activity; this parameter sets how long motion must be active for a character update to occur.
    7. Radio move’s strength sensitivity.  This parameter sets how big a motion must be active for a character update to occur.
    8. Use the preferred dialog model.  You can choose to prefer a dialog model if you are working on a specific dialog model, or like a specific dialog model.
    9. Force character swap.  The character to speak first will alternate every few dialog models if you turn this on.
    10. Character Swap Interval.  This defines the number of dialog models that will be completed before character one and character two swap places.
    11. Recent Phrases Queue Sizes.  This sets the depth of how many phrases back we look to avoid repeating lines.
    12. Still time required.  This is how long the characters must be still before we decide to change the active character pair.
    13. Acc. motion threshold.  This is how high the accelerometer signal needs to be before we determine a character is moving.
    14. Acc. stillness threshold.  This is how low the accelerometer signal must be before we determine the character has become still and to start counting the still time.
    15. Motion window.  We only change characters after some motion and then some stillness.  This is the length of that windows of motion and stillness in milliseconds. 
    16. Background image.  You can select an image to act as the background behind the characters in the avatar arena.  Some users have used this to make a sort of theater set for specific scenes between specific groups of characters.