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Frequently Asked Questions

SitePal Frequently Asked Questions are organized according to topic

Account Questions
View our pricing page for an in-depth comparison of the different SitePal plans. As you can see - plans differ in both features and allocated streams. A good way to go about it is to first decide which features you need, and make the plan selection accordingly.
Then, if you are not sure how many streams you will require, sign up for a monthly subscription. After the first month, review your account’s stream usage report, and decide whether to upgrade.
An audio stream is a single audio playback instance. Whenever your SitePal avatar speaks, the audio is streamed from the cloud which counts as 1 audio stream.
Obviously you should select a plan that best serves your website needs. Should you run low on streams you will receive an automated email message, so that you may purchase additional streams or upgrade to a different plan.
After logging into your account, go to your “Settings” page (available from the ‘Welcome’ menu at top right). Your account information is displayed, including purchase date, expiration date, stream balance, and other details. Invoices are available in your “Billing” page.
After logging into your account, go to your “Contact Info” page (available from the ‘Welcome’ menu at top right). Here you can modify your username, password and other details.
Click on "Forgot Password?" at the bottom of the login window. You will be asked to enter your login name (email address), and a temporary password will be automatically generated and emailed to you. Please be sure to write down your new password in a safe place. If you do not receive our email within a few minutes, check your SPAM folder or contact our support at support@sitepal.com.
. If you purchased an account and cannot login, you may have entered your email incorrectly. Contact our support at support@sitepal.com.
Model and avatar Questions
A Model is what we call a base avatar, which has not yet been customized by accessory selection or coloring. Every SitePal plan comes with a huge selection of Models to choose from.
A avatar is an edited Model, after coloring and selection of accessories. Most 2D (Illustrated) Models can be edited by selecting accessories such as clothing, eyeglasses, skin color, hairstyle and more. The edited Model is referred to as a 'avatar'. Once created, a avatar may be assigned to your Scene or saved in your avatar library for future use.
Select the desired 2D Model from the "Models" Panel. Next, customize the accessories for the Model you've selected by modifying the hair, glasses, outfit, hats, necklace/earrings and facial hair. Select the ‘color’ tab to modify skin tone, eye color, hair color & more. Note: Not all options are available for all models.
With 3D models, you have the option to create your own avatar from a photo. This feature is called “Photoface 3D”. (requires Gold plan and higher).
There are two ways to do so. When you design a avatar you may add it to your avatar Library for future use. To do so select the "My Library" tab and click the “Add to Library” button. Note: this option is available only for 2D avatars.
Another way, is to copy an existing Scene in which your previously created avatar is used. The Scene will be copied, avatar and all.
Yes. Drag the avatar to position it in your Scene, and use the + or – magnifying glass buttons (at top left of the display area) to zoom in and out. At the bottom left of the display area is a small tab, that opens the positioning panel. This allows precise numerical control of both position and scale.
Each Scene may only contain one avatar, but you may embed multiple Scenes in your web page if you wish. In our support pages we include several examples that feature multiple avatars in a page. Look for “Advanced API Examples”, and locate “SitePal Conversation”.
Yes. Customers with a Gold plan and higher can generate their own avatar from a photo. Click on the 'Create Your Own' button to get started. A wizard will walk you through the process.
To get good results use a high quality photo, and adhere closely to the guidelines. We highly recommend reading our technical note: “Create Your Own 3D Avatar” - available on our support page. It provides useful tips and suggestions to help you get the best results from the Photoface tool.
Audio Questions
Your Audio Library contains all your saved audios. In the Audio Library you can manage, edit and replace your audios.
Note: If an audio is in use and you modify it, the update will apply to any Scene which uses it.
Whenever you upload or record an audio, it is automatically added to the Audio Library.
In the SitePal Editor, select the "Audio" tab and click on the name of an audio to select it.
Audios that you record or upload to your SitePal account, or create via Text-To-Speech, are automatically converted to an optimal streaming format as follows:
  1. Channels: 1 (mono)
  2. Sampling Rate: 22.050 KHz,
  3. Bitrate: 48Kbps
Over 80 languages and thousands of voices are available, with more added from time to time. To check out our available voices in the SitePal Editor, select the “Audio” tab, and then the “TTS” option. You will see the “Language” menu – where you can browse available languages. Select a language to see available voices for that language. Select a voice & click on ‘Sample’ to hear it.
There are also special categories of voices: ‘Kids’, and ‘Offbeat’ (see icons to the right of the language menu). Check them out as well!
To add a pause, try adding a comma, a period or a dash in your text. For a precisely timed pause, you can use SSML tags in your text. SSML tags allow you to affect some aspects of the generated audio, including adding a precise break in the speech. Learn more and try it out in our example page “Fine Tuning TTS” – available in the support documentation page. Here is a direct link.
Note: not every voice supports SSML tags. The voices included in our Fine Tuning example page all do.
Yes, you can do that & much more by using SSML tags in your text. See the previous response for details.
Yes, you can create a custom TTS voice to match any person's voice and use it with your SitePal avatar. This can best be done by using TTS from our partner Eleven Labs. Eleven Labs audio is pre-integrated with SitePal, so you can easily use their voices with SitePal & our APIs.
A custom voice is very simple to create with Eleven Labs - and requires only uploading a few minutes of spoken audio. Note that you will need to setup your own account with Eleven Labs. (using 3rd party voices requires the Platinum plan).
Scene Questions
A Scene combines a speaking avatar, a background image (or video) an audio that you record to deliver an “embed-able unit” that you can add to your web page. The Scene is what you eventually include ('embed' is the term often used) in your web page.
By creating multiple Scenes, you can embed several talking avatars with several different messages across your website. You can update your Scenes anytime and any change immediately appears in your web pages where your Scenes are embedded.
Yes, the same Scene can be embedded in multiple pages in your site, or you may prefer to embed different Scenes. There is no limit to the number of Scenes you can create.
You need to copy a small piece of code called the “Embed Code” from your SitePal account into your web page. In your account, locate the “Publish” button for your Scene, and then select the “Embed” option.
You can set speech to “Play On Load” in the Scene Options (this is also referred to as ‘autoplay”). However, browsers block autoplay in many cases, and typically require that a user interact with your page before allowing audio playback. This is a pre-caution that browsers employ against intrusive ads. To overcome this limitation, you may want to add a prominent prompt for the user to click on. e.g. a “Get Started” button, or “Let’s Begin” etc., and use the API to instruct the avatar to speak when clicked. Read more about this issue in the Introduction section of the Client API Reference.
Yes this is possible & can be done without programming. We’ve found that variability of the audio message adds to its effectiveness. To do so - create different versions of your audio message, then assign them all to your Scene. In your audio library, hold down ‘CTRL’ to multi-select, and select the ‘Random’ option above the list. The Scene will then randomly select one of the assigned audios each time it is called upon to speak.
Another option is to use the API. Programmers can select or generate audios that are specifically targeted to individual visitors.
You can specify the dimensions of the embedded Scene when you publish your Scene. Alternatively, if your page is responsive, select the ‘responsive’ setting, which automatically adapts to the page.
When you modify your Scene, changes affect any instance of the Scene that was previously published. Creating separate Scenes is therefore necessary if you want different SitePal avatars to be included in different pages of your website.
Yes. You would need to generate a video of your Scene and then add the video to PowerPoint. Video generation is supported for the Gold plan and higher.
There is no limit.
Yes. SitePal is fully compatible with all modern browsers on all platforms including mobile.
Programming Questions
The Standard API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of JavaScript function calls that enable programmers to control an avatar's behavior from the web page in which it is embedded. The API enables control of every aspect of your avatar’s appearance and actions. This includes speech of course, which, by using the API can be tailored to specific visitors.
Please review the API Reference document and the examples on the SitePal support pages. The API examples demonstrate the use of every API function, and by copying their source code you can get off to a quick start.
Yes. Programmers may use the API functions to modify the behavior of a avatar in response to user interaction with the page. For example: to add a button that will initiate speech, or to speak a specific audio when user rolls over a specific image.
Yes, you can do so without programming by assigning several audios to your Scene. Programmers can do so by using the API. Repeated calls to sayText or sayAudio are automatically queued for playback, and will play the audios in sequence (note: queuing can be disabled by turning on “interrupt mode” - check the API Reference document for details).