Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
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Turbo
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Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

Post by Turbo »

I have decided to work on the Rlaan voices next, so we can cover the 2 major alien races. Before I do too much work, here are my initial thoughts. I invite feedback from the fans and devs and, preferably, concurrence from the Minister of Information:

First, to review what's in the Wiki: Rlaan are arthropod-like beings with 4 legs, 4 arms, and 4 mouths, each mouth containing 4 mandibles. They breathe methane. Their math and culture involve groups of 4, and their religion includes belief in multiple (and to a human, conflicting) doctrines. :?

Based on that, I advance the following theories about Rlaan speech.
* With 4 mouths, a Rlaan could produce 4 different sounds simultaneously
* With 4 sets of sensory organs, they should be able to hear 4 things at once.
* These sounds might include clicks and clacks (striking mandibles against each other), chirps (scraping mandibles across each other), aspirations (forcing methane in and out through the mouth), and perhaps simple tones (aspirations modulated by the Rlaan equivalent of vocal cords, if such exist).
* I theorize that each mouth would simultaneously speak different parts of the sentence, such as subject, verb, object, and references to other parts of the conversation.
* This multitasking allows them to say a lot in a short time compared to English, but all parts are required to get the full meaning. Therefore they would finish their first sentence before the translator could start translating.

Assuming the above theories work for the fans and dev team, my plan is as follows. I will take insect noises and modify them to account for the size difference to create the clicks, clacks, and chirps. I can voice act the aspirations and generate the tones. Then I will build these base elements into Rlaan speech patterns on 4 separate tracks to represent the 4 mouths talking at once. 8)
Last edited by Turbo on Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by pyramid »

This all seems very reasonable. I am looking forward to hear our friends from across the galaxy speak.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

...still waiting for feedback from the other devs and players. While we wait, here is what I did today.

First, I recorded and mechanized (per the guidelines in the Wiki) the 30 rlaan-specific lines for the translator. They came out sounding just like the 11 non-faction-specific translator lines that I did previously. Which brings me to the other question that requires further discussion: should the translator sound the same for all the aliens? I have no problem providing "the"translator voice, though after this week I go back to work full-time. If we do it this way, the other voice actors can concentrate on the human factions and/or create the alien voices to mix with the translator voice. There is plenty of work to do no matter how we divide it up.

Second, I made a demo to better illustrate the 4-voice concept I was attempting to describe. Here it is:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... h-demo.ogg
I used insect sounds, heavily adjusted the pitch and tempo, and combined them into 4 voices, each of which is saying different sounds in different tempos, pitches, and types of noises. If it makes your ears hurt, or makes you want to listen to Jerry Lewis or Yoko Ono, then we are on the right track.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by pyramid »

He he, sounds like Sponge Bob playing flute ;-)
I think the idea is right, but Rlaan being quite large species with significant head volume, I'd imagine them to produce sounds of much lower frequency (pitch). Personally I like it around 240Hz, but it might become to difficult to hear, as our ear captures much better higher sounds, so the alternative might be around 400Hz which doesn't seem so acute and still easily audible.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by CLoneWolf »

I like it! It fits their anatomy, but pyramid has a point there: I also think that a lower pitch could match their size better.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

Thanks for the feedback. I will keep going that direction, but with a lower pitch. I suppose there is no problem with parts of it being at the low end of the human hearing range, just as some of the colors they can see are not visible to us.

The final result will probably be even more confusing, because that sample has each mouth only playing 1 of the 3 sounds it can make (chirps, clacks, & tones).
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

OK, I updated the demo with lower pitch and some other changes. Same file name, so the link above will now get you the new one. I am also experimenting with something else but it's too early to get anyone's hopes up.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by pyramid »

The pitch is very good now. I just find the many short peaks a bit disturbing. If they should be chirps, they do not sound very natural. If you know a way to remove/smoothen them, that'd be good.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

The many short peaks are "tick" sounds, at different intervals and pitches. I will keep trying stuff and post the best results here.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by CLoneWolf »

A certain amount of "disturbance" is fine for us mono-mouthed humans, IMHO :)
Considering that the alien voice goes to the background while the translator voice is speaking, it might be ok already; posting a single sentence complete with translation might help judging the final result.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

Here is a new idea I had. I got rid of the click sounds, which were barely audible anyway, in favor of something new:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... -demo2.ogg

This is the track laydown:
* Track 1 is a long steady tone from a cicada, reduced in pitch. Linguistically it imparts tone and attitude. So I theorize this track could vary in pitch according to whether the communication is neutral, friendly, or hostile. It might also fade in and out or change pitch in some pattern to indicate nuances of attitude.
* Track 2 is a series of cricket chirps (greatly reduced pitch and slightly reduced tempo). These sounds play at the low edge of some computer's speakers, to create the impression that this component of Rlaan speech is at or outside the limit of human hearing. This track's exact pitch and duration vary in a pattern that (theoretically) imparts some of the meaning to the sentence.
* Track 3 are somewhat higher-frequency chirps (from a different species of cricket). They vary as with Track 2. This track carries other parts of the meaning. The above 3 tracks play at 3/4 volume, so I did not de-amplify them once the translator started talking.
* Track 4 is the new thing I tried -- a "song" of low varying tones. It imparts additional meaning to the sentence. I created it with DTMF (telephone-style) tones, using the first dozen letters of the translated phrase as the dialing key, in a span that fit the desired length, set at 95% tone and 5% silence. I then adjusted the pitch by -87% and amplified by -7 db (plus another -5 Db once the translator starts talking). Because the tones are derived from the translated text, this track is almost guaranteed to be unique for each distinct communication phrase.
* Track 5 is the translator, using the same voice settings that I used for the Aera translations.

Unlike humans with one mouth, the Rlaan's 4 mouths are at different locations in space. So, the last step was to separate the 4 Rlaan tracks into stereo channels, with tracks 1 and 2 on the left, and 3 and 4 on the right. Unfortunately my hearing is not great so I definitely need a second and third opinion on the result.

Having said all that, I am wondering if I need to shift my attention to making the translator voices for all the other alien factions, so that the ship's translator always sounds the same. If that seems like a good idea and someone is willing to take over the Rlaan voice creation, here is the translator set for the Rlaan:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... or-set.ogg
and I can provide the zipped Audacity project files (i.e. the 4 tracks described above) if you want that.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by pyramid »

Turbo wrote:Here is a new idea I had. I got rid of the click sounds, which were barely audible anyway, in favor of something new: http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... -demo2.ogg
Very good indeed. No further suggestions from my side.
Turbo wrote:Having said all that, I am wondering if I need to shift my attention to making the translator voices for all the other alien factions, so that the ship's translator always sounds the same.
Since you've "invented" the Rlaan speech, it would be probably much easier if you finished that race before moving on to other races' translations, if there is no volunteer willing to step right into it.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

OK, I will proceed with the concept I have.
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by Turbo »

Turbo

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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by CLoneWolf »

Turbo wrote:Done, comments please.
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... speech.zip (3 MB)
Not "Done", "Well done" ;)
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Re: What Rlaan speech would sound like

Post by pyramid »

I second that and will start integrating those lines.
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Re: Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

Post by Turbo »

Thank you. The wiki is updated. http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/media ... ice_Acting

Now it is time for me to play, and hear the 6 factions we have so far in the game.
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Re: Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

Post by pyramid »

With the rlaan speech now committed, we have 5 factions in svn. The mechanist speech is undergoing an "emotional upgrade" 8)
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Re: Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

Post by Turbo »

I noticed one thing: when you undock in SVN, the "clearance code acknowledged" sound plays again, followed half a second later by "docking operation complete" which causes the two sounds to play over each other. When it was only text, this was barely noticeable. Now that there is sound with it, it is much more noticeable.
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Re: Rlaan ship-to-ship voice communication

Post by pyramid »

I think those lines are handled internally by the code, so there is nothing we can do modding-side to improve this behavior.
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