Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
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Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

Based on Jack's guidance at http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =4&t=11746 I have created a draft Aera ship-to-ship communications set, using VS/Data/Communications/aera.xml as the script. The file is at http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... speech.zip (1.8 MB) and the contents are in OGG format. I would like some feedback, please. :| To finish this project, I need to know where to find the text for the "generic" communications that all races use, such as the "We have something in common, privateer..." so I can create those lines for the Aera also.

Below is the process I used to create alien-sounding speech without actually developing a language. If someone wants to create this for another race, please do and start a new thread in this forum. 8)

The translator's voice is MS Narrator's "Michael." MS Narrator's voice meets the criteria for a cold soulless machine voice. He can be a bit hard to understand, though. When recording is complete, I removed noise and clicks, then separated each line into a separate file for editing. This part took about an hour.

The aera speech is based on humpback whale songs I found on the Internet. I modified with tempo to 350% and the pitch down an octave. Then I saved the individual bits of sound into different files so I had a variety of tones, growls, and grunts from which to choose. This took about 2 hours.

For each of the lines, I normalized the translator speech to full volume, i.e. amplified quieter parts for a consistent (but not constant) volume. I could have done this when I separated the recording into separate lines, but this was easier for me.

With the translator's line still opened, I muted the translator's speech so it would be silent while I worked with the aera speech. I imported the aera speech bits into a separate track of the same file. Generally I used tones to represent positive feelings, growls for negative feelings, and grunts as modifiers. I changed individual parts to add variety: changed pitch here or there, reversed a few parts, and added silence. I do this with the (muted) translator speech on the screen so I can see how the patterns line up. For silent portions of the translator speech, put a particularly interesting part of the alien speech there. If the translator is difficult to understand for a particular word, make the alien speech silent at that time.

Finally, deamplify the aera speech to about 25% of the volume of the translator voice, unmute the translator, and listen to them together. Make any final edits to the alien speech. If you can play the result with your eyes closed and understand the translator, while being aware of the alien voice behind it, you are done with that line. The last part of the process, assembling the alien speech parts and final editing, took about 4 hours for the 37 lines found in the source document.

I used whales because they came to mind when I read that aera have vocal resonators in their heads, instead of vocal cords in their respiratory system. Other alien races' speech could be created with similar techniques, using different animal sounds as the basis for each species.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

Definitely cool! Such strange alienness in the sounds gives a lot of depth to the game. I'll pick this up for integration into the game after Oswald.

This whole description is so good, it should be made a wiki page (e.g. Audio:Create_AlienSounds).

Five Mr. Greens! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

Thanks pyramid. Consider it wikified. I would like to hear multiple opinions on whether the MS Narrator was sufficiently easy to understand.

Where in the code do I find the non-faction-specific communication text? It would be a shame to have all this aera grunting, but for them to be silent when they say, "My name may be on your list, but now your name is on mine."
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

All communication, also the non-faction-specific, is under the folder "data\communications". Some of the files neutral.xml, privateer.xml, or militia.xml might be the ones you are looking for.

I think the narrator is a bit hard to understand if you don't see the written text, but in this way, it will also not become very boring to hear that speeches repeated.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

Well, maybe MS Narrator is a placeholder until I (or someone else) work out a better voice for the translator. JackS said he wanted the translator's voice to represent 1200 years of speech generation technology, but still sound like a machine. So the Battlestar Galactica Cylons (the 1970s version of course) are right out. Maybe just something human-made but emotionless, like Star Trek TNG's "Data"?

I'll experiment with it when I do the other Aera lines.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

Turbo wrote:Maybe just something human-made but emotionless, like Star Trek TNG's "Data"?

I'll experiment with it when I do the other Aera lines.
...and maybe, a very light passage through the vocoder plugin of Audacity? Enough to make it clearly sound synthetic but not too much to keep the messages understandable.... just a thought
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

All the aera comm audio has it made into svn. Keep it up!
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

Excellent. I just listed to the Aera voices in-game. At first I couldn't hear much over the music, weapons fire, etc. So I turned off music and played again. The game is weird with no music, after playing music all this time. :shock: Anyhow, I noticed some good and bad.

I mostly understood the translator voice. But the alien voices behind it were quiet enough that even though I was listening for them, I still did not hear them. Granted, my hearing is't great in noisy environments. But I definitely need to make them louder, which means I need to make the translator much easier to understand to compensate for the louder alien voice. If that doesn't work, we can try the alien voices with a text-only translator.

Also, I found that the music wasn't the main reason I wasn't hearing much. The voices are preempted by weapons fire, hull hits, shield hits, or other sounds. That is, the voice will cut off mid-word if any other sounds play. In battle, that means they never finished a sentence.

I think the suggestion of using a vocoder is a good one, but my Windows version of Audacity doesn't have it. None of the effects in my Windows version gave a good result. So I will boot into Linux and see what that version of Audacity can do.

In summary, I'll go back to the drawing board on the voices, if you can make them play through the battle sounds.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

Actually I would prefer to hear both, the alien and the translation overlay if at all possible to still make both audible and distinguishable.

Klauss is currently rewriting the audio system but I wouldn't expect any movement before February.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

Turbo wrote:I think the suggestion of using a vocoder is a good one, but my Windows version of Audacity doesn't have it. None of the effects in my Windows version gave a good result. So I will boot into Linux and see what that version of Audacity can do.
Just for reference, the Audacity version currently available on my system (Debian Sid) is 1.3.5 beta Unicode

HTH
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

I agree that both the alien sounds and translator voices are preferred. If you guys can hear it okay, maybe it's just me. Artists are usually their own worst critics.

I got an idea today. Follow this logic and tell me what you think: Moderns translators (whether it be closed captions on TV or verbally translating one language to another) are normally a full sentence behind the original. This delay is due to processing time and because there may be differences in grammar, in which case you need the whole sentence to translate correctly. So perhaps, with 1200 years of translator technology, we can delay the translation a bit. The effect would be that the alien speaks for 1-5 seconds (depending on the line) but the translator comes in 1-2 seconds after the alien voice starts. In that case, the alien speech can play full volume until the translator starts talking, then it drops to 1/2 or 1/3 volume. If we do that, the player will say "Oooooooh, aliens!" which is the desired effect, but can still hear and understand the translation without taking his or her eyes off whatever he or she is doing. The only down side I see is that the audio files might be longer and thus a bit larger. What do you think?

Clonewolf, I was using Audacity 1.2.6, the stable version, but at your suggestion I just got the beta. Running a low pass filter, followed by a high pass filter, "flattens" the voice. Then the vocoder (distance 40, 10 bands) makes the voice a bit more mechanical. The result (leaving the aliens out for the moment) is this:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... r_test.ogg
For reference, Oswald is my normal voice, and this was done in the same voice. I invite comments and suggestions on the quality, clarity, and machine-like feel.

It occurs to me that a Mechanist or Andolian might sound similar. Since you already have the software and have shown interest in this, can you lend your voice to creating some faction or alien voices?

P.S. I never did find the location in the code for the "we have something in common, privateer" speech, but I can do it from memory when we solve this other stuff.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

Turbo wrote:If you guys can hear it okay, maybe it's just me.
Once you are about to rework that, I think the background alien sound could be a bit more audible.
My problem is that when I have music and sound on, the music renders the speech almost inaudible. There is a .fig variable for setting the sound louder:

Code: Select all

<var name="sound_gain" value=".3"/>
If you set it to about 0.8 it should be better.
Turbo wrote:I got an idea today. ... What do you think?
Excellent idea. That would make it even more believable.
Turbo wrote:... the location in the code for the "we have something in common, privateer" speech
There is a lot of speech in the python modules. Once the factions communications are done you could move on to them. The particular line you mention can be found in modules/missions/bounty_troop.py and modules/missions/bounty_leader.py
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

Acknowledged. I already have the aera sound tracks ready for the new translator voice to be done. I will re-record the translator lines tonight and clean them up tomorrow, while I await feedback on the vocoder sample. Once we determine the ideal translator voice transforms, I can apply the offset and mix the tracks. I should be done by Monday if nothing comes up.

Do I need permission to commit the finished sounds to SVN, after in-game testing, or should I continue to post ZIP files here?
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

The vocoder test sounds unnatural enough but far more advanced than m$t. Seems like a better choice.

Please post files here as I have changed some filenames and want to test the integration before committing.
If you continue to contribute and feel confident to find your way around the integration maze, there should be no issues with svn commit access, though the final word is with project leads, who are currently in the parallel "RL" universe.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

Turbo wrote:Clonewolf, I was using Audacity 1.2.6, the stable version, but at your suggestion I just got the beta. Running a low pass filter, followed by a high pass filter, "flattens" the voice. Then the vocoder (distance 40, 10 bands) makes the voice a bit more mechanical. The result (leaving the aliens out for the moment) is this:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... r_test.ogg
For reference, Oswald is my normal voice, and this was done in the same voice. I invite comments and suggestions on the quality, clarity, and machine-like feel.
Cool, clean and understandable, nice job imho :)
Turbo wrote:It occurs to me that a Mechanist or Andolian might sound similar. Since you already have the software and have shown interest in this, can you lend your voice to creating some faction or alien voices?
Ouch, I should have seen that coming! Well yes, I have the software, but I lack 2 important things not to be sub-par for official releases:
1. a decent microphone (no problem on investing a few bucks on one if I can actually contribute something worthy)
2. a decent English accent, mine is.... well, hear the sample(1)
Turbo wrote:P.S. I never did find the location in the code for the "we have something in common, privateer" speech, but I can do it from memory when we solve this other stuff.
I just grepped my vs folder and found it in modules/bounty_leader.py and modules/bounty_troop.py
Jenek and Luviccio can be found in modules/campaigns.py instead.
Warning to coders, 2 of Jenek's lines mention Luvicco instead of Luviccio.

(1) Sample? Which sample? Well I just recorded one with my headset microphone so you can judge yourself how far me and my hardware are from what it should be; it's a 44.1KHz 32-bit stereo ogg (Yes I've read the settings are lower than this in the tutorial, this is just am example :) ). I intentionally faked an even more emotionless voice, but I can put any level of drama into it if needed :)
You can find this sample at http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/sd.ogg
Last edited by CLoneWolf on Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

Fendorin wrote:If you need French Accent for..... for who??? which faction could be French accent speaking ??

ULN????
According to the faction information I've read on the wiki, the only ones (unless I overlooked something) coming from the same origin are the Forsaken, and they were Chinese; IMHO any other accent might as well be anyone else's.
Because of the love for fashion, I'd suggest Shapers ;)
...or, according to what's under your avatar, why not being an ISO party member official voice too? :)
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

Now, THAT would be cool :D
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Turbo »

I think it less important that we worry about this or that type of accent being appropriate for different factions, and more important that every faction sound like a different person.

The exception is the translator, which could have the same voice or not, as circumstances and voice acting resources allow. If the dev team feels strongly that the translator should sound the same for all the alien racess, then I need to get to work on doing the translator voice lines for all the aliens since the existing Aera voice sets already use my voice. Other voice actors can work on the human factions or create alien sounds.

The Andolians are humans so their communications are not translated. Perhaps CLoneWolf's accent means that the Andolians are primarily descended from what a VS historian would refer to as the former western Roman empire (Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, etc). 1200 years in the future, the 20th century nations we think of today might be seen as a temporary fragmentation of Europe that followed the end of the Roman Empire, before whatever happens in the years 2000-3000.

The Andolians sound good in-game, by the way, as does the new hardware / hard work line.

By the way, is it possible to prune the Andolian voice discussions to a new thread in this forum? The Aera voices are done, unless the MoI says otherwise when he returns from Real Life.
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Re: Aera ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

As for the Dgn, I'm not sure I get the right phonetic script here. but my idea of pronounciation is [dyyg€n] where the 'e' represented by '€' is almost swallowed and hardly inaudible, and the 'yy' is pronounced like in 'myriad'.
CLoneWolf wrote:LIHW (not citizen) ...this is totally raw, dirty and unprocessed, I'll give it the right treatments if it gets approved. http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/lihwfullrec.ogg
This below is a single sentence, treated with the 2 passages of filters by Turbo; if you think it's already enough radio-like, we could use it as a standard radio filtering base. http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/lihwtest2pass.ogg
The voice acting sounds very good to me, and I also like the medium filter, which makes it radio-noisy but not as much as to completely distort the message. I'd say give it a go.

*EDIT*
The'g' in Dgn should be as in 'goat'.
As for the banjos, I think voice would sound cool.

@loki
As I don't have the permissions, is it possible to split off the Andolian discussion to a new thread?
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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by loki1950 »

@loki
As I don't have the permissions, is it possible to split off the Andolian discussion to a new thread?
You should the interface is part of the moderator control panel not the administration control panel :wink: well i tried but i believe i left it more of a mess :oops:

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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by Deus Siddis »

@ pyramid & loki1950

Actually the forum has you both listed under the same Group of Administrators. So you should have the same abilities.
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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by pyramid »

I think the user permissions are given per forum unless somebody's part of the forum staff group, which I am not. While in the Artwork&Content Vetting Forum I do have the "[ Moderator Control Panel ]" menu, I don't see it in this forum, hence cannot edit anything.
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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by loki1950 »

In that case I just put you in to the global moderator group so it should now be possible for you to moderate any sub-forum :)

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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

Here's the txt file with the speech lines and post production process info.
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/andolian.txt

By the way, all the relevant posts (read: having Andolian related attachments by me) are still in the Aera thread I had hijacked O:-)
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Re: Andolian ship-to-ship speech comms

Post by CLoneWolf »

In order to update the wiki page on audio development as Turbo suggested, I've investigated on the andolian xml files (revision 12519) and found that:
- andoliantoprivateer.xml has different lines that I had recorded, but it's never mentioned in the code (I grepped the whole data folder)

- andolian_citizen.xml contains a spurious reference to a sound file as follows, but other than that it's equivalent to andolian.xml, so there's no need to split the factions

Code: Select all

<node text="Docking operation complete. You're free of the docking clamps." relationship="0.01">
    <sound file="communications/sounds/andolian/andolian_dock-complete.ogg" sex="0"/>
    <sound file="communications/sounds/aera/" sex="0"/>
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