Vega Strike Forums

No I'm not already hijacking this faction
This is just a brainstorming proposal, after fiddling with extra plugins I added to Audacity (it supports LADSPA plugins and there are a lot of them freely available on the net).
I always liked the old style robot voice you can make with a flanger effect (I know, I know, mechanists are humans deep down to their core, but what if they ironically play on the luddite narrow-minded stereotype? )
So here's a test with voice pitched down and filtered with a flanger, what do you think?
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechtest.ogg

Homo Sapiens Cyberis has body parts replaced with artificial ones to a varying degree across individuals and we could probably have very long discussions about the "appropriate" tones they could proffer, ranging from the earliest types of synthetic voices to uber-future human-like voice, or maybe even alternative bit-wise encoded communication similar to the sounds the first computers made when reading software from tapes. Without intervention from the MOI we are on our own.

For me the sample doesn't sound bad at all if you increase the tempo by around +30 percent, and aligns fairly well with the idea which the faction name "Mechanist" might create in most of us.

pyramid wrote:For me the sample doesn't sound bad at all if you increase the tempo by around +30 percent, and aligns fairly well with the idea which the faction name "Mechanist" might create in most of us.

Woohoo! That tempo increase sounds GREAT! I tried it on the whole raw sentence set I did to test effects upon, and many sentences sound better already! I'll soon post a more refined set, don't hesitate to ask for rerecording of anything sub-par, as I didn't take care of correct acting in a test run.

A new band rocks across the galaxies: Chip and the Blue LEDs
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechanist.zip

I like the effect you used, I think it fits the Mechanist faction. It is different enough from the others that it should be distinct and recognizable. I do recommend you amplify each one to full volume.

With 4 factions given voice and more in development, space is not lonely anymore. Last night I was playing and found an Andolian system being invaded by the Aera that also had a refinery and a mining base. So as I was earning money by hauling electronics, there were plenty of ships talking to me.

Turbo wrote:I like the effect you used, I think it fits the Mechanist faction. It is different enough from the others that it should be distinct and recognizable. I do recommend you amplify each one to full volume.

Thanks for your feedback! I had actually softened everything before the flanger because it induced a little distortion, but I'll try to amplify it back while staying as clean as it can.
On a side note, a note to all current and future volunteers, I fear that with this I've covered all I can with my voice (and accent :/ ).
If needed, I can fiddle with combinations of effects that could fit other factions, but it's time to hear someone else!

Turbo wrote:With 4 factions given voice and more in development, space is not lonely anymore. Last night I was playing and found an Andolian system being invaded by the Aera that also had a refinery and a mining base. So as I was earning money by hauling electronics, there were plenty of ships talking to me.

Great! Void?!? Who called this void? This is busier than Tokyo at rush hour!

CLoneWolf wrote:I fear that with this I've covered all I can with my voice (and accent :/ ). If needed, I can fiddle with combinations of effects that could fit other factions, but it's time to hear someone else!

Agreed, and thanks for your service.

Turbo wrote:Agreed, and thanks for your service.

Thank you for all your help and feedback
The above zip has been replaced, link is still valid, I've used a mono amplifier at gain 2, this should be it, but I can quickly reprocess everything with a different gain level if needed.
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechanist.zip

This is very good again.
Though the Cyberis, or Mechanists, have carry artificial body parts, they are still emotional beings. As such, I feel that they should also sound less emotionless. Good, if there is still a possibility for rework.

CLoneWolf wrote:I fear that with this I've covered all I can with my voice (and accent :/ ) ... it's time to hear someone else!

Apologies if I am stepping on your toes, but sounds to me like an excuse. Be assured, your voice acting is great and there are still many factions to cover. I'd rather see a complete set of speech audio with only two voice actors than leaving void spaces in the hope that somewhere, sometime another member would volunteer to contribute.

Turbo and you have gone where no-one has gone before. Us being many individuals with different cultural backgrounds that come together here to create this adventure, makes VS The Game a very unique space sim, and an exciting project on top. We should not hesitate to reflect this background in-game, also not the linguistic one. Accents are great (I'd love to hear french , russian, chinese, spanish, german, italian, .... accents in the voices of VS UTCS), as much as are races (the VS ones and the RL ones). I just hope that your new year's resolution brings yours back to VS.

pyramid wrote:This is very good again.
Though the Cyberis, or Mechanists, have carry artificial body parts, they are still emotional beings. As such, I feel that they should also sound less emotionless. Good, if there is still a possibility for rework.

Sure, as I had anticipated, this set was made out of a test recording aimed at obtaining a robot voice, so the lack of emotion was exaggerated

pyramid wrote:

CLoneWolf wrote:I fear that with this I've covered all I can with my voice (and accent :/ ) ... it's time to hear someone else!

Apologies if I am stepping on your toes, but sounds to me like an excuse. Be assured, your voice acting is great and there are still many factions to cover. I'd rather see a complete set of speech audio with only two voice actors than leaving void spaces in the hope that somewhere, sometime another member would volunteer to contribute.

Oh no trust me, though I won't be as free as I've been these days, after the 6th, I haven't lost the will to contribute; I just think that variety is important, and if you want me to do more voices, I'll consider them just placeholders to be replaced as soon as more actors volunteer (I'd like to survive for the current factions I've done though, but if something better can be done I won't stop that )

pyramid wrote:Turbo and you have gone where no-one has gone before. Us being many individuals with different cultural backgrounds that come together here to create this adventure, makes VS The Game a very unique space sim, and an exciting project on top. We should not hesitate to reflect this background in-game, also not the linguistic one. Accents are great (I'd love to hear french , russian, chinese, spanish, german, italian, .... accents in the voices of VS UTCS), as much as are races (the VS ones and the RL ones). I just hope that your new year's resolution brings yours back to VS.

Again, trust me, you *don't* want to hear italian accent in game! Let alone notable exceptions (none of which is me), the average here makes me ashamed of being Italian! It's not even a real accent, it's just lazy people not making the effort to emit sounds different from the ones needed for our own language. Unless you refer to the "Broccolino", the mafia men's accent of the old times, but that one won't fit any faction, at most it could be Luviccio (that sounds like a made-up italian-like name )
Anyway, I second your wink: Allez Fendorin! Just as... Come on, rivalin!

it's just lazy people not making the effort to emit sounds different from the ones needed for our own language.

That is true for all languages that humans speak one of the main reasons that languages change the other being teen speak being incorporated into mainstream usage.This is also expressed in phoneme change from the back of the throat to the lips where there is less energy to produce the sound.

Enjoy the Choice

...and now, for something completely different...
Chip and the Blue LEDs LIVE!
Now with more emotion!
Soon in a SVN near you. (...if pyramid approves, of course )
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechanistv2.zip
This zip only contains the remade lines, the tempo change was 25% because I talked a little faster while recording.
Again, feel free to mix the original and remade lines any way you see fit and ask for further redoing of anything if needed.
If all's well, I can move to other factions, be them placeholders or not.

Perfect. I'm good to go with this (to an svn close to you...)

*EDIT*
Committed!

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

There's a typo in the xml files:

"Suck vaccum and die within your boiling prison of flesh!"

should read

"Suck vacuum and die within your boiling prison of flesh!"

(I didn't mention typos earlier because I thought that these files were kinda M.o.I.- locked )

Now that we are integrating the XMLs for the dev team, we can fix these as we find them.

Sorry I fell off the Internet for 5 days -- it was out at home, and blocked at work. Now I can get caught up.

OK, here they are...
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechanist.xml
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/mechanist_citizen.xml