Vega Strike Forums

Recipe:
- take just a hint from loki1950 on evolution of speaking
- 3 parts of The Simpsons
- 1 part of Stargate Atlantis
- shake (do not stir)
...et voila'
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/merchantfullrec.ogg
(raw mono recording, no effects at all, lacking all the citizen unique sentences)

Actually I think this is too cartoonist and fake to be proper, but since home was quiet I thought I'd give it a go; if not more, consider this as a brainstorming start for the guild.

Ha, ha, yeah very caricate, maybe a bit too much, but I still like it.

pyramid wrote:Ha, ha, yeah very caricate, maybe a bit too much, but I still like it.

I don't know if and how much I'll be able to lessen it, but I'll see what I can do. Any suggestions on how? Or if you see this kind of talking more fit for another missing faction?
Hey people, I saw quite a few views of this post but pyramid's the first to give feedback; please feel free to add criticism, comments and ideas; my big keg o' free time is over, and it'll be a great time saver to have guidelines ready when I have the chance to hit the Record button on Audacity.

Hmmm. It does sound like 3 parts of "Apu" from "The Simpsons" but I can't name the "Stargate Atlantis" character who makes up the other part. I would have guessed Peter Sellers playing "Inspector Clouseu" for those of us old enough to remember the classic "Pink Panther" movies.

I am having a hard time understanding the words (so I expect that in-game will be harder), I recommend that you speak more slowly.

It is nice that the merchant guild and merchant citizens have different lines, variety is good.

Turbo wrote:Hmmm. It does sound like 3 parts of "Apu" from "The Simpsons" but I can't name the "Stargate Atlantis" character who makes up the other part. I would have guessed Peter Sellers playing "Inspector Clouseu" for those of us old enough to remember the classic "Pink Panther" movies.

Well, of course it was Apu, you know... merchants... accents...
There are 2 characters in Stargate Atlantis who contributed to the rest:
Carson Beckett, not for the scottish accent I could never fake, but for the way of talking: his mouth is always as closed as it can be.
Radek Zelenka, for some non-nativeness.
As for Peter Sellers, I've never had the pleasure to listen to his original Clouseau; the italian actor dubbing him made a very good job, it's hilarious

Turbo wrote:I am having a hard time understanding the words (so I expect that in-game will be harder), I recommend that you speak more slowly.

Thanks I'll try that too; would that be enough, or is there any particular pronunciation defect I should also smoothen?

CLoneWolf wrote:Radek Zelenka

Of course. I forgot about him, having not seen the series in a few years.

I think speaking more slowly is all that is needed. I had envisioned the Merchant Guild differently, more like a dishonest used car salesman than your vision of a friendly (but still dishonest) store manager. But the voice I envision would work equally well for the pirates, or perhaps the Merchant_Citizen.

Turbo wrote:I think speaking more slowly is all that is needed. I had envisioned the Merchant Guild differently, more like a dishonest used car salesman than your vision of a friendly (but still dishonest) store manager. But the voice I envision would work equally well for the pirates, or perhaps the Merchant_Citizen.

The bit of honesty I saw in the merchants is due to the splash screen about the Botete who lost quite a few ships and crew, so I thought they wouldn't be completely... Ferengi
But of course your vision fits them very well too; the "Well, hello precious..." line is one of the slimiest, creepiest ever, for instance
Feel free to work on the whole merchant factions, as said I can always apply my "Apulantis" to any other faction you people see fit.

I suggest we use your "Apu Zelenka" for now, or a slower-speaking version of it. The slimy voice I envisioned might fit some other faction, such as pirates, better (but that is a different thread).

The slimy voice I envisioned might fit some other faction, such as pirates, better (but that is a different thread).

To bad we don't have a lawyers faction

Enjoy the Choice

loki1950 wrote:To bad we don't have a lawyers faction

That can't be done, they'd take Luddites' place as the ultimate faction relationship boost: you kill one, everyone's happy
Plus, I fear they'd be starting class... factions against everyone, quite nightmarish, no thanks!

OK this attempt might even be worse than the first as I tried to kill the toons or at least sedate them a little...
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/merchantv2fullrec.ogg
Feedback as usual please!

Sounds good to me.

I agree. Recommend you cut it into individual files and Pyramid can integrate it when time permits.

I've got a good bargain for you:
it's in good condition, unique proprietary, treated with care...
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/merchant.zip
...batteries not included
I've used only 1 pass of Turbo's filters, then a different low pass plugin and an equalization step to get a slightly different radio feeling, to help the guys not sound too close to the space cowboys as they both have my natural pitch; I hope this hasn't compromised understandability too much, let me know.
[Johnny 5 mode on] Feedback! Feedback! [Johnny 5 mode off]

Is nice voice

I can't have any critics i can't recognize if it's fake accent with real role playing or fake role playing with a real accents...anyway is a realy nice improvement and give to game a professional "touche" .

i support you/ continue this work.

Fendorin wrote:Is nice voice

Thanks for your appreciation

Fendorin wrote:I can't have any critics i can't recognize if it's fake accent with real role playing or fake role playing with a real accents...anyway is a realy nice improvement and give to game a professional "touche" .

The first guess is the right one, the accent is totally made up as I said, and might not match any existing accent (but we're so far in the future that it might be born meanwhile anyway ) while the role playing is kinda real as I have some (amateur level, nothing too serious) theatre experience in my past.

Fendorin wrote:i support you/ continue this work.

Thanks, and I support yours!

Courtesy of my wife, here is the voice for the Merchant Guild Citizen, the only faction (presently) with different lines for its citizen variant.
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/us/don/t ... itizen.zip
When she realized that the Merchant Guild Citizen is basically a truck driver in the 32d century, she put a little North Carolina into her voice and I think the result is excellent (she sounds just like the women truck drivers in the US that I used to hear on my CB radio).

Not only does this add a new voice, but we now have both men and women voices in the game.

Edit: I updated the Wiki with all the factions, so it is easier to see what needs to be done. http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/media ... munication

Turbo wrote:Courtesy of my wife, here is the voice for the Merchant Guild Citizen, the only faction (presently) with different lines for its citizen variant.

Well, actually there are some smaller differences for another human faction too, the Shapers.
Forsaken instead give a false positive because of a typo in forsaken_citizen.xml ("ould always be worse"instead of "could always be worse")
Andolian had different lines (as do Uln), but because of the talking device used, it's coherent to act for both.

Turbo wrote:When she realized that the Merchant Guild Citizen is basically a truck driver in the 32d century, she put a little North Carolina into her voice and I think the result is excellent (she sounds just like the women truck drivers in the US that I used to hear on my CB radio).

Not only does this add a new voice, but we now have both men and women voices in the game.

Great! That's veeeeeeeeery goooooood, I swear!

Edit: by the way, here's the txt file with the speech lines and post production process info.
http://olografix.org/groucho/vs/merchant.txt
Note to devs, there's a typo for the attribute "The Guild is gonna slap a contract on your ass so fast, you won't be able to sit again!"; the attribute name is test1 instead of text1, and about the text1 lines, are they spoken at all? I saw one of them in my chat display during a test run of the svn, but I heard no voice, dunno if it was a problem on my side or lack of handling of text1 speech by the code.

I forgot to have her record the "bounty" line that is common to all factions, I will add it to the ZIP file.

Cool. I'll commit the outstanding speeches today.
It would be helpful if, in the future, you guys could also provide the updated comm xml files. That would save the integration time on my side and make the commits happen faster. I expect to not remain as active as I have been in the past 2 years.

I just took a peek inside the XMLs and that looks very easy to do. I will update the Wiki to explain how, and include the updated XML from now on.

Edit: I have updated the ZIP file for Merchant Guild Citizen, so that the same link as above now gets the whole package in one file. It now includes all the voice lines, including bounty text, and the updated faction XML. However, I was not sure how to make the code call the bounty text line.

If you want me to do the same from Homeland Security, let me know.

The bounty text is called from bounty.py and the implementation is generic concatenating the faction and "_it-appears-we-have.ogg". So you just need to provide a bounty speech file and place it in sounds/missions and the code will play it if it finds the faction, otherwise not. The code: For homesec, I have done the integration already. There is just the speeches for the bounty line missing as well as for this line:
* text="Keep an eye out for the enemy - he has agents everywhere."

Sorry about that -- I was going so fast I did not follow my own instructions. I will fix it and post an updated ZIP in the appropriate thread, check back at least an hour from now.

Both, merchant guild + citizen are committed to svn.
@Turbo,
Apologies for doing unjustice to your wife's excellent voice acting in my svn comment by not mentioning this honorable contribution correctly.

CLoneWolf wrote:Well, actually there are some smaller differences for another human faction too, the Shapers.
Forsaken instead give a false positive because of a typo in forsaken_citizen.xml ("ould always be worse"instead of "could always be worse")
Andolian had different lines (as do Uln), but because of the talking device used, it's coherent to act for both.

Since you have this figured out, would you be so kind as to add these to the list of factions that need to be voiced, here?
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/media ... munication
I got it started, with links to the factions. The wiki login is the same as for this forum.

Your name appears in read because, if you want, you can click it to create a page about yourself.