Is there any radio chatter like freelancer?

[JZ Comics]

One of the things I liked in freelancer was the different radio chatter that you would come across when doing things like docking or engaging enemies or joined by allies and such, is there anything like that in this game?

[danijel]

Yup, FL had that thing covered in the best fashion possible (if I remember correctly, they had about 7000 audio files covering that basis). We however, learning from the SPG1, do not have a plan to incorporate chatter in that manner. Since we're dealing with larger ships (not fighters) it would be more logical to implement an "on bridge chatter" so to say, with your officers having something to say depending on the situation, it will definitely not be a VO "mute" game as it is in alpha before you when it launches.

[JZ Comics]

the bridge idea sounds ok, mainly was wondering if flying around was just going to be generally silent or not, I would think that stations or other large ships sending messages to you wouldn't be to far fetched though

[danijel]

Let's put it like this, we did try to implement something like that in the SPG1, but as it wasn't done as it obviously should've been, if we won't be able to do it properly, then we'll not dabble in half/solutions... To sound really ok, this would require a lot of VO-ing, and I cannot strictly promise you that, I can only say at this moment it's a desired feature if you ask me. Implementing the code for that is not much of a problem, recording VO is. As the development continues, we'll keep track of our to do list, and try to keep this in mind as best as we can.

[JZ Comics]

ok thanks for the info, my main thing was I didn't want to have space being all silent that's all, and I agree that half/solutions aren't a good option, keep up the good work

[Gnerph Baht]

Croud source the audio? Let users upload a clip to soundcloud or similar and let the hive mind vote on submissions? Don't let recording quality be a factor because not everyone in space will have a transponder that is pristine. Feedback, white noise, pops, crackles all will lend realism.

[Fridge Panic]

Originally posted by Gnerph Baht:

Don't let recording quality be a factor because not everyone in space will have a transponder that is pristine. Feedback, white noise, pops, crackles all will lend realism.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. If I wanted bad audio quality, I'd watch an average Youtube commentary. No VO is better than bad VO.

[danijel]

Well... it's obviously something to be discussed and probably voted on ;). We'll keep it in mind nonetheless.

[Mo¡stDreams]

Originally posted by danijel:

Let's put it like this, we did try to implement something like that in the SPG1, but as it wasn't done as it obviously should've been, if we won't be able to do it properly, then we'll not dabble in half/solutions... To sound really ok, this would require a lot of VO-ing, and I cannot strictly promise you that, I can only say at this moment it's a desired feature if you ask me. Implementing the code for that is not much of a problem, recording VO is. As the development continues, we'll keep track of our to do list, and try to keep this in mind as best as we can.

Actually, You only need to voice over the alphabet a couple of times and then derive computer modified accents, I have seen this working before if you are familiar with any of the X-Universe games specifically X3Reunion and above you will notice that the voice acting is actual digitized by the computer. The technology behind it is not new its basically the same techniques windows have used for years to get computers to read aloud. Essentially you first voice over the entire alphabet letter by letter and then turn the voice over into an array which basically says ok for the text "a" lookup the array and check which variable id that matches that letter to be spoken is then speak it with sound. I know this is a terrible explanation as I have not dabbled in it much myself but that is the jist of how it works.
You end up with a voice over array indexed into engine readable text so when the engine reads text it is able to read aloud by looking at the array and seeing which voiced over letter matches that text. The trick with it though is to get it to play back smoothly and understand words and nouns.
This is when you are better of using a third-party Speech Synthesizer in your engine.

[danijel]

Originally posted by LedHead900:

Originally posted by danijel:

Let's put it like this, we did try to implement something like that in the SPG1, but as it wasn't done as it obviously should've been, if we won't be able to do it properly, then we'll not dabble in half/solutions... To sound really ok, this would require a lot of VO-ing, and I cannot strictly promise you that, I can only say at this moment it's a desired feature if you ask me. Implementing the code for that is not much of a problem, recording VO is. As the development continues, we'll keep track of our to do list, and try to keep this in mind as best as we can.

Actually, You only need to voice over the alphabet a couple of times and then derive computer modified accents, I have seen this working before if you are familiar with any of the X-Universe games specifically X3Reunion and above you will notice that the voice acting is actual digitized by the computer. The technology behind it is not new its basically the same techniques windows have used for years to get computers to read aloud. Essentially you first voice over the entire alphabet letter by letter and then turn the voice over into an array which basically says ok for the text "a" lookup the array and check which variable id that matches that letter to be spoken is then speak it with sound. I know this is a terrible explanation as I have not dabbled in it much myself but that is the jist of how it works.
You end up with a voice over array indexed into engine readable text so when the engine reads text it is able to read aloud by looking at the array and seeing which voiced over letter matches that text. The trick with it though is to get it to play back smoothly and understand words and nouns.
This is when you are better of using a third-party Speech Synthesizer in your engine.

Sounds interesting, but we still come down to the "if we can't do it right, then it's perhaps better not to do it at all", but it's definitely something we'll have to look into.

[Mo¡stDreams]

Originally posted by danijel:

Sounds interesting, but we still come down to the "if we can't do it right, then it's perhaps better not to do it at all", but it's definitely something we'll have to look into.

Take a read of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis it has examples and contains documentation on the various types of uses and kinds of methods to produce this kind of voice over. I think that using this method you should be able to pull over some really nice stuff maybe not at release but possibly as an expansion.

[danijel]

Originally posted by LedHead900:

Originally posted by danijel:

Sounds interesting, but we still come down to the "if we can't do it right, then it's perhaps better not to do it at all", but it's definitely something we'll have to look into.

Take a read of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis it has examples and contains documentation on the various types of uses and kinds of methods to produce this kind of voice over. I think that using this method you should be able to pull over some really nice stuff maybe not at release but possibly as an expansion.

Thanks! Can't promise we'll implement it, but it does sound like a good idea. I'm sure we'll get one of the programmers to devote some time to see if it's doable on our side.

[horse]

One of the big "plus" of freelancer (sry to keep doing the analogy I would take it as a compliment tho) was the immersive feeling, audio was at the time a big part of it, those chatters and messages were like fresh air in the middle of a cold and infinite space. Even the avatar had a voice I wouldn't say it was great, as he had less charisma than a shrimp on prozac but still, human voice is always nice to hear in deep space games, the radio chatter is all you have aboard that ship.

And crap no more cards to drop...