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TDM Vocals


Springheel

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As far as I know, TDM has only one female model. Off the top of my head, I know that Patently Dangerous included m'lady

 

We have one female model that is game ready, and at least two others that just need to be rigged. But without female vocals, we can't put them in game, so I'm not going to bother working on them until we have some. If anyone knows someone who is willing and able to do decent vocal work, let me know.

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...without female vocals, we can't put them in game... If anyone knows someone who is willing and able to do decent vocal work, let me know.

 

...you see a lot of foxes in my city...

 

Well, there you go.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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I think If I were going to make a mission. I would not let voice acting stop me from something like putting ladies in it.

 

For a temp fix I would use some of these really nice text to speech engines they have now. Cepstral Voices and others have them so good sounding it's hard to tell the difference between a computer and a real person. Heck.. even the female voice the Windows 7 uses by default Rocks Socks compared to the old MS Sam.

 

You can always use public domain voice files to get away with generic phrases. There are many good wav and mp3 archives on the net.

 

And you can put the ladies in and use them for minimal roles. Perhaps non speaking roles just to be seen around town as some passerby's are.

 

I love the way all the guards are into sailing. But they must be bad at it..I always hear them say, " When I'm done I'm going to get me a good ore"

 

(grin)

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Springheel, I've arranged voice actors before. I can try to get someone to voice at least one of the voice sets, if you show me where to find a list of lines to perform.

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DP,

 

You are talking with the Art Department Lead and I doubt he is going to half-assedly jimmy in some Text2Speech "fix-up" . :rolleyes:

 

And I am glad of that.

 

 

That suggestion was mainly for everyday Joe's that made fan missions. Not everyone has access or the abily to find/hire use professional or even amateur voice actors.

 

I would use them. I have heard some really good ones.. you know like the ones you hear when you call a company for tech support and you can't tell if they are real or not.. those types.

 

The main point there was there are lots of other ways he could work ladies into a mission without having to have them be vocal.- so no excuse for not using them or waiting for a voice actress.

Edited by Dark Phoenix
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Dark Phoenix: That is an excellent idea. Some years ago I used the (then) state of the art text to speech for one speech in a Thief game. I also processed the result to mask it and as it was a somewhat etheral character nobody noticed. But at that time the general quality of text to speech was not good enough (and I tried them all!) But this Cepstral sounds far better. I only tried one demo but it is clearly better and I will definitely explore this. As you say, even if not good enough for the Dark Mod defaults, from what I just heard in the demo it is good enough for occasional conversations by mappers.

 

I always thought that one day text to speech will be so good that all video games will not only include text strings and no recorded voices at all. In fact I think they will only include multiple clips of common speeches and smart code will randomly combine them for almost infinite variations.

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Well, I still wouldn't bet on proper (or even passable) emotion being conveyed with Text2Speech.

 

But then I wonder why it's so hard to get out a microphone, ask your girlfriend, sister, roommate, aunt, daughter, that-chick-at-the-party-you-are-currently-hosting--in-your-flat to read a few lines as far as individual mappers go... so I kind of agree with you in a rown d'abow tway.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Why not ask the people who had already contributed their talents to one of the Thief-based projects? CoSaS/Mission X had dozens of lines for Sheam and Agent Stone, and some for Lady Antonette, and I remember it was good voice acting. Approach Wynne, Lizanneh and MsLedd to see if they could lend a hand. Maybe they could and would. No harm in asking. :)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Went back for a more thorough examination and that text to speech is not as good as I first thought because naturally they put the best voice with the best bit of example text right up front. But mostly they still have the warbles. Still better than a few years ago and has some potential but the real killer is that all of these are customised for real-time speech of existing text such as web pages, pdf, etc and other applications such as telephony. You have to search a bit to find one that can save a sound file and I gave up searching for customise editing. For instance years ago I had one where you could enter codes into the text to improve and emphasise.

 

My ideal would be this:

A text editor where you could enter control codes to enhance the results. For example:

<shout> <whisper> <emphasise> <query> <tail off> <rising emphasise> etc.

A real time low quality text to speech so you could quickly hear what you've got.

An advanced convertor that might take many minutes to compile a short speech but of excellent quality with no warbles.

A save to sound file option.

Oh yeah and good info to explain it!

 

I'd pay good money for the above.

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Maybe we could also automate FM-building... and playing! ;)

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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regarding voice acting:

 

Would it be possible that we could wikify a list of the current TDM voice actors with contact information (with their permission) so that mappers could PM/email them about creating custom conversations for the voice acting sets they have already done?

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Is there a list of lines for a vocal set somewhere (I couldn't find this detail in the Wiki)? If there was a page that detailed all the lines and barks for each type of character (or maybe just a single character?), then it would make it simple for someone to add their own vocal set (which they could personalise a bit as well). I'd be quite keen on adding some vocal sets, once I get a new mic.

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then it would make it simple for someone to add their own vocal set (which they could personalise a bit as well)

 

It's not quite that simple. You'd have to also to create your own soundshader and vocal def file, which is not trivial.

 

I can easily provide one of the scripts for reference, however, if someone is willing to do the wiki formatting.

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Just post it up on the wiki. Someone will pretty it up, I'm sure. This could have been done months ago if anyone had known you needed female voices before now.

 

I got the PM, and I'm shopping that one character around. How many other characters and types are there? I know you said you make up characters on demand based on the actor's range, but I know there are a lot of actors out there of all types who can just give you what you need.

 

And to everyone else, don't let the fact that I'm getting some auditions going dissuade you from doing it too. The more the merrier, I say.

Edited by Tch
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Just post it up on the wiki. Someone will pretty it up, I'm sure. This could have been done months ago if anyone had known you needed female voices before now.

 

It hasn't exactly been a secret that we're looking for female vocals. I've posted threads about it here and at TTLG, and brought it up in virtually every thread that mentions female characters for the past six months. The two female scripts that I have written were for volunteers who responded to those posts.

 

As for not posting a script on the wiki before now, there are two reasons for that. One, I don't have time to create scripts that someone might have time to record, someday. It takes a significant amount of time and thought to do a decent script. I've already written ten of them in the past ten months, so I don't have the time or energy to write new ones until I have someone who is both willing and able to produce a decent set of vocals. Secondly, not everyone who might be willing to do it has either the recording equipment or acting ability necessary to do a decent job. It's not particularly useful to have huge audio files dropped in our laps that we can't actually use; it's a waste of both the actor's time and ours.

 

That said, I'm happy to listen to any samples people want to send, and I'll post an example script on the wiki for those who would like to try their hand and writing one of their own. The next one we could use is a generic townswoman/barmaid.

 

edit: done. http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Vocal_Script:_Average_Jack

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First I came across it, and I've been in and out of these forums since the beginning. I did a search just now, and the most recent ones I found were a couple of posts from January, one of which said "I have a voice actress lined up," and when BrokenArts offered her voice, Crispy said there was no need, as the situation was in hand. I've seen you and others state that a female AI was more or less ready (and of course I've seen a couple of mute ones in the FMs), but no one mentioned soliciting voices for them in those threads.

 

How about a sticky in the "I want to help" forum for things other than models that need to be done? The other sticky there is a vague, general recruitment thing asking for specific skills instead of specific items. And is that model list up to date?

 

As for voices, you might want to update the sticky in the "I want to help" forum, which states "**Please Note** Vocal Sets are being handled in house. No vocal set submissions please."

 

Secondly, not everyone who might be willing to do it has either the recording equipment or acting ability necessary to do a decent job. It's not particularly useful to have huge audio files dropped in our laps that we can't actually use; it's a waste of both the actor's time and ours.

Pfah, no one knows that better than I. Some of us have done this sort of thing before, you know. In my line of work I've had to solicit many voice actors over the years, and winnow out the poor recordings from the usable ones, before selecting which of the usable ones best fit the roles. I wasn't going to send you complete scripts all at once, obviously. My plan is to send you a sampling from various actresses, from which you can select whatever is appropriate.

 

And yes, of course we're all busy, and none of us like to waste our time.

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First I came across it, and I've been in and out of these forums since the beginning.

 

And your point is? Since you were unaware of it, then I'm not telling the truth?

 

I did a search just now, and the most recent ones I found were a couple of posts from January

 

I can't help but feel like you're trying to call my honesty into question.

 

For the record, the most recent reference to it (other than this thread) was a post I made two days ago in the Help Wanted forum: "We have female models, we just don't have any female vocals." There was also March 15th in the Editor's Guild forum, where I posted, "You're certainly not alone on that one. The moment I get some female vocals, we'll have female characters." And there are plenty of other examples if I need to go on.

 

Could I have posted it even more, and more blatantly? Sure. But I already managed to get two volunteers, and have spent the last six weeks or so working on the scripts for them (along with modeling, animating and all the other things I do for this mod). That's all I have time for.

 

I appreciate your offer of help, but this, "you guys aren't doing enough" attitude is already wearing thin.

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And your point is? Since you were unaware of it, then I'm not telling the truth?

No, the point was that it needs a sticky, or at least a dedicated thread, so that those who can help can be aware of it, instead of coming across it randomly as I did. Looks like you've done that here, so good work. Has nothing to do with calling your honesty into question. I apologise if my no-nonsense approach to things is terse or irritating. My intent is to give what aid I can, in those areas that I can, and I think it serves everyone well to be able to easily find what needs doing. It will not hurt my feelings if what I provide can't be used, if it's not up to standards.

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Well, I still wouldn't bet on proper (or even passable) emotion being conveyed with Text2Speech.

 

 

This is do-able.. but.. you have to tweak the text to speech engines settings to make it sound just right.. That's hard to do at firast it seems, but you just have to play with it a while.

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Here's a small sample. The hiss is a problem, but I'm seeing what I can do about that. The purpose of this one is to see if the actress is usable, and all the lines will be re-recorded after the recording levels are fixed up. I've included a noise-reduced version as well, though that has obvious flaws.

 

Another actress is trying out as well, and I should have some sample lines from her later.

 

File Name: voice sample 1.zip

Size: 1.70MB

http://www.sendspace.com/file/45fdnq

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Ooooh, that hiss! Are you using a 3.5mm microphone directly into your sound card? You'd be much better using a phantom-powered condenser mic.

 

Interesting choice of voice, she almost sounds from the U.S. Midwest to me. If it's a noblewoman, perhaps a more educated articulation would fit well.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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It's a 500 ohm impedance unidirectional dynamic mic plugged into the sound card. I could upload the alternate take with a different mic, which didn't have any hiss, but there was some bad distortion with it. I think I can troubleshoot the former to get rid of the hiss. I'll know in a day or two.

 

I don't think this would be a noblewoman. More likely the townswoman/barmaid, or whatever other role is available.

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Even using a dynamic mic (Who's the manufacturer, by the way?), I would seriously recommend using a mixer or a direct-in recording box. I can hear obvious artifacts of other hardware devices working in the background of the hiss :( (They're usually a rhythmic ticking or hi-frequency buzzes or beeps). I think there's either a serious hardware problem that you get that much hiss, or you've simply cranked the trim too high.

 

Personally: I've never gotten good results recording something directly into a sound card (No matter how well shielded the case or card is).

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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