Creating a new guard AI

[dmw88]

I want to make a new guard AI who would be more or less a palette swap of an existing AI guard. Im assuming all Id have to replace is the textures for the model and create a voice profile.

 

I think I can figure out how to handle the textures and duplicating the model based on what is already there, but if anyone can point me to an explanation to be sure thatd be helpful. More importantly, is there anywhere to get a complete list of soundfiles required to make a new AI speech profile? Ive looked everywhere that makes sense on the wiki and so far had no luck. I also am not sure exactly how to package these files - again, I didnt see anything on the tutorials for this.

 

Ive got three maps completely built, textured, and decorated, which was easy based on my experience making MP maps for older idtech games, but handling AI and scripting has been really slow, since it is new to me, so any help with this is majorly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Springheel]

Is your plan to record a new vocal set? That's a pretty involved process.

[dmw88]

Yeah, a new vocal set and skin for a prison guard. The existing vocal sets have lines that dont make sense.

 

Ive got time, I spend anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day working on personal projects and for the last 2 months thats been all TDM maps.

[Destined]

More importantly, is there anywhere to get a complete list of soundfiles required to make a new AI speech profile? Ive looked everywhere that makes sense on the wiki and so far had no luck. I also am not sure exactly how to package these files - again, I didnt see anything on the tutorials for this.

Does the Voices Wiki page not cover the info you need for a new vocal script? If not, what are you missing?

[Springheel]

Yeah, a new vocal set and skin for a prison guard. The existing vocal sets have lines that dont make sense.

 

Ive got time, I spend anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day working on personal projects and for the last 2 months thats been all TDM maps.

 

The first thing you would have to do is record all the vocal lines you want. You can use this as a template: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Vocal_script:_Average_Jack

 

You would then need to create a soundshader file. You can look at sound/tdm_ai_jack.sndshd for an example.

 

You then need to create a vocal def file to tell the code when to use each of soundshaders. Look at def/tdm_ai_vocalsets01.def for an example of that.

 

A skin is much simpler. This should help: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Creating_Multiple_Skins_For_A_Model. Fiding out what textures an AI currently uses can be a challenge. You can look at existing skin files for the AI in question to get some idea, or you can open the md5mesh file in a text editor and search for the lines that start with "shader".

[dmw88]

Thanks so much. If I get it worked out I think I will try to put a tutorial together for the wiki so other editors can do this as well.

Edited January 17, 2019 by dmw88

[dmw88]

I think I am following this, with one exception. For the first batch of barks, it says 9 wavs. But we have idle1 - idle9, with idles 1-4 seeming to have multiple variants, suggesting something like 16 wavs. Is there some misinformation here or am I misunderstanding?

[Springheel]

The number of wavs is just a suggestion.

[Petike the Taffer]

Thanks so much. If I get it worked out I think I will try to put a tutorial together for the wiki so other editors can do this as well.

 

Just recently, I've made a large update on the vocal scripts we already have in the game, based on VS materials provided directly by Springheel already a few months ago. I'm still improving the formatting of those individual VS articles, but the majority are already readable enough in their "raw" state. I intend to update the few missing VS-s too, and take a look at whether the scripts I received aren't missing some newer lines from the current versions, and so on.

 

On a sidenote, once I finally buy a better microphone (might be in the coming weeks), I plan to develop and record a proof-of-concept vocal set for a pagan or foreign merchant character. As I have a bit of a natural non-anglophone accent while speaking English, it should sound different to the other character vocal sets, but not forced.

[kingsal]

Oh man is that some work, but it would be rad to have some more vocal sets out there! I am not sure what you're planning to do, but I would recommend modifying or supplementing a vocal set if at all possible as a full vocal set is like 130-150 lines that need to be written, recorded, processed and jammed into definition files and tested. You can also try to get a hold of the original voice actors and see if they'd be willing to record some extra lines. Not to discourage you, just saying it can be brutal.

 

If you are looking for the .defs, you can look at tdm_ai_vocal_set_base.def to get an idea of what you need for the vocal set definition and tdm_ai_pro.sndshd for the sound shader set up.

 

Also: I was able to get away with a lot fewer sound waves for the AI's i've made. Usually around 3-4 per sound shader.

Edited January 18, 2019 by kingsal