Vocal Issues

[Springheel 4438]

Now that the new vocal sets are being added to the game we'll no doubt notice instances where things don't sound quite right--either the vocals don't fit the situation or the code calls them at the wrong time or whatever. I'm not expecting that we'll fix many of these before 1.0, but we can keep track of them here.

 

 

 

1. Greeting Builders. I didn't make any special vocals for characters greeting builder guards (I assumed they'd use the guard greeting: "quiet shift?"), but I did make a specific one for greeting priests. Currently though the priest greeting is used for all builders, which results in characters calling builder guards "holy father", which doesn't really fit.

 

Looking at the def files it seems like we don't have a "persontype" for priests, only for builders? I'll put together something for builder greetings then, but in the future we'll probably want a "priest" type.

[SneaksieDave 39]

I'm not sure if these are the types of things you're looking for for this list, but these stick out in my mind of late:

 

 

* I know there are some cases where the builder guard, using the expected voice, suddenly (for some stimuli) starts sounds like TDM's "Benny" type guy. For instance, "Get down here and fight!", etc (more). I would guess they are 'stand-ins' for otherwise missing sounds.

 

* Bark frequency needs to be increased (angua has already acted on this yesterday so it might be fine now).

 

* Not sure what to suggest about this one, but the state changes trample each other a bit sometimes. "That sound / It was surely my mind playing tricks / That sound!" is a frequent one.

[Mortem Desino 65]

* I know there are some cases where the builder guard, using the expected voice, suddenly (for some stimuli) starts sounds like TDM's "Benny" type guy. For instance, "Get down here and fight!", etc (more). I would guess they are 'stand-ins' for otherwise missing sounds.

That's just a problem with the sound shader pointing to the wrong ogg. NH just didn't record for the builder's

 

"cantReachTarget" "throwObjectAtTarget" "pain_small" "pain_large" "somethingSuspicious" "foundMissingItem" "foundTorchOut" "foundLightsOff" "maleDeadBody" "femaleDeadBody" "maleUnconciousBody" "femaleUnconciousBody" "noticeTorchOut" "noRelightTorch" "yesRelightTorch" "warnSawEnemy" "warnSawEvidence" "warnMissingItem" "greeting_generic" "greeting_guard" "greeting_builder" "greeting_pagan" "greeting_nobleMale" "greeting_nobleFemale" "runaway"

[greebo 29]

@Springheel: the builder2 voice set throws a lot of warnings. There are a few sounds which have typos in the filenames mentioned by the sound shader ("builde2" instead of "builder2") and quite a few are not really in SVN - like sound/voices/builders/builder2/builder2_greeting_1.wav

 

greeting_2 and greeting_3 are there, but not greeting_1.

[Mortem Desino 65]

I can go through the builder2 soundshader and comment out non-existent files.

[Springheel 4438]

I think I may have forgotten to copy over some files from my laptop. I'll look into it.

[Springheel 4438]

Right now I notice the pro vocals are set to a volume of 20. All the other vocals are set to 8 or 10. Is that intentional? Oddly, I haven't noticed the pro vocals sounding unusually loud in game.

 

Also, I just wanted to mention that the vocals under "tdm_ai_grumbler_combat_blocked_by_p

layer" were actually written with more of a generic sense of "AI is losing the fight". They could be played any time the player seems to be winning.

[greebo 29]

Oddly, I haven't noticed the pro vocals sounding unusually loud in game.

Try reducing the volume and you'll see why they're set to 20. The pro voice actor has been speaking very quietly.

[greebo 29]

I can look through the unrenamed, split files at home to see whether they got wrongly named.

[Springheel 4438]

Doh. My mistake. The torch ones are missing but the other 9 files are all there. I suspect the torch ones just got merged in with the others.

[Springheel 4438]

I can go through the builder2 soundshader and comment out non-existent files.

 

I took a look and I don't have any files that I didn't copy over. Any reference to non-existent files is either an error or oversight on my part. If you wouldn't mind removing them Mortem, that would be great...I don't think I'll have time to go over them again. NH might be finishing this set off, and we stand to get at least one more builder set from Gold next week, so I'm not sure anymore that we should even include this one in 1.0.

[New Horizon 471]

Yup, I'm going to finish that one off with Bob. I'm also looking into trying another actor for the player. I'm not sure the first choice is working as well as I had hoped. We'll see.

[Springheel 4438]

The vocal scripts include barks for "Had pocket picked" and "Found Something Missing".

 

But in the soundshaders I can see only: tdm_ai_builder4_notice_missing_item. Are the 'pocket picked' vocals used anywhere?

[angua 5]

No this is not supported by the code yet, but I made a new sound shader for the Lord, it's called "tdm_ai_lord_notice_pickpocket" On the other characters we just moved the sounds into the "missing items" shader.

[Springheel 4438]

On the other characters we just moved the sounds into the "missing items" shader.

 

Ok. I'm not sure they would fit terribly well there ("Did I drop it?") wouldn't make much sense walking past an empty safe, for example. If we're making a new shader, might be better to move them back there.

[Springheel 4438]

I think I've been staring at these things too long. I'm starting to develop a brain cramp or something. Can you confirm that the following "script=sndshd" match?

 

"To Alert 1/1.5" = "tdm_ai_simpleton_to_observant"

 

"To Alert 2" = "tdm_ai_simpleton_to_searching"

 

"To Alert 3 " = "tdm_ai_simpleton_to_agitated_search

ing"

[angua 5]

Yep, confirmed

[greebo 29]

@Spring: now that the vocal sets are available, can you assign them to the various AI we're shipping?

[Springheel 4438]

Will do.

[greebo 29]

Crud, we forgot to define the vocal set for the simpleton... is coming soon.

[Springheel 4438]

Was just about to ask about that. The others are done.

[greebo 29]

Ok, the simpleton is up as well.

[greebo 29]

I think the vocal's maxdistance is too large or the volume is too high, or both - I can hear guards talking to themselves at the player start, across the bridge over the river. And you can hear a guy snoring outside of his dorm, with the door closed.

 

The old shaders were set to 25 meters instead of 30, but presumably this is due to the "volume 8" setting?

[Springheel 4438]

I set them to 30 to match the footstep distance, which is also 30. Is it the new voices that sound louder? I noticed that the wavs themselves seemed to be louder this time, so the volume of 8 might be too high for the new voices.

 

With the old voices, I found a volume of 6 to be a bit too quiet, and 10 too loud. I haven't had time to playtest 8 extensively, but it sounded about right for the grumblers in Crown of Penitence. Though it may be that the voices need individual values. Obviously the Pro is a lot quieter; perhaps the grumbler is too.

[greebo 29]

In outpost I only heard builders, so maybe this is specific to the builder sets.