PlaneShift

Development => PlaneShift Mods => Topic started by: Cherppow on August 14, 2006, 02:17:43 pm

Title: Voices
Post by: Cherppow on August 14, 2006, 02:17:43 pm
Hello,

I recently wandered around Hydlaa with the sounds on. Some areas were really nice, with ambient sounds and music. However soon the background music ran out and the Hydlaa plaza went silent, although it was full of people. Also talking with npcs was completely silent operation. I thought it would seem much more lively if there were some voices or such in the vincinity of crowded areas/npcs.

The in-game dialogs are many, and it propably isn't possible to digitize them all, but instead we could do something similar to Baldur's Gate system. There the first few sentences are spoken, rest is text only. Varying character names/races are left out from the spoken.

Without much further thought I drew some samples. I assumed that at least humans and dwarves would speak english. Harnquist's seemed much more lively with voices playing in the background. :)
http://users.tkk.fi/~vrantapu/PlaneShift/mixed_voices.ogg
Most sounds there I intended for male Ylian/Xacha, but also few voices for a random small creature and finally a thirsty Stonebreaker.

I bet many here, speaking english as natives, would sound better as voice actors. Would be cool to hear how other people perceive Yliakum's inhabitants voices. Feel free to post your versions. :)

*edit*

If you're unable to play .ogg:
1) can download a free audio filter for it at http://www.vorbis.com/
or
2) can use PS as temporary player: copy the .ogg into PlaneShift/art/music/ directory, and rename it to maintheme.ogg (take backup of existing maintheme.ogg). Run PS and you'll hear the sound during login screen.
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: ThomPhoenix on August 14, 2006, 03:20:24 pm
Great work on those voices, they sound great!
I agree that voices in the background would be realistic and create more atmosphere. It could be done by superficially scanning chats for much used sentences and then playing the audiofile that comes the closest to it. Wordnet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/) could be used there. And about the background music; it's possible to loop it in your settings.
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Gyerfry Stoemsaber on August 14, 2006, 04:27:21 pm
um can you provide a .WAV version of it? Can't figure ut which program to use for this one.
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Baldur on August 14, 2006, 07:34:54 pm
vlc media player worked fine for me.
Here's the downloader if you haven't got it yet.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Xillix Queen of Fools on August 14, 2006, 07:44:43 pm
I would kill to do voice acting for ps :)

I will work on some samples :D
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Baldur on August 14, 2006, 08:26:09 pm
The voices greet me in a friendly manner @.@
Get out of my head!  >_<
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: LigH on August 14, 2006, 08:37:31 pm
More downloads for playing Ogg Vorbis (especially for Windows users):

http://www.rarewares.org/ogg.html
http://www.winamp.com
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli (Media Player Classic)

Linux users have an advantage - most distributions already support it (Mplayer, VLC, XMMS, Kaffeine...).
__

About the voices ... for an Ylian, they seem to sound a bit too rough / coarse. I'd prefer a more full / round voice.
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Kiraki on August 14, 2006, 08:41:31 pm
I like the voices :lol:
It would really create some good atmosphere with people chatting away in the background - Great idea!  :D

I thought it would seem much more lively if there were some voices or such in the vincinity of crowded areas/npcs.

It doesn’t even need to be very clear conversations - almost like when your in a crowd and you hear people talking but you can’t really hear what they are saying – proper back ground noise  :P
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Iamthom on August 15, 2006, 12:55:17 pm
hehe, this made me want to cry laughing - in a good way mind you.  :lol:  :love:
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: LigH on August 15, 2006, 01:52:19 pm
Fortunately, it will not be another "Simlish". The common language in Yliakum will usually be english, even for background voices! :D

Really funny could probably be a deep god-like voice world-shouting "Server reboot in one minute"...
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Nerule on August 15, 2006, 05:30:56 pm
Lol thats good, but whats with the little girl at the end? and I have an idea. Take Harnquist's screenshot, look at it and play the voices :P
Title: Re: Voices
Post by: Xillix Queen of Fools on August 15, 2006, 09:25:37 pm
Cherppow your samples are great and very clean.