Custom voice acting in games.

[Raziel]

Really? I don't remember that happening when I played it.

I definitely remember it happening when Mrs. Pierremount is on the phone with the club manager and Foster is free to roam the apartment -- ie, during scenes when characters are speaking during gameplay. Anyway, even if I'm missing audio files for that game, this would also be required in, for instance, the party scene at the Governor's Mansion in MI2... unless you want to deal with spontaneously alternating audio files depending on where Guybrush is standing in the room.

I tjink thats a bug in the original game
A few sentences weren't recorded at all, missing the speech and switch back to text mode
Like in the court

[dj jack]

realistically speaking, this is a very unlikely feature, there's just too many non-talkie versions of games, the work load is incomprehensible, unless we employ and/or donate our voices.

then the dev team has to put it in a single sound file, and index it matching the place in the game.

for a non-profit team this is a very large task to perform, while it would be nice, i don't see this ever happening.

I didn't say the ScummVM guys had to create the voices...

I mean to add the possibility to do that in such a way that a gamer could perform his own voice acting and use it in the game...

[PsYcO]

realistically speaking, this is a very unlikely feature, there's just too many non-talkie versions of games, the work load is incomprehensible, unless we employ and/or donate our voices.

then the dev team has to put it in a single sound file, and index it matching the place in the game.

for a non-profit team this is a very large task to perform, while it would be nice, i don't see this ever happening.

I didn't say the ScummVM guys had to create the voices...

I mean to add the possibility to do that in such a way that a gamer could perform his own voice acting and use it in the game...

well the easiest way to do it is to let the dev team implement a universal sound file that we can download for free

[dj jack]

well the easiest way to do it is to let the dev team implement a universal sound file that we can download for free

I don't understand why should we use a file...
Maybe you didn't understand what I mean...
I think the simplest way is creating a subfolder in the game's directory called something like "monsterita" or "sounds1" or whatever you like, from wich the game will pick the sound data to be played...

Inside this folder we'll put one sound file (Wav,ogg,mp3) for each line of dialogue/sound effect in the game, with a naming system like 00001.wav, 00002.wav, so that the scummvm user could replace them with their own, thus creating a custom full voice acting, since the scummvm would use that files instead of the contents of the original (or nonexistent) monster.sou....

If something isn't clear...Just ask

Dj Jack

[PsYcO]

well the easiest way to do it is to let the dev team implement a universal sound file that we can download for free

I don't understand why should we use a file...
Maybe you didn't understand what I mean...
I think the simplest way is creating a subfolder in the game's directory called something like "monsterita" or "sounds1" or whatever you like, from wich the game will pick the sound data to be played...

Inside this folder we'll put one sound file (Wav,ogg,mp3) for each line of dialogue/sound effect in the game, with a naming system like 00001.wav, 00002.wav, so that the scummvm user could replace them with their own, thus creating a custom full voice acting, since the scummvm would use that files instead of the contents of the original (or nonexistent) monster.sou....

If something isn't clear...Just ask

Dj Jack

i think i do, but having like 5000 files in a folder isn't fun, it increases loading time dramatically. but even then it wont work well. there would be pauses and lip sync issues

[dj jack]

Why would it increase loading times?

Maybe they could create a packer that makes a single big file...

And....Why pauses and issues?

[PsYcO]

Why would it increase loading times?

Maybe they could create a packer that makes a single big file...

And....Why pauses and issues?

it would only increase loading time if you were to open the folder, try opening your temporary internet files.

oh what, like a singular file, like i originally suggested? what a marvellous idea.

cause, one assumes that you would be making them yourself(with your method) and unless you edit every file removing exactly the bits witch you aren't speaking it wont work. imagine this, there is a one second 'dead' air on the tape, you click something then that dead air *will* get played messing up timing, lipsinc and probably other things.

but like i already said, unless we find someone who wants/can help this is a pointless discussion, and the scummvm team are far to busy to implement this. maybe you/we should focus on finding a writer for the script before discussing details.

and lastly, this is an open source program(basically shareware, well ok its not but i hope you can see where im coming from) it would be silly having you own personal sound files, for something that essentially doesn't need to be personalized

[dj jack]

it would only increase loading time if you were to open the folder, try opening your temporary internet files.

oh what, like a singular file, like i originally suggested? what a marvellous idea.

Sorry about that dude, i understood that you wanted the devs to make a file with their own voices

cause, one assumes that you would be making them yourself(with your method) and unless you edit every file removing exactly the bits witch you aren't speaking it wont work. imagine this, there is a one second 'dead' air on the tape, you click something then that dead air *will* get played messing up timing, lipsinc and probably other things.

Well, leaving no silent data is the minimum requirement someone would meet...It actually isn't that difficult...And the game bases it's way on the length of the sound, not on a written-in-the-data sound lenght...

but like i already said, unless we find someone who wants/can help this is a pointless discussion, and the scummvm team are far to busy to implement this. maybe you/we should focus on finding a writer for the script before discussing details.

that's true..

and lastly, this is an open source program(basically shareware, well ok its not but i hope you can see where im coming from) it would be silly having you own personal sound files, for something that essentially doesn't need to be personalized

I didn't understand this sentence could u explain?

Thanks and I didn't mean to be rude

[PsYcO]

Well, leaving no silent data is the minimum requirement someone would meet...It actually isn't that difficult...And the game bases it's way on the length of the sound, not on a written-in-the-data sound lenght...

and lastly, this is an open source program(basically shareware, well ok its not but i hope you can see where im coming from) it would be silly having you own personal sound files, for something that essentially doesn't need to be personalized

I didn't understand this sentence could u explain?

some of the humour and atmosphere is likely to be lost if its just monotone, but exactly, if they don't conform to the standards that scummvm would give us then, well see my point

well if we all go about creating our own voice acting accompaniment then its essentially a waste of time, and the spirit of open source programs is like a community bath(:-/) ,we share the same water:P

[dj jack]

Well, I think that anyone is free to create it's custom voice acting and use it for himself, but some people could create a "professional" project for creating a better dub...Surely not the scummvm devs

[PsYcO]

Well, I think that anyone is free to create it's custom voice acting and use it for himself, but some people could create a "professional" project for creating a better dub...Surely not the scummvm devs

well yeh, but some one has to program scummvm to do these things, and there not going to just release the feature and not supply the audio(unless hosting is a problem), like the BS series, we have the cut scenes on the download page

[dj jack]

But we give scummvm and not the games XD

And offer an MT-32 emulator but not the rom files needed...

[PsYcO]

But we give scummvm and not the games XD

And offer an MT-32 emulator but not the rom files needed...

cause that would be illegal, and forum rule #0

and who would want a mt-32 emulator? from what i understand its just windows media player with speakers...

[md5]

But we give scummvm and not the games XD

And offer an MT-32 emulator but not the rom files needed...

dj_jack: please, read up what ScummVM is and what it isn't. From the website:

ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the game, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!

So it's a replacement for the interpreter(s) of the original game(s) you already own. The games themselves are copyrighted and you need to own them to play them (unless otherwise specified, e.g. BASS and FOTAQ)

Check the rules:
http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=17
and you'll see right there at the top (forum rule #0) that warez of any kind is not tolerated. So noone can "give you the games".

As for the MT-32 emulator, it's meant to be used if you already own an MT-32 card, so that you can dump its memory and use it with ScummVM, similar to what, for example, WinUAE is doing: it's emulating an Amiga system provided you already own an Amiga and can dump its memory contents to use it with WinUAE.

Note that ScummVM is not the first nor the only project to offer an MT-32 emulator.

As for the custom voice acting, it's a good idea, but someone needs to work on it, if it's doable. As already mentioned, there will certainly be voice syncing issues, and someone has to work on this to make it happen (again, IF it's doable). It won't happen out of thin air. You can always submit a feature request at our feature request tracker about your wish

Custom voice acting is quite hard to do, and I've personally not seen (yet) any fan made translation of any game's voices, just texts, exactly because it's quite a major task. I only know about KQ1, KQ2 and KQ3 remakes, but those were implemented from scratch, so the task itself was a bit easier (i.e. the games were created with speech support from the beginning, so there was no need to modify the game scripts themselves)

[dj jack]

But we give scummvm and not the games XD

And offer an MT-32 emulator but not the rom files needed...

dj_jack: please, read up what ScummVM is and what it isn't. From the website:

ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the game, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!

So it's a replacement for the interpreter(s) of the original game(s) you already own. The games themselves are copyrighted and you need to own them to play them (unless otherwise specified, e.g. BASS and FOTAQ)

Check the rules:
http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=17
and you'll see right there at the top (forum rule #0) that warez of any kind is not tolerated. So noone can "give you the games".

As for the MT-32 emulator, it's meant to be used if you already own an MT-32 card, so that you can dump its memory and use it with ScummVM, similar to what, for example, WinUAE is doing: it's emulating an Amiga system provided you already own an Amiga and can dump its memory contents to use it with WinUAE.

Note that ScummVM is not the first nor the only project to offer an MT-32 emulator.

As for the custom voice acting, it's a good idea, but someone needs to work on it, if it's doable. As already mentioned, there will certainly be voice syncing issues, and someone has to work on this to make it happen (again, IF it's doable). It won't happen out of thin air. You can always submit a feature request at our feature request tracker about your wish

Custom voice acting is quite hard to do, and I've personally not seen (yet) any fan made translation of any game's voices, just texts, exactly because it's quite a major task. I only know about KQ1, KQ2 and KQ3 remakes, but those were implemented from scratch, so the task itself was a bit easier (i.e. the games were created with speech support from the beginning, so there was no need to modify the game scripts themselves)

I know what scummvm is... It was just to show that not always a feature is baaaad if you don't give the necessaqary files to use it

And....OK I'll try to propose the feature....btw thanks for your time, I never hoped to start such an interesting discussion...

DJ Jack

EDIT: there was a joking face near "and not the games", it wasn't serious...

and PsYcO there already is an MT-32 emulator inside scummvm