Adding Voice acting to Non-Voice acting games

[joelphilippage]

I wanted to add voice acting to games without voice acting like Monkey Island or Maniac Mansion. I would have to edit the script from:

Code: Select all

print(3,[Text("Excuse me, but do you have a cousin named Sven?")]);

To

Code: Select all

print(3,[PlayCDTrack(1,25),Text("Excuse me, but do you have a cousin named Sven?")]);

Is there a way to edit the script?

[seubz]

In order to do that, you'll have to do find the appropriate opcode (print), and add a subopcode (PlayCDTrack). Anyway, it wouldn't be hard at all to do that.

The problem is that the scripts are included in a resource file, and by modifying (ie adding) some sub opcodes into the script contents, it will modify the size of some blocks. SCRP blocks (I only know SCUMM v5 up to v8) are included in an LFLF block, and each block has a header containing its name and block size. That means you would have to go through the hierarchy of the file, and modify the size of the blocks which contain the SCRP blocks you want to modify. Ive only talked about the SCRP blocks, but there are different kinds of block scripts: SCRP, LSCR, VERB, ENCD, EXCD, and I might have forgotten others. All of this wouldn't be too hard to do though, writing the program to do that shouldn't be very difficult, if you know programming.

[PsYcO]

The problem is that the scripts are included in a resource file

isn't that a kinda grey area thing to do? editing game data i meen...

[clem]

The problem is that the scripts are included in a resource file

isn't that a kinda grey area thing to do? editing game data i meen...

I believe you can do with the data on your harddisk whatever you want (even if some companies nowadays seem to believe otherwise).

The matter of distributing your changes can be the gray area. However that can be avoided by creating patches (which are afaik discussed without problems now and then on the forums, I'm sure you've encountered these posts)

[PsYcO]

i thought, the DMCA doesn't alow people to rip dvd's? even for personal reasons. or the EUCD(im not a lawyer but i think its in there as well)

and i actually remember a while back someone on a mac posted a SS of the property's for a file(it mentioned 'patched by XXXXX'), the consensus was 'forum rule 0'

[doc labyrinth]

its only illegal if the right (or wrong) people find out about it, anyway. i say go for it, if you need anyone to lend you a voice just let me know. all i need are the lines, my mac, and my trusty microphone.

[clem]

i thought, the DMCA doesn't alow people to rip dvd's? even for personal reasons. or the EUCD(im not a lawyer but i think its in there as well)

and i actually remember a while back someone on a mac posted a SS of the property's for a file(it mentioned 'patched by XXXXX'), the consensus was 'forum rule 0'

afaik EU law still gives you the permission to make backup copies of your stuff

the mac copy thing back then was that he had clearly downloaded a pirated version (for reference: http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php ... t=kyra+mac )
yes, theoretically he could have owned a legitimate copy and patched it for himself, but he seemed somewhat surprised that the copyprotection was gone...

[DrMcCoy]

afaik EU law still gives you the permission to make backup copies of your stuff

IIRC, as long as you don't bypass a copy protection. And CSS could be seen as one... IANAL, of course.

[PsYcO]

its only illegal if the right (or wrong) people find out about it, anyway. i say go for it, if you need anyone to lend you a voice just let me know. all i need are the lines, my mac, and my trusty microphone.

its illegal even if no-one finds out about it...

[exofreeze]

its only illegal if the right (or wrong) people find out about it, anyway. i say go for it, if you need anyone to lend you a voice just let me know. all i need are the lines, my mac, and my trusty microphone.

That is seriously retarded logic.

[doc labyrinth]

you're all a bunch of negative nancies. that's right, i said negative nancies. yeah its illegal either way, but if no one finds out about it it doesn't matter. if i, being 20 years old, decide to drink a beer in my basement and no one finds out, i don't get in trouble, i've not harmed anyone or myself, no harm no foul. don't be so uptight.

[PsYcO]

you're all a bunch of negative nancies. that's right, i said negative nancies. yeah its illegal either way, but if no one finds out about it it doesn't matter. if i, being 20 years old, decide to drink a beer in my basement and no one finds out, i don't get in trouble, i've not harmed anyone or myself, no harm no foul. don't be so uptight.

well this forums has a strict copyright rules, so telling someone to do something illegal is not permitted. but using your reasoning its ok to commit murder if no-one finds out about it. while it is an extreme, how about if you kill a homeless person with no family ties, no-one will miss him, and if you do it humanly it wont hurt anyone. so its fine right?

[joelphilippage]

Well I'm still kind of confused. I still don't really get how to edit script. Scumm revisited can decompress scripts but it doesn't allow you to edit them. And I'm not very good with scripting.

[PsYcO]

the monkey island data? im afraid we can't tell you due to the DMCA again... bitch isn't it?

[joelphilippage]

Ok. What I could do is just remake the whole game with AGS then I could be able to have voice acting on that. I might also be able to update the graphics too after I'm done.