[General Battuta]

Ah - that's a shame. Well, it's present in the builds used by at least two big mod projects right now.

[jg18]

Personally though I'm for having it switched off by default. It makes things like the tech room seem less professional.

That's pretty much my opinion as well.

[z64555]

If you can figure out a way to install a more fluid TTS voice fairly painlessly, then I might say "yes" to default on.

[jg18]

If you can figure out a way to install a more fluid TTS voice fairly painlessly, then I might say "yes" to default on.

Doubtful. We're probably limited to whatever voices Microsoft offers for free, and as far as I can tell, on Windows 7, that's limited to just the default voice that ships with Windows.

[Legate Damar]

No. It ruins the immersion. If I miss some dialogue I just press f4 and check the log.

[Satellight]

No. It ruins the immersion. If I miss some dialogue I just press f4 and check the log.

Same here.

[Klaustrophobia]

If you can figure out a way to install a more fluid TTS voice fairly painlessly, then I might say "yes" to default on.

Doubtful. We're probably limited to whatever voices Microsoft offers for free, and as far as I can tell, on Windows 7, that's limited to just the default voice that ships with Windows.

i haven't used TTS on win7, but at least on XP they had 2 more you could get for free, one male and one female in addition to sam.  neither was any better though, just a different tone.

[Trivial Psychic]

I use it heavily.  In fact, for my work with Inferno, I've been adjusting the missions, one by one, to be more compatible with TTS, by increasing the time spacing between messages to ensure that it reads the entire thing out before moving on to the next one.  I've even adjusted some of the wording to get around its limitations.  Obviously, actual voice acting is preferred, but in its absence, having it fully TTS compatible is an advantage.  If you don't use TTS, then the messages are just a little more spaced out than normal.

[AndrewofDoom]

Text to speech is something I find annoying and keep off, though Microsoft Sam can provide the occasional laugh for me.

[Trivial Psychic]

Is that the one that goes "Blah, Blah" if it doesn't know the word?

[mobcdmoc3]

Don't use it because it's pretty distracting. Find it much more enjoyable to narrate a story like WiH or WoD with a voice I create in my head.

[mjn.mixael]

I use it heavily.  In fact, for my work with Inferno, I've been adjusting the missions, one by one, to be more compatible with TTS, by increasing the time spacing between messages to ensure that it reads the entire thing out before moving on to the next one.  I've even adjusted some of the wording to get around its limitations.  Obviously, actual voice acting is preferred, but in its absence, having it fully TTS compatible is an advantage.  If you don't use TTS, then the messages are just a little more spaced out than normal.

Based on this thread that seems to be mostly a lot of work for little gain... 

I dunno, just a thought. It would be sad if you spent all that time tweaking for a feature few people use when you could be making/testing more missions and/or assets/features/whatever.

[Klaustrophobia]

well it's not the intended gain, but spacing out messages more is never a bad thing IMO.  walls of text that fly by faster than you can read normally, much less while in the middle of a dogfight, are almost as annoying as TTS.

[Kie99]

No, the monotony is annoying.  It took me ages when I first got FSO to work out how to turn it off; I still have "Affectionately nicknamed 'the bat' by its pilots..." in Microsoft Sam's voice imprinted into my brain whenever I enter the tech room.

[Alan Bolte]

For those of you talking about Microsoft Sam - have you tried Microsoft Anna? She's the default on Windows 7 and IIRC she's available for XP if you can find the download. Hopefully we'll be able to get the Windows 8 voices backported to 7 eventually...

[Rodo]

No, it creeps the hell out of me.

[Trivial Psychic]

I'd always thought it would be interesting if there was a way to give TTS a phonetic code language so you can tell it how to pronounce words and names it doesn't recognize, as well as a means to tell it how to emphasize specific words, and it could be a lot better.  All we'd need then is a greater database of voices and a means to assign a different voice to specific messages in FRED.

[Alan Bolte]

I'd always thought it would be interesting if there was a way to give TTS a phonetic code language so you can tell it how to pronounce words and names it doesn't recognize, as well as a means to tell it how to emphasize specific words, and it could be a lot better.  All we'd need then is a greater database of voices and a means to assign a different voice to specific messages in FRED.

IIRC Ventrillo or Teamspeak did something like that for usernames, though it's been forever since I've used either.

Also, for anyone who finds Anna's reading too slow on Windows 7, you can tweak it in Control Panel>Speech Recognition>Text to Speech. Don't know about Vista, it's probably the same.

I do turn TTS off for briefings and the techroom though, she doesn't do a great job with briefings and in the techroom I'd rather read than listen anyway.

[jg18]

I'd always thought it would be interesting if there was a way to give TTS a phonetic code language so you can tell it how to pronounce words and names it doesn't recognize, as well as a means to tell it how to emphasize specific words, and it could be a lot better.  All we'd need then is a greater database of voices and a means to assign a different voice to specific messages in FRED.

Interesting to think about, although even if it were possible, it wouldn't sound anywhere near as good as even decent voice acting, and if the technology to support those features isn't available (and probably even if it is available, although a multitude of good voices almost certainly isn't [speech synthesis is hard]), it'd likely take much, much more work.

[redsniper]

Vocaloid support added to FSO when???