Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: jg18 on May 09, 2012, 12:15:25 am
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We at wxLauncher HQ would like to know whether you guys use text-to-speech, since we're trying to decide whether the speech checkboxes in the launcher (tech room, briefings, in-game, multi) should be checked or unchecked by default. The standard Windows launcher's defaults are for all of them to be checked. I always turn them off myself, but we want to know what you guys think. Thanks!
EDIT: As mentioned here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=80799.msg1608870#msg1608870), given the feedback in this thread and poll, we've decided that TTS will be turned off by default in wxLauncher, starting with version 0.9.0. Thanks to everyone who participated.
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Yes, but only in mission and only in campaigns that are really talky. I'm lookin at you WiH.
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Never. Far too immersion breaking.
I will even go one step further to say that campaigns that are "voice acted" by a computer program would probably be more enjoyable had they been silent.
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Yeah. Talky, non-voice acted missions only.
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Quicker and more accurate to read.
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le no.
F4 for catching those WALL O TEXTS
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Never. Far too immersion breaking.
I will even go one step further to say that campaigns that are "voice acted" by a computer program would probably be more enjoyable had they been silent.
+1. althought i've never played a campaign that had built-in text to speech, i imagine that would drive me nuts.
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Text-to-speech is a useful feature. You don't have to distract yourself from combat just to read some messages.
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I use it as a dev tool to pick out mistakes in blocs of text such as techroom and briefings.
It also helps when playing non VA campaigns to follow the in mission chatter easier without having to F4 all the time to follow something i missed because I was focusing on something else, monotone is annoying but i just filter that out now
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No.
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Nope.
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Just to make sure it's clear, text-to-speech options will be in the launcher no matter what. The question we're working on figuring out is whether or not TTS will be enabled by default (that is, whether the checkboxes will be checked by default).
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Nope. I've never had any real issue catching on-screen text while flying, though that may be due to the fact that I'm a pretty fast reader; and computerized speech is usually really.... unpleasant to my ears, I guess.
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Nope, don't use it either.
With one exception.... I found that text to speech works perfectly with "Just another day".
Everyone sounding like a demented idiot actually fits the mood of that mod perfectly :) LOL.
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Note;
FSO Policy is that all features are turned off by default...
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Note;
FSO Policy is that all features are turned off by default...
Well, FSO policy is certainly that all launcher flags must be off by default, which then matches retail behavior. But the speech settings aren't flags; they're passed through the registry. And the Windows launcher has had TTS enabled by default for years. We'd like to have it disabled by default (but still available), hence this poll.
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Quicker and more accurate to read.
^ This.
English not being my native language and having been trained English mostly through forums and IRC, so through reading, the only single thing text-to-speech manages to achieve is annoying the hell out of me.
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I use it heavily for Dev work so not only do I use it, I always have it enabled in Diaspora builds I make so that the rest of the team can use it.
Personally though I'm for having it switched off by default. It makes things like the tech room seem less professional.
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Note;
FSO Policy is that all features are turned off by default...
Not any more; from 3.6.14 on almost all graphics options will be on by default.
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Note;
FSO Policy is that all features are turned off by default...
Not any more; from 3.6.14 on almost all graphics options will be on by default.
Are you thinking of revision 8587 (https://svn.icculus.org/fs2open?view=rev&revision=8587)? That hasn't been backported to the 3.6.14 release branch (https://svn.icculus.org/fs2open/branches/fs2_open_3_6_14/code/cmdline/cmdline.cpp?view=markup).
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Ah - that's a shame. Well, it's present in the builds used by at least two big mod projects right now.
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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.
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If you can figure out a way to install a more fluid TTS voice fairly painlessly, then I might say "yes" to default on.
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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.
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No. It ruins the immersion. If I miss some dialogue I just press f4 and check the log.
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No. It ruins the immersion. If I miss some dialogue I just press f4 and check the log.
Same here.
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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.
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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.
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Text to speech is something I find annoying and keep off, though Microsoft Sam can provide the occasional laugh for me.
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Is that the one that goes "Blah, Blah" if it doesn't know the word?
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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.
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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... :nervous:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-cfj3kkmOM) backported to 7 eventually...
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No, it creeps the hell out of me.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Vocaloid support added to FSO when???
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Vocaloid support added to FSO when???
My ears are bleeding already...
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I turn this option off, I think it's better to hear a real voice, or just to read by myself the words ; there are some sentences that are well pronounced, but with some other it's a bit crappy. Windows should make better voices ;)
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Vocaloids doing english is hilarious :p
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Vocaloid support added to FSO when???
FUND IT.
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Vocaloid support added to FSO when???
After Geomod.
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In light of this thread and poll, the next release of wxLauncher will have TTS turned off by default, so those of you who said you use it will need to turn it on.
Thanks to everyone who participated.
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Sounds good. :yes:
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I love Neospeech's ethnic TTS voices, especially for the Techroom. It sounds natural enough and doesn't break immersion at all. Ethnic voices makes me think that I (the pilot) chose which Alleigance persona would communicate best for me in Terran Standard.
Say that I'm playing an anime mod on FreeSpace, and my TTS is obviously a Japanese lady speaking English. That creates immersion for me, if anything.
Neospeech TTS also has a built-in phonetic dictionary available, so if a voice pronounces a word wrong, you can fix it.
As far as whether to have it on or off by default, I suppose off makes a whole lot of sense. It's not that hard to switch it back on.
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I use it only during missions when I'd rather not trawl back through messages to figure out what's going on. In the Tech room, briefings and etc. I don't actually see the point in it.
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/me has voted.
When I was still playing FS2_Open on my IBM, I did at first, but it became very jarring hearing MS Sam in a female body, so I turned it off. I've never turned it on ever since.
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I stopped using TTS when I was testing campaign ideas. Since the GTF Ulysses is the default ship to appear in the techroom, every time I'd go into the techroom to test a mission, my speakers would blare out
AFFECTIONATELY NICKNAMED 'THE BAT' BY ITS PILOTS
right before I managed to click on the Mission Simulator.
So yeah, I don't use that anymore.
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Windows 7 has TTS, right? Does it work better?
What I believe might make me turn TTS on ever again is if different voices were assigned to different personae (such as a female voice to female personae), but that would be a massive waste of time.