NEWS: X³:TC "Build" Video - (Plus all available release info)

xeon_1 · Post by **xeon_1** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 08:58

pjknibbs wrote:
esd wrote: 15mins per language, and you've listed eight languages. That's two hours of dialogue.

So yes, even by your numbers, it's "hours".
There's also the fact we don't know if Egosoft are recording ANY new audio for TC--if they're not, then any extra audio they decide to add in suddenly becomes a whole new cost to be taken into account.

Can't somebody on the dev team be the voice for the recoriding or somebody's wife assuming the some on the dev team are married.

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:04

xeon_1 wrote:Can't somebody on the dev team be the voice for the recoriding or somebody's wife assuming the some on the dev team are married.

Ok, so that removes the cost of the voice-actor (assuming a dev-team's other half is willing to work for free, they may not be). That could be a saving of as little as £10/h. So you've just saved £20.

Now what about the recording studio time? Or the post-processing?

There's a lot more to the cost than the voice actors.

AleksMain · Post by **AleksMain** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:28

Free Natural Voice Text to Speech Reader
www.sofotex.com/Free-Natural-Voice-Text ... 10611.html

Free Natural Voice Text to Speech Reader Publisher's Description:
This is a free and fully functional text-to-speech software. You can have your computer read any part of the news, weather forecasts, charting messages, and e-mail. The application can also read Word documents, rich text files, and PDF files. The speaking speed and voice quality can be changed at your wish. You can also save the voice as a WAV file, so you can listen later or burn it onto a CD. You can also record your sound to compare Natural Voice and your voice.

New feature in this edition is: to read Internet news, you can just click an IE icon or menu, to hear other text, just click copy, computer will read selected text back to you; and one minor bug fixed. The main difference between the Standard version and the Enterprise version is that enterprise version supports and contains natural voice, but the standard version uses Microsoft Voices.

Can be cost of similar software be less than cost of voice recording ?

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:36

AleksMain wrote:Can be cost of similar software be less than cost of voice recording ?

Are you seriously proposing that they use digitally-generated speech?

Listen to Betty. She is humanised computer speech. It's actual voice, which is chopped together. As a result, it loses contextual inflections. A fully digital voice doesn't have those inflections to begin with (most sound Australian, with the rising tone at the end of each sentance).

Egosoft using digital voice would be accoustic suicide. Silence would be better than that.

AleksMain · Post by **AleksMain** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:41

esd wrote:Egosoft using digital voice would be accoustic suicide. Silence would be better than that.

Sometimes it is better than "silence". For example listen description of LX in X3:Reunion and you will understand. But it is proposition only.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:50

I had to replace decent 5.1 speakers with ancient pair of half-broken cheapo passive speakers. All sounds are more scratchy, weak, and metallic now. Betty, however, is somehow more immersive.

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 09:51

AleksMain wrote:Sometimes it is better than "silence". For example listen description of LX in X3:Reunion and you will understand. But it is proposition only.

No, I'd still rather the current silence than having a digital voice generator voice it.

Heck, I'd rather Catherine Tate did the voice in the style of her "Am ah bovvahd?" that let a digital voice generator anywhere near a professional game.

I used one once for the voice intro to a Freespace2 mission I'd written. I even removed it from that, it was so dire.

If you want to know just how bad it really is, send yourself a long text message to your landline (especially if you live in the UK).

Gothsheep · Post by **Gothsheep** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 10:14

I don't see why everybody keeps talking about money. Nobody ever said it wouldn't cost money. All I ever said was, it's worth money. And I still stand by that.

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 10:16

Gothsheep wrote:I don't see why everybody keeps talking about money.

Because game development is reliant on the stuff?

Nobody ever said it wouldn't cost money. All I ever said was, it's worth money.

Oh I agree, it's worth money. The question is, is it worth spending the money on that, or spending the money on the GUI? Or the pathfinding? Or the weapons combat balance? Or cockpits?

There's a finite amount of money. Spend it on one thing, you can't spend it on another.

Gothsheep · Post by **Gothsheep** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 10:25

I agree. My personal opinion; It's worth redoing the voice acting over other aesthetic effects, if it comes to that. I'd take redone voices over trails on the missiles or rotating barrels on my ship's guns.

Demotruk · Post by **Demotruk** » Wed, 27. Aug 08, 13:31

pjknibbs wrote:
esd wrote: 15mins per language, and you've listed eight languages. That's two hours of dialogue.

So yes, even by your numbers, it's "hours".
There's also the fact we don't know if Egosoft are recording ANY new audio for TC--if they're not, then any extra audio they decide to add in suddenly becomes a whole new cost to be taken into account.

In the Leipzig demo Betty says things like "Pirate Carrack" which were only introduced in XTM. So they did do new audio.

Not that I agree with the proposition or anything.

surferx · Post by **surferx** » Thu, 28. Aug 08, 04:39

esd wrote: accoustic suicide.

There's a great name for a rock band.

I don't want my game to sound like the computer at my phone company/ISP whenever I have to call them. I like Betty just as she is, and it wouldn't be the same if it were a voice generator, or some dev's wife. Everyone's getting antsy now that the X3:TC is almost here. We're like kids on Christmas morning. [/i]

nirwin · Post by **nirwin** » Thu, 28. Aug 08, 15:13

esd wrote: Are you seriously proposing that they use digitally-generated speech?

Listen to Betty. She is humanised computer speech. It's actual voice, which is chopped together. As a result, it loses contextual inflections. A fully digital voice doesn't have those inflections to begin with (most sound Australian, with the rising tone at the end of each sentance).

Egosoft using digital voice would be accoustic suicide. Silence would be better than that.

Perhaps you have not looked into this field lately, someone posted a link on the forum a while ago (may have even been that natural voice linked above), and whilst not perfect, it did indeed contain ways to control the inflection (mostly by grammer). To me it sounded better than betty ever has, in fact it sounded quite like listening to a real person (Kate Winslet to be exact).
They may need to add effects to the voice to make it sound more like a computer, or come up with a computerised 'voice', but I think there is tech available now that could do as good a job (if not better - no more names the computer can't say because they haven't been recorded) than current Betty.
I'm sure that the software would be quite expensive to license for commercial use though, so that may make it unlikely to be used.

Might lower development costs in the long run if they used digitally generated voices, and as you say, just look at where that money could go.

ThommoHawk · Post by **ThommoHawk** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 02:49

I am a bit resentful (more than that really) about the format used by ego for these trailers. There are no 'standard' media formats for download - 'Xvid' means if you want to view the trailers you are forced to download yet another media viewer / codec onto your pc. I would not be surprised if lots of people simply give up trying to download the vids - like me, after having tried for ages to get a high quality download, with no success even after getting the xvid codecs etc..

eladan · Post by **eladan** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 03:16

ThommoHawk wrote:I am a bit resentful (more than that really) about the format used by ego for these trailers. There are no 'standard' media formats for download - 'Xvid' means if you want to view the trailers you are forced to download yet another media viewer / codec onto your pc. I would not be surprised if lots of people simply give up trying to download the vids - like me, after having tried for ages to get a high quality download, with no success even after getting the xvid codecs etc..

You don't (or shouldn't) need another media player to view it, and I don't think Xvid is all that obscure as a video codec(?)

What media player are you using?

ThommoHawk · Post by **ThommoHawk** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 12:07

OK .. I have Windows Media player, Real Player and QuickTime (and VLC media Player - Xvid). Media Player is the default one for my browers and launches whenever I try to download from the forum download page but dies....). I have a very stable and reliable broadband isp... so, what can I do?

Edit: Sheesh.... I finally got the downloads - but had to use Safari which did it first try.... and had to view the downloaded vids with the VLC media player. I.E. would simply idle forever with the 'connecting' message showing in its tab. Just mentioning all this here in case anyone else had similar issues. It's worth the fiddling around because some of those images made me get goosebumps... yeah..

Another Edit: Yes ... even after I downloaded, Media Player did not recognise the file type, (nor did Quicktime), so had to use VLC...

eladan · Post by **eladan** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 13:21

I'd be suspicious of the browser plugin not handling it properly... try downloading it and playing it through media player offline rather than through your browser.

Post by **Cycrow** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 14:41

xvid is a very common video format, so what would you class as a "standard" media format then ?

xvid is about the most standardised compressed format you can get, except for maybe DivX. And of course, all compressed formats need to have codecs for them to work correctly.

and i seriously doubt a video will ever be released in a "standard" uncompressed format.

i've never had a problem with playing Xvid files, unlike various other files.

xeon_1 · Post by **xeon_1** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 14:44

Cycrow wrote: and i seriously doubt a video will ever be released in a "standard" uncompressed format.

5 gigs for 3 minutes worth of video i don't see to many people doing that either

Brisos · Post by **Brisos** » Thu, 11. Sep 08, 22:31

Has anyone come across a summary of the known feature of X3 TC? I read the dev's blog which lists some good stuff. But it all seems to be improving on old features of the game. I haven't read anything very original yet.

I was half expecting the next X game to allow planet landing/exploring. At least something like the old Elite games did back then. X3 reunion just doesn't feel complete without that!

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

NEWS: X³:TC "Build" Video - (Plus all available release info)