How to get "Betty" to say what you want

[Cavemonkey]

Iv'e recently added some new ship IDs with X3 editor 2, and it's just weird when you click on your ship and the ship computer "Betty" is silent. Anyone got an idea on how to add a voice to the name and description of a ship?

[akeelah]

It can be done, provided your desired results can be achieved by piecing together words and/or phrases that are already part of Betty's vocabulary.

I did exactly that in Reunion, and it worked perfectly. I added a new ship to the TShips file (using the Eclipse V2 model), updated a few text files (t/440001.xml, and mov/00044.xml) and appended some new speech samples to the end of the speech audio file (mov/00044.dat, which is actually an MP3 file containing ALL of the game's voice sounds).

To generate the new speech samples, I used sound editor software to copy Betty saying "Super" from the existing phrase "Super Freighter", and prepended it to the the existing word "Nova", creating the new speech sample for the ship: "Super Nova". While I was at it, I even cobbled together speech samples for a few items missing from Betty's vocabulary: Concussion Impulse Generator, Commodity Logistics Software Mk 1 and MK 2, Trade Command Software Mk 1 and MK 2... and a few others. Just because.

[DrBullwinkle]

Is it safe to assume that you could record whatever words you want? Or merge in sound bites from other sources? It might not be Betty's voice, but you could get quite creative with it.

Which sound editing software did you use?

[Cavemonkey]

@akeelah- Using a sound editor's a smart idea. Plus now I can use my sound editor for something other than having it sit on my desktop forever. Anyways, how would you open a dat file? Through X3 editor 2? And all I have to do is use words that are familiar to the computer in the description? Because most of the words I have used in my descriptions are ones I have heard before, except for a few.

[akeelah]

@ DrBullwinkle: Yes, you could. If you don't care about the voice sounding like Betty, then the sky's the limit.

I bounce back and forth between Fission and Sound Studio 4 (I'm a Mac user) because Fission allows for truly lossless editing of MP3s but only allows one audio file open at a time (don't get me started!), whereas Sound Studio allows multiple files open at once (helps with splicing bits and pieces together) but doesn't handle MP3s so well. There's probably an easier way, but these are the apps I already own, so...

[edited for clarity]

[Cavemonkey]

@akeelah- Using a sound editor's a smart idea. Plus now I can use my sound editor for something other than having it sit on my desktop forever. Anyways, how would you open a dat file? Through X3 editor 2? And all I have to do is use words that are familiar to the computer in the description? Because most of the words I have used in my descriptions are ones I have heard before, except for a few.
@DrBullwinkle- That's also possible, but might sound kinda weird. The sound editor I use is called Audacity.

[akeelah]

The .dat file is really just an MP3. Make a backup of it -- just to be safe! -- and then change the file extension to MP3. Then you can edit it with your audio software and when you're done, change the extension back to .dat.

[Cavemonkey]

OK, thanks for the help. I'll see what I can do to make this work. I think part of the problem is that I didn't change anything in 000044.xml (or whatever it's called) in the mov folder. Now, back to making ships stupidly overpowered...

[akeelah]

Of course, there's also a far simpler (but far more limiting) method. Try this:

Create a text file with this entry (or add this entry to an existing text file and Reinit Script Caches):

[akeelah]

[Cavemonkey]

Where would I put the text file after I create it? Also do I run the script in the script editor? (Sorry, I have little experience with scripting as my main focus is creating ship models and scenes and a little bit of xml scripting).

[akeelah]

The text file goes in the /t directory. It's actually an xml file, and the file must be named according to this convention: xxxx-L0yy.xml, where xxxx is the text ID of your choice (must be unique from others already in use) and yy is the language code (44 for English).

So, assuming you choose 9123 as your text ID (I have no idea if that's available), and further assuming you prefer English, your T-File would be named 9123-L044.xml

And, yes, the script you simply create and run via the Script Editor.

[akeelah]

[DrBullwinkle]

Thanks for the details, Akeelah. This thread is a "keeper".

*bookmarked*

[Cavemonkey]

I am using TC, so the code above is applicable to my game. Anyways thanks for the help. Maybe I could create another XRM. Just give me forty years and I'll have it for ya.