I had a question

[Slobbedybov]

I was just wondering if it would be possible using exult to voice act the characters text and how it would be done. I know it would be ambitious and tricky but I was just wondering

[Dominus]

There was a lengthy discussion once what this would mean. Basically, yes, Exult could be modified to use voice files.

[Slobbedybov]

Ok but how would you trigger the file to play based on what option you choose? Would you just directly write it into the usecode of the NPC?

[Dominus]

I don't know. It could be possible but further than that I'm not going to think about that. Too hypothetical...

[agentorangeguy]

I saw that there is a UI_start_speech intrinsic that could be used I'd imagine... but you'd probably have to record a line of speech for every single npc and every single keyword. a buttload of speech. Then, you could probably queue the speech to play when you press every keyword. pretty ambitious unless you knew a bunch of college drama majors who'd be willing to read lines of text in different personas

[Kory]

I don't think the recording really needs to be a *major* undertaking. In U8 only a handful of the major characters had speech--it doesn't need to be ALL or NOTHING. I understand that doing a single major character is a lot of work, but I think it'd be cool even if you came across a random small character from time to time that had speech--even if the quality is only mediocre.

I imagine it could be set up such that there is a pre-defined folder structure & file naming convention. People could drop in their own audio files... like skinning in minecraft. I'm not a voice actor, but I've got studio access and I'd probably record some audio for my favorite characters. And, like me, I'm sure many people would be willing to share their audio. Maybe at first there'd only be a small set of publicly available characters of decent quality, but over time the library would grow.

I don't mean to oversimplify the issue, but if whatever code triggers the text on screen during a conversation could also trigger an audio file (if available), then that's it. The rest is just relying on the community to produce the content.

Previous thread on the topic:
http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=323674#p323674

Thanks for all your work on exult!

[SLObbedybob.]

that makes a lot of sense. I am also pretty good at doing voicing too. but also they would have to write new code and restructure formatting of how NPCs read diaouge. you would also have tomae a "voice acting" button in the settings because of the nature of the u7 dialouge engine so it would require a dialouge system rewrite which i don't have time for.

Also the way the exult engine builds on your computer and the languae it is written makes it less open ended and user friendly as miineecraft. it is a cool idea i thougt of but I dont want to make a lot of work for the ewult team who have a lot on their plates already

[agentorangeguy]

It would be easier done in an individual mod. If it is possible to record speech in whatever format the guardian speech files are in (ogg?), you can play speech tracks through usecode. I"ve never tried it from within a conversation file though... since I believe in most parts of the game it is activated by usecode eggs rather than in conversation. I know you can play sound effects DURING conversation (like Iolo and Spark shooting the fly with the sling) . You would have to code the conversation normally, and then add a line for the speech to start too most likely.

UI_start_speech(FirstDialogue);
say("@First line of dialogue.@");

then

UI_start_speech(SecondDialogue);
say("@Second line of dialogue.@");

of course not in that format, but the general idea. Each line of normal conversation text having the line that starts the recorded speech for each line. However, I don't know if you can pause dialogue for a few seconds long enough for the speech to stop... otherwise it might get a little funky.