Hubba dubba doolip... Erm, Sims-speech
Go idea, bad idea?
You''ve got crowds or lots of talking for a fantasy or SF game where you can reasonably expect that people would be speaking a lot of different languages. You want lots and lots of dialog, but you don''t want to pay for top notch, cutrate voice acting.
Would it even fly to have lots of "psuedospeak" like in the Sims, only less silly and more like some of the bar scenes in the Star Wars movies? This, of course, would be backed by our good, cheap and imminently practical friend, text.
I know we now expect sound, and good quality. I''m just wondering if it has to be English, or can it be an algorithmic mish-mash.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
Set up for recording, and have 10+ people just sit and read clips from the newspaper. Mix them all together a couple times over, at different speeds and pitches, and I should think you'll have something good going. If you're looking to have it definitely sound like different languages, instead of general crowd noise, then have people speak different earth-bound languages..I'm sure if you mixed in some pig latin or oppish, russian and german, spoken at different rates, it'll sound complex enough...all in all, a good question, and I'd like to know what road you decide to take
[edited by - krikkit on May 2, 2002 2:29:05 AM]
[edited by - krikkit on May 2, 2002 2:29:05 AM]
quote:Original post by Wavinator
I know we now expect sound, and good quality. I'm just wondering if it has to be English, or can it be an algorithmic mish-mash.
I don't think it has to be english, in fact in some cases, having gibberish talk might make the game feel more immersive.
It is interesting that you brought up star wars, since this provides an interesting opportunity for comparison. In the original three films, most alien races spoke gibberish, and subtitles were used. In Episode 1, almost everyone spoke english, albeit with a stereotypical racial accent, which was one of the things that irked me throughout the film.
[edited by - Sandman on May 2, 2002 6:12:39 AM]
I know of one game that is currently in production that will use such a system, Republic (by Elixir studios) is apparently using a sims style gibberish language, but the sound_style is said to be grittier.
Great info, thanks guys.
I know the main problem I had with the Sims was how silly the speech sounded. So I'm interested to see what Republic is going to do.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
[edited by - Wavinator on May 4, 2002 6:26:42 AM]
I know the main problem I had with the Sims was how silly the speech sounded. So I'm interested to see what Republic is going to do.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
[edited by - Wavinator on May 4, 2002 6:26:42 AM]
Actually, I think setting a game in an alien environment or foreign culture is a great way to get around some technical limitations. You could use English, procedurally generated according to the circumstances, and blame the simplistic constructions as the limitations of the character''s fluency in the language or the quality of the translator. Might not be relevant to the original post, but interesting nonetheless.
[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost | Asking Questions ]
[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost | Asking Questions ]
two notes on languages here:
yes, it''s a good idea! say you have
3 races.. if all three are converging in the
same room, race1 wouldnt be able to understand
what race2 or 3 were saying, ect. you could
further elaborate on this by having a ''translator''
race who can understand everything, but is
extremely weak (otherwise everybody would be him).
so yeah, it makes for some good ideas that havent
been used yet (that i know of).
the only problem there is, in an online game, so many
people are already experiencing language barriers
being from other countries and stuff.. so i dunno
how practical that''d be.
-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]
yes, it''s a good idea! say you have
3 races.. if all three are converging in the
same room, race1 wouldnt be able to understand
what race2 or 3 were saying, ect. you could
further elaborate on this by having a ''translator''
race who can understand everything, but is
extremely weak (otherwise everybody would be him).
so yeah, it makes for some good ideas that havent
been used yet (that i know of).
the only problem there is, in an online game, so many
people are already experiencing language barriers
being from other countries and stuff.. so i dunno
how practical that''d be.
-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]
or you could just use the microsoft speech synthesizer 
as for the real world language barriers.. having made up sim-style speech but less cheesy(and without the whistling) would fit the situation well, as nothing can be understood in both situations
also, in a packed bar you can never work out what any one person is saying, plus having many/a psedo-language which is real world language independant would save a heck of a lot of storage space
If I was faced with this situation, my solution would be a pseudo-language and subtitles, which made starwars(like Sandman said), a much more immersive film as it seemed like it was taking place somewhere else other than Tunisia and Pinewood
as for the real world language barriers.. having made up sim-style speech but less cheesy(and without the whistling
) would fit the situation well, as nothing can be understood in both situations also, in a packed bar you can never work out what any one person is saying, plus having many/a psedo-language which is real world language independant would save a heck of a lot of storage space
If I was faced with this situation, my solution would be a pseudo-language and subtitles, which made starwars(like Sandman said), a much more immersive film as it seemed like it was taking place somewhere else other than Tunisia and Pinewood
quote:Original post by Kylotan
Actually, I think setting a game in an alien environment or foreign culture is a great way to get around some technical limitations. You could use English, procedurally generated according to the circumstances, and blame the simplistic constructions as the limitations of the character''s fluency in the language or the quality of the translator. Might not be relevant to the original post, but interesting nonetheless.
Definitely interesting! In David Brin''s Uplift universe there are a bunch of Galactic dialects that work just like this, and I could see them working well in a game.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
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