2007-02-05 16:55:17

Hello, I'm gamehawk.  I'm really getting into audio games, and being a developer, I've made a few adventures.  I'm currently rendering speech with SAPI's Microsoft Sam.  Is that okay, or is that below standards for voice quality.  I know MS Sam isn't great for reading e-books and things, but what about for games?  If he isn't good enough is there a free alternative voice for SAPI that I can recommend to my non-blind players?  They have really liked the audio games, but don't have software like JAWS.  Obviously I want to get a voice that blind players can use too.  Is there a voice everyone can use comfortably without paying?  Or is MS Sam good enough to you guys?

Cheers,

gamehawk

2007-02-05 22:33:56

SAPI 4 or 5 is good enough for games, but it's not really cool-sounding. The best way to make voice-overs is with real humans... However, you can reduce the size of your games enormously with SAPI. I think MS Mary is better than Sam, and I thought it is provided with any Windows XP-installation.

2007-02-10 04:02:42

If you are using SAM I assume you're usin SAPI 5. If you install the 5.1 with extra voices Microsoft Mary is a noticeable improvement, although still not perfect.

In an ideal world speech synthesis would be used only when it isn't practical to have all spoken text recorded, for example it is ideal in audio quake where you can have various player names in multiplayer games and weapon names can be changed in mods. On the other hand games like Tank Commander use all recorded speech, which both makes the file bigger and limits the contents of the game but since there isn't any potential for change of names this is fine.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2007-02-10 13:37:49

The Infovox speech synthesizer is much better though.

2007-02-10 19:29:17

Actually that isn't true. Tank Commander doesn't just use recorded human speach. Apart from the main menu all menus are voiced by AT&T Mike and AT&T Crystal. David Greenwood voices the main menu but all the rest are At&T Not-so-Natural voices. If he was gonna ise a synthesizer at least he could have used Neospeach, or set it up like Jim Kitchen's games where they would detect any SAPI voices you had on your computer and allow you to select from those. That's one f the reaons I don't like Pac-Man Talks as much as I could have. I'm sorry, but you don't use synthesizers for the character voices, unless they're robots or you're doing a parody game of some kind that features the actual Sapi characters, y'know, Mike, Mary, Sam and all that. I'm actually thinking of incorporating Synthesizer characters into my Crazy Taxi game when Audio Game Maker is released. Should be funny. You pick up, say Perfect Paul, and he has to go to the Screen Reader HQ for work.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2007-02-10 22:37:44

hehehe! that sounds funny. look forward to playing that.

2007-02-11 12:50:34

I'd love to be a beta-tester for that thing! However, since Audio Game Maker is delayed you unfortunately can't build it.

2007-02-12 01:06:04

You make it sound like the delay was permanent. Sure i can't build the game yet, but YET is the key word there.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2007-02-12 11:25:37

Well I would call what happened a "misinterpretation" that mostly happens with what I write, too. Lol. It was why I understood what Davy was trying to say. big_smile

2007-02-12 23:25:06

Interesting thought just occurred to me. Sinc AGMs going to create an .exe fie of your game so a person who doesn't have the program can play it, I'm wonderin if you could modify it using an actual programming language. If so, you could lay the groundwork for the game using AGM but ad any other modifications, those of which the program isn't capable, yourself. Then again, if you know a programming language and can create your own games it makes trying something with AGM rather pointless unless you were just curious. Me, I do intend to attempt to actually learn a language, ut in the meantme I'l make ful use of the Audio Game Maker and,yes, SAPI for some of the speach. Well, I will if and when I can get my Sapi problems sorted out. Lately it's been a bit sketchy.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!