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A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 10:34
by Cyberpangolin
After reading Auria:
Same for character voices, we do not have professionnal voice actors in the team, and not many good amateur ones volunteering


Considering I have a not-that-bad mic, and some time, I'm considering voicing all characters for following triggers ingame:
Pass another player -> taunt
Being passed by another player -> grumble
Throw something
Hit someone at a short distance
Take a hit
Jump

If you wish an overview of my skill, you may look here: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10798 , download the mobsound zip file and listen to what I did 1 year ago.

The top priority characters would be:
Default (for any character that did not receive their voice) :)
Nolok
Tux
Sara
Gnu

And the total list would be of course all standard characters. Before the ends of time if possible.
All of them would get 3 sounds per trigger, assuming they would be played randomly and probably not every time (to avoid overloading the ears), especially about passing / being passed). These taunts could be really fun but they definitely must be rare ;).

I suppose they should not speak any language, to avoid translation problems. Does it mean it won't be fun? definitely no :cool:

Now the questions are:
Are these triggers enough?
If I make these, with a good quality sound, will / can they be added ingame?


By the way, I did another thing: I translated Nolok's speech intro french. After trying it ingame it's not perfect but probably a good start. I took the freedom to change a bit the translation and to call him a "piece of meat" instead of "the old codger", it may look strange in english but sounded really better to me in french. I may of course re-make it if needed. If you want to use it, please use CC-BY. Thanks :).

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 19:21
by GeekPenguinBR
:lol: Funny! I liked the effects and Nolok's voice.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 20:11
by ArDanWol
I like your sample you posted. I don't speak french, but I like your voice talent. I think you'd do a good job at this!
Cyberpangolin {l Wrote}:The top priority characters would be:
Default (for any character that did not receive their voice) :)
Nolok
Tux
Sara
Gnu

And the total list would be of course all standard characters.

We would need a female voice actor for the female characters such as Sara of course.

Good work!

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 22:38
by Cyberpangolin
Great to see you liked it! :D
I wish I could speak tons of languages to give to all of them a good voice for Nolok, but I only speak french and English, and I have some skills in German.

About the female voice actor: please take a look at the female npc (fnpc_something) here: https://github.com/MinetestForFun/server-minetestforfun/tree/master/mods/mobs/sounds its origine is... my girlfriend playing STK! Everything is linked, illuminatis spotted! :twisted:

I may reuse the same kind of voice than the male npc too.

Anyway, I won't re-use them since I prefer to submit completely original sounds but they may look like that (with a better microphone than the one used for our minetest mobs).

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 07 Jul 2016, 22:44
by GeekPenguinBR
Cyberpangolin {l Wrote}:Great to see you liked it! :D

About the female voice actor: please take a look at the female npc (fnpc_something) here: https://github.com/MinetestForFun/server-minetestforfun/tree/master/mods/mobs/sounds its origine is... my girlfriend playing STK! Everything is linked, illuminatis spotted! :twisted:

LOL :lol: :lol:

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 08 Jul 2016, 01:59
by Auria
Voices for karts would be great indeed! Though we would need quite a few contributors to have a diverse array of voices for characters. In the past we have never managed to get enough contributors to really do it well, but everyone who is interested is welcome to chime in

As for translating the intro cutscene : your attempt is pretty good ;) One issue though is that STK is not equipped at this time to do audio translations, we only have what it takes to do text translations. Since the intro cutscene, while fun, looks pretty amateurish, it is very much subject to change, so I wouldn't start collecting audio translations for it just yet. It may be revised and change a bit

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 08 Jul 2016, 11:48
by Cyberpangolin
Here is an early alpha of what I can get. They surely need tweaks but may be some good start.

I can bring the audacity files if needed.

download link:http://www.cyberpangolin.ch/STKVoice_earlyalpha.zip

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 07:42
by woompa loompa
> download link:http://www.cyberpangolin.ch/STKVoice_earlyalpha.zip

Very cool! However if I can give you a suggestion, I would use more emphasis, liveliness, and energy for "positive sounds" (jump, passing, throwing). "Tux_jump_2.ogg" and "Tux_throwing_1.ogg" are the only two that I like, all others are too glum/sad/weary. Take a look at this for example, listen to sounds.

Besides, please let's not use .wav and support free formats instead :-) there are many others that you can use besides ogg, for example flac ;-)

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 09:31
by 0zone0ne
I agree with woompa loopma - those samples are a good start, but I think they need to have much more energy and expression. Most of them should be basically yelling.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 12:12
by Cyberpangolin
Ok, thanks for the feedbacks :).I will yell more and more :D I was afraid to be too much yelling ;).

@woompa loompa I have put wav versions because it seemed to me the most compatible. I definitely know wav is a "bad" thing, but as fas as I remember/know windows and Mac Os are unable to read ogg naturally and I wish any contributor, including those using Windows or Mac Os, can read my contributions without installing anything. Furthermore, I wanted a lossless-like format using not too much bandwidth, and wav is perfect for that. The final releases will have flac added for a real lossless sound, but I will probably store them out of my home for sharing.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 12:52
by woompa loompa
including those using Windows or Mac Os


maybe I'm a bit of an extremist, but I really don't care about Windows or Mac =)
Developing for close platforms is just a waste of time and resources, when we could focus on open/free systems and improve those instead. If Windows can't read an open format such as ogg, too bad. It means that GNU is better, and people should just use it. If Windows can't support ogg then it's not an STK problem, because the format is free. It just means Microsoft didn't want to implement a free format, but force theirs instead. It's their problem.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 12:58
by woompa loompa
Cyberpangolin {l Wrote}:Ok, thanks for the feedbacks :).I will yell more and more :D I was afraid to be too much yelling ;).


by the way, "Tux_passing_2.ogg" is a *bad* example of yelling. Please do not record like this :-)

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 12:59
by 0zone0ne
woompa loompa {l Wrote}:maybe I'm a bit of an extremist, but I really don't care about Windows or Mac =)

But other people do.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 13:02
by woompa loompa
But other people do.


Definitely, yes. I just think it's silly that we in the free world have to adapt to the issues of closed/proprietary platforms just because they don't want to use free standards/software, but push their proprietary crap instead.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 13:24
by benau
do you know stk is mostly coded in windows, and some music is composed in mac?

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 14:17
by woompa loompa
benau {l Wrote}:do you know stk is mostly coded in windows, and some music is composed in mac?



No, and this makes me sad =(

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 14:22
by 0zone0ne
woompa loompa {l Wrote}:
benau {l Wrote}:do you know stk is mostly coded in windows, and some music is composed in mac?



No, and this makes me sad =(

Apple makes damn good audio software! ;)

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2016, 14:30
by benau
I think you should respect the freedom of the choice of os for the others, if you think it's a free world.

Otherwise it seems that you will end up unhappy most of the time in your life, given that such minor thing can despress you.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 17 Jul 2016, 09:34
by woompa loompa
I think you should respect the freedom of the choice of os for the others, if you think it's a free world.


I do, and I'm not one of those extremists that want to dictate what others do. But using proprietary/nonfree programs (OS too) gives a false sense of legitimacy to them, as if it were OK to use them as much as free software. If you make an informed choice of using nonfree software, that's OK for me, it's just your choice. But most of the time people are influenced (for whatever different reason) by other people's choices and by what they see other people use, just because "if he's using it, then it must be good". Which is NOT, and I think we all know why it's not.

On top of this, programming for those nonfree OS is a complete waste of time and generally a resource sink. They try all the time to lock you in, and want you to adapt to their proprietary standards. I don't blame STK for supporting Window/Mac, I mean as long as I'm not forced to use those systems I'm fine. It's just sad to me. And given that STK already has few developers, artists, and time, these resources would be better spent in other ways.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 17 Jul 2016, 15:54
by Arthur
woompa loompa {l Wrote}:And given that STK already has few developers, artists, and time, these resources would be better spent in other ways.

That's why we need to support Windows and Mac, otherwise we would have even less current developers and a much smaller pool to get new contributors from. Developing multi-platform is not particularly hard if things are done with that in mind, and STK has supported several platforms for almost as long as it's existed (with exception of the original TuxKart).

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 12 Aug 2016, 13:29
by wiefman
Hi everyone,
I've tried to record some Voices for Tux and Gnu. Let me know, what you think.

Also hello everyone, since I'm new at the forum.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 16 Aug 2016, 01:24
by Auria
wiefman, I like your Tux though I foresee this kind of voice would have the potentiel to become quickly annoying ;) we'd need to be careful with that kind of voice

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 16 Aug 2016, 09:24
by Ludsky
I have record a konqi sound; i hope is not bad ,

I wait your answer....

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 18 Aug 2016, 15:25
by wiefman
Auria {l Wrote}:wiefman, I like your Tux though I foresee this kind of voice would have the potentiel to become quickly annoying ;) we'd need to be careful with that kind of voice

Thanks for the feedback. I have now recorded voices for:

  • Audumy
  • ElePHPhant
  • Emule
  • Gavroche
  • Hexley
  • Suzanne
  • Xue

I also added some variations of each sound, so that they could be played randomly on the game.

If the voices are good enough for adding it into the game: You can find the name for crediting in the ID3-Tag.

EDIT: I can offer you WAVE/FLAC Versions of each recording upon request. For quick listening purposes, I've just added the ogg-versions here.

Re: A voice for the characters!

PostPosted: 18 Aug 2016, 23:27
by MTres19
@Ludskey: I like your recordings. However, they seem to fit more with the old Konqi (image here) than the new Konqi (images here and here). Just my opinion, and I don't know when the Konqi kart will be updated since the team's pretty busy. (Besides, with those tiny legs, how would he reach the gas pedal?)