Comms Voice AddOn?

[osiris]

Can anyone recommend an add-on at changes the communications voice to something less hard on the ears. Preferably a female voice.

Thanks for any recommendations.

[Cody]

Welcome aboard - you've tried the default female voice, yes? Otherwise, there are some alternatives (such as  Halsis), but I'm not familiar with them.

[osiris]

Welcome aboard - you've tried the default female voice, yes? Otherwise, there are some alternatives (such as  Halsis), but I'm not familiar with them.

Hello. Thanks for the welcome. I do have the Halsis add-on. It adds a nice computer voice to your ship but doesn't change the default comms voice.

[another_commander]

Are you on Mac, Windows or Linux? Windows and Linux have a female default voice for spoken messages.

[osiris]

Are you on Mac, Windows or Linux? Windows and Linux have a female default voice for spoken messages.

Linux.

[another_commander]

On Linux you should have a female message voice by default. Do you see this if you go to the Game Options screen?


If you switch Spoken Messages to On here, you get a female voice for messages.

[osiris]

On Linux you should have a female message voice by default. Do you see this if you go to the Game Options screen?


If you switch Spoken Messages to On here, you get a female voice for messages.

Yes. I have that option but the default voice is terrible.

[another_commander]

Yes. I have that option but the default voice is terrible.

Ah, I misunderstood then because you asked specifically for a female default voice when the default was just that. Anyway, you cannot replicate this functionality by OXP. You can install sound OXPs (like BGS, which contains female voice messages or Halsis etc.), but those willl be just pre-recorded samples for very specific events in the game, which is not the same as a text-to-speech conversion of every message that is generated. You either get good quality samples for a few events, like hyperspace countdown, incoming missile etc. or you get less good quality text-to-speech that works for every game event.

I am not sure how it is done on Linux, but on Windows we are using a female voice which is not the same as the "ortiginal" espeak provided one. We have changed breathing and pitch and a few other things, precisely because the original coming from espeak was atrocious (yes, much worse that what we have now). If you are using that same modified voice and are still not happy with how it sounds, it is possible to modify it further, What you can maybe do is check the espeak-data folder of your Oolite installation and look inside the voices/!v folder for the file named f2. This is the female voice file we use. It looks like this currently:

Code: Select all

language variant
name female2
gender female

pitch 188 228
roughness 0

formant 0 105  80 150
formant 1 110  80 160
formant 2 110  70 150
formant 3 110  70 150
formant 4 115  80 200
formant 5 115  80 100
formant 6 110  70 150
formant 7 110  70 100
formant 8 110  70 150

stressAdd 0 0 -10 -10 0 0 10 40
breath 0 2 3 3 3 3 0 5
echo 140 10
voicing 20
breathw 150 150 200 200 400 400

Does your f2 file look like this? If not, then you are probably using a voice different to the intended one and you could try to just copy/paste the above into the !v folder and see if it improves. Otherwise, you will have to do some experimentation on your own until you come up with something acceptable. If that is not an option either, then I am afraid you can only use one of the proposed OXPs, which will not be the same thing, as mentioned earlier.

[osiris]

Yes. I have that option but the default voice is terrible.

Ah, I misunderstood then because you asked specifically for a female default voice when the default was just that. Anyway, you cannot replicate this functionality by OXP. You can install sound OXPs (like BGS, which contains female voice messages or Halsis etc.), but those willl be just pre-recorded samples for very specific events in the game, which is not the same as a text-to-speech conversion of every message that is generated. You either get good quality samples for a few events, like hyperspace countdown, incoming missile etc. or you get less good quality text-to-speech that works for every game event.

I am not sure how it is done on Linux, but on Windows we are using a female voice which is not the same as the "ortiginal" espeak provided one. We have changed breathing and pitch and a few other things, precisely because the original coming from espeak was atrocious (yes, much worse that what we have now). If you are using that same modified voice and are still not happy with how it sounds, it is possible to modify it further, What you can maybe do is check the espeak-data folder of your Oolite installation and look inside the voices/!v folder for the file named f2. This is the female voice file we use. It looks like this currently:

Code: Select all

language variant
name female2
gender female

pitch 188 228
roughness 0

formant 0 105  80 150
formant 1 110  80 160
formant 2 110  70 150
formant 3 110  70 150
formant 4 115  80 200
formant 5 115  80 100
formant 6 110  70 150
formant 7 110  70 100
formant 8 110  70 150

stressAdd 0 0 -10 -10 0 0 10 40
breath 0 2 3 3 3 3 0 5
echo 140 10
voicing 20
breathw 150 150 200 200 400 400

Does your f2 file look like this? If not, then you are probably using a voice different to the intended one and you could try to just copy/paste the above into the !v folder and see if it improves. Otherwise, you will have to do some experimentation on your own until you come up with something acceptable. If that is not an option either, then I am afraid you can only use one of the proposed OXPs, which will not be the same thing, as mentioned earlier.

Ah, okay. I get it. I downloaded the GUI for gespeaker. I can tweak it there. Still not going to be much improvement so I guess I'll just have to live with it. Thanks for the replies, folks.

[Getafix]

another_commander wrote:

...
I am not sure how it is done on Linux, but on Windows we are using a female voice which is not the same as the "ortiginal" espeak provided one. We have changed breathing and pitch and a few other things
...

Text-to-speech properties are the same for Windows and Linux and the voice sounds the same in both operating systems.


However, in Linux, if you have not used the installer from oolite.org, then most probably you are listening to your system's default espeak voice settings, and I quote:

another_commander wrote:

...
the original coming from espeak was atrocious (yes, much worse that what we have now).
...