Soldier Voices (English) / Music (Metal/Rock) Offer

[Destructavator]

Hi everyone,

I'm a heavy metal musician with a lot of professional gear and recording equipment, and I also have voice abilities - I do real singing (not screaming), and I also know a little about programming, although most of my tech knowledge is web-based HTML, Java, etc.

I've never contributed to an open-source game before, but I'd like to start offering sounds and audio.  I've downloaded the SVN version, actually got it to compile on windows (I also have another machine running Kubuntu Linux), and like this project a lot, being a fan of the original XCOM games.

For starters, I already have two sets of a bunch of sample recorded voice parts you might be able to use for soldier voices.  The two zip files are both just under a megabyte, and contain oggs encoded from 24-bit recordings I put together.  If someone gives me an email address, I'd be willing to send them for someone to play around with to see if they are usable.

At this time I don't have any instrumental music to offer, but I do have time to compose some, and I do have experience making video game music.  I don't use just emulation and sampled synths, but I also have pro-quality and semi-pro quality recording equipment and am willing to put together some rock or metal tracks with real instruments if you guys think you could use that kind of thing.  Again, I don't have many music samples right now, but within a few weeks I could come up with some stuff with some ideas I've been working on.

Back to the voice acting, I can easily make more if anyone wants it, and I also have vocal FX processors to make them sound like they are coming over a radio, or from a computer/robot/machine, etc.

Also, I might (no guarantee) be able to get some weapon sounds, as for my last part-time job to pay bills I have been employed by a police department (as support staff, not an officer), and I still know a lot of the cops who work there...  (Again, no guarantee on that one.)

Does anyone want the voice samples I have so far?

-Destructavator

[Mattn]

hi,

first of all, thanks for your offer.

We are still searching some weapon sounds - have a look here: http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1201

And we are still searching for an official musictrack for the game. we already have lots of ingame (in-mission) music tracks which are really great. feel free to add some new here, too - the more the better :-)

about your voice oggs:
if you have a sourceforge.net account you can append files to patch tracker items: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=157793&atid=805244

otherwise you can send them to me to my mail address.

what are the voices about? normal speaking? screaming (death or hurts)?

best regards
martin

[Destructavator]

OK, I just sent you some files via email.

Sincerely,

Destructavator

[blondandy]

I spent some time listening to Destructavator's work. (which tlh2000 uploaded to the patch tracker on sf). Here's my tuppence.

voices1_1 - they all sound like aliens getting hit to me.
*Choke_Death_1 OK
*Choke_Death_2 OK
*Choke_Death_3 better
*Choke_Death_4 better
*Choke_Death_5 like the drawn out gurgle
*Choke_Death_6 the weakest
voices1_2
*pain_grunt_4 OK
*copy_that_1 good
*found_one not scared enough
*go_ahead OK
*i_copy OK
*i_got_one should be more excited or disbelieving
*oh_yeah_1&2 OK, amusing
*okay OK
*on_my_way sounds like my least favourite sample from civ CTP (sorry)
voices1_3
*out_of_ammo a really useful idea
*ready OK
*ready_for_orders_1 too long
*sir good
*spotted_one not scared enough
*standing_by OK
*target_destroyed good (veteran sounding cool)
*theres_one not scared enough
*yeah_1 OK

all the 2 samples
alien screams don't benefit from the extra distortion
soldiers voices do sound better with the radio effect added

a couple of the samples have crackles on that don't sound like radio noise. all of the speech announcing a new alien has been spotted is too calm - I think it would be better whispered in fear.

all of the deaths and grunts sound like they are aliens getting it. I quite like the death rattle in The Two Towers on PS2, its quite a soft breath as your guy breaths his last.

The game would benefit from some vocals. I don't know how hard this would be to code. I reckon comments from your soldiers should be quite intermittent, otherwise they get too repetitive (hmm, I think that's a tautology).

I would really like to hear voices in a variety of world accents. This would lend a load of style to the game.

good work!

[Destructavator]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, I've been waiting for someone to give me some input on how those files sound!  I admit when I made them I didn't really know what I was doing, and some of them I felt less confident about than others.  Now I know what to work on.

I've actually made many more recorded files since then (over twice as many), but they haven't been uploaded - I messed up on some recent ones by accidentally applying the radio FX a different way for some of them, so they don't all sound the same.

I've also been working on making random radio static noise to add in, but it'll take a while before a new set of recordings are all ready.

I'm willing to try different accents, I'm just worried that someone who really is from a different country might complain that they think it sounds fake or a little off...   I'll just try it and see what happens.

I also tracked down the other noise mentioned, I found out how to fix this in the encoding of the files.

I'll post here again when I have the next set of files ready, and again, thanks for the feedback!

[blondandy]

I reckon it would be best if different accents could be done by people actually representing the different nationalities. if radio-type distortion is going to be applied anyway, then it does not matter if the original recording is high quality. any cheap microphone and a computer should do. it would be good if the radio noise was applied consistently, perhaps one person could do that to all of the samples.

i'd have a go at putting on a posh english english voice.

destructavator: if i did would you be ok to normalize the volume and apply distortion?

alex: you seem to be a leading sound contributor, do you have any thoughts?

coders: would this be worth coding in your opinion? i guess you would have to add a field describing the nationality of each soldier. it would be no good if the same soldier spoke with a Polish accent one round and an American the next.

[Destructavator]

Sure, I'd be more than happy to process samples from other people.

Sorry I didn't mention this before, but I started using a naming system for voice files, here is how it works:

Each file starts with a three letter (in caps) code to represent the nation the spoken voice is supposed to be from, followed by all or some of the words used (depending on how long it is) with underscores instead of spaces, and then a number and a letter.  The number represents which original "take" the recording is (So if there is more than one "Yes Sir" they don't all sound the same) and the ending letter represents what version of the recording it is depending on what FX are applied.  Version "A" is always the raw original.  After that comes the dot and file extension.

Example:

ENG_Yes_Sir_1A.wav

Would be "Yes Sir" spoken without any FX, in English.  (WAV format.) Once it is normalized, enhanced, and radio FX is applied, it would be:

ENG_Yes_Sir_1B.wav

If the recording is not actual words, it goes in parenthesis with a descriptive word or two, and without the three letter code (because it is not applicable).  Examples:

(Scream)_1A.wav         <-- raw recording of scream
(Scream)_1B.wav         <-- Scream through a radio
(Scream)_2B.wav         <-- Different Scream
(Pain_Grunt)_1A.wav

These can be combined:

(Laughing)_Too_Easy_1B.ogg      <-- Could be after killing an
                                                      Enemy


I didn't realize this until now, but what type of English should ENG represent?  I could easily rename all the ones I made with USA or something else, I'm sorry I didn't think of this before.  Perhaps we could post an agreed-upon list somewhere?

By all means, go ahead and email me some recordings to work with whenever anyone is ready, I can convert them from almost any format, and I think my website email service can accept 20MB of attachments at a time (Could be 10MB, but I'm pretty sure it's 20).

As long as a microphone is available, even a cheap one, the Open-Source program called Audacity (It's on sourceforge) would be great for making short voice files, for those who don't have any recording software.

By the way, If anyone emails me uncompressed WAVs, please zip them up in a ZIP file or a 7-Zip file so I can download them from my webmail service more easily.

Also, please include your name in the email at some point in the way you would like to be credited in the license file.  Unless anyone objects, I'll go with a Creative Commons Non-Commercial but free to share and attribute license.

Finally, the "webmaster" address at my website domain would be fine for sending me stuff.  (There are other mailboxes my hosting service gives me, but they all end up getting forwarded to the same account.)  Please also understand I work on this in my spare time, so sometimes I will reply quickly and other times it could be as long as a week.