Sweyn78

By chance, do you guys want me to record anything else? And did you see my last comment?

Female #2 was a noticeably lower quality than female #1. Also, some of the pronunciations were imperfect, but that's the case with mine, too (for example, my dialect of English diphthongizes [e] into [ᴈi], so I realized /e/ as [ᴈi]), though my errors were much subtler (the female speakers, for example, tended to reduce /e/ and /i/ to [ᴈ] and [ɪ] in unstressed positions, which is a feature of English, not Ancient Greek; I did not do this). The female voices also diphthongized and centralized /o/ (I made sure not to do this, but my pronunciation, although closer, was still incorrect; I realized /o/ and /ᴐ/ as a [ɒ]; my dialect of English doesn't have [o] or [ᴐ], and I'm not very comfortable with pronouncing either of them because [ɒ], which I do have, is so similar, meaning I've never really had to practice them in order to speak other languages well). They also used [æ] in some places, but it wasn't in Ancient Greek. Female 1 aspirated her plosives, which is a definite no-no when pronouncing Ancient Greek (incidentally, the recording in which this is most apparent, I did a good female recording of, so if aspiration bothers you, you can use mine, lol). Also, in "ti esti", you'll notice that female #1's first recording uses English's question intonation, which is especially bad because the pitch-accent for "ti esti" is high on "ti", but in that recording, she not only didn't put the high pitch on "ti" but she put an unnecessary one on "esTI". So, yeah. The female recordings sound nice in-game, but they are fairly Anglicized and female #2 needed a better microphone. Also, what male ones are on the svn? And regarding the ideal loudness for the voiceacting, it should be whatever the minimum loudness is for it to be A well-understood & B correct in effect (like, "eisbalomen", "alalai", etc. should be louder than most other recordings). With the current female voices, I feel the current volume is generally good for B, but is lacking for A. Also, ((I might have already mentioned this)), the pitch variations are currently a bit too wide, occasionally making the voices sound weird. This doesn't affect the female voices as badly (they don't have the rougher vibration of the male voices), so maybe you could reduce the female pitch fluctuation by a little and the male fluctuation by a lot; that way, no voices will be odd sounding. Generally, you don't want to adjust pitch by too much more than 6% in either direction (many things can be, but this is usually a safe value that prevents things from getting messed up due to the DSP), so I'd say do +5% & -3% for male voices that I made (they were already each lowered by about 5.5%), and +/- 6% for female voices. Also, as I previously mentioned, changing the tempo at random would be a neat way to add some realism to the voices, in addition to the pitch alterations. Try to keep the tempo changes within +/- 5% (really, +6% & -4%, because slowing down is harder) or so. You should also variate amplitude between different files. I'd say no more than a 1db shift in either direction (mine are normalized to -1db, which is the default for Audacity). If you really wanted to get fancy, after the initial pitch&tempo&amplitude change, you could make a copy of the edited file in memory. This copy's pitch&amplitude could further fluctuate by +/- 1% & 0.25db (not tempo though, due to the way I'm going to suggest the sounds come together). You could then have the original edited sound fade out and the copy fade in, each linearly, and then blend them together. This would not only mean that pitch&tempo&amplitude fluctuate between sounds, but that pitch&amplitude fluctuate within sounds, and that's cool. To further the fluctuation of amplitude within sounds, you could put a weak vibrato effect on each copy. I don't use the vibrato effect in audacity much, so I don't know good and subtle values for this, but randomly fluctuating the strength and period of the vibrato in each soundfile before the merge could really be cool. I'm going to go ahead and say the maximum strength shouldn't be more than +/-0.25db and that the period should be centered on the average spoken length of a vowel and not fluctuate by more than the difference in time between a normal and a stressed vowel. You could also throw a tremolo effect in on top of that for added awesomeness. I'd say the strength of a tremolo shouldn't be more than 0.5%, and that its period should follow the same rules as the vibrato's period. EDIT: In my typical speech, stressed vowels are about 0.1secs and unstressed about 0.2secs (yeah, odd, right?), so I'd say the ideal period for me is about 0.15secs +/0.05. Remember that this only goes for my everyday speech, which is nearly 200wpm. You will probably need to find different values.

Okay, I inserted my voice acting into the game and realized that I need to decrease the pitch a little on most of them; the game automatically changes pitch to keep the sounds from all sounding alike, but since my voice is in the alto range (I made the recordings speaking as low as I could), even raising the pitch a little bit makes the voice acting sound odd. So, I went ahead and did that. Here are the new files (same link as before): http://dl.dropbox.co...-Sweyn78.tar.xz Btw, I'm not sure if it already does this, but having the game automatically adjust tempo by a little bit might be another cool effect. EDIT: Ah, I'd misuploaded the new archive when I originally posted this; the right one is up now. If you downloaded the archive before 9:30 UTC-5 29/11/12, you downloaded an old version.

Oh, maybe I have an older version then. The only female voice in mine is a sighing sound. EDIT1: Yeah, I'm on Alpha 10. That would be why, lol. EDIT2: Just added the 0AD ppa from launchpad. The new version is great! The graphics, especially where water is concerned, are outstanding, and the female voice acting is indeed quite nice. It is a bit quiet, though, and I noticed that being the case with my recordings, too. It would be nice if there were a text file or something that contained a list of the different voice recordings and the volumes at which they should be played. For example, the default volume level for speech could be 133%, and shouts for battle could be 150%. You could also maybe add a speech volume slider to the options like many other games do. EDIT3: Just had a look at the female recordings. They haven't been normalized, which is one of the reasons why they sound so quiet in-game. I would normalize the ones I have, but they're .ogg (a lossy format), and I know you would rather all edits be done to the original uncompressed versions.

I've updated several of the files, as well as recorded a female version of Ti Esti. I'm getting fairly good at doing a female voice, so I can voice everything in both sexes, if you want. Same link as before (it automatically updates): http://dl.dropbox.co...-Sweyn78.tar.xz I'm experimenting with them in game right now. Note that the female voicing that I can do probably isn't as good as what someone whose voice had never androgenized could do, so I guess any such recordings I make would be just decent solutions until a better female voice can be found.

Thanks!

Here are the ones I mentioned having recorded in my earlier post: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/95269192/Archives/Greek1-Sweyn78.tar.xz If you notice anything in need of revision, let me know and I'll fix it.

Alright, I've just recorded the following: What is it? — τί εστι; — tí esti? — [tí esti] My lord? — δέσποτά μου — déspotá mou — [déspotá muː] I will gather together — συλλέξομαι — sylléksomai — [sylːéksomai̯] I will herd — νέμω — némō — [némoː] I will go out against — ἀντέξειμι — antékseimi — [antéksiːmi] I will attack! — eisbàlomen I will repair — siachno I will hunt — kynegetèo I will heal — iàomai I will march! — porèuomai I will retreat! — hypochorèsis Battle cry — alalài, alalalài! I will garrison — parafulakh I still have these to go: I will walk — βήσομαι — bḗsomai — [běːsomai̯] I will build — τεύξω — teúksō — [teǔ̯ksoː] I will work land — γεωργήσω — geōrgḗsō — [geoːrgěːsoː] I will fish — ἁλιεύσω — halieúsō — [halieǔ̯soː] I have not yet edited anything.

Alright, so my Windows computer's PSU went bad and the rest of it is about to (it's mobo is from 2004, it has a P4, etc). My mic didn't work on my Linux computer (this laptop) over the summer, and I didn't have access to a Windows computer at that time (my roommate's was fingerprint-protected and he was never here to unlock it for me, and the computer labs required silence). In two weeks, I will be home for winter break and will have access to a computer running Windows in a very nice recording environment. We may not need to wait until then though, because I think I might be able to get it to work now on my laptop. I'm going to give it a go and, if it works, start recording immedietely. Ugh, I feel terrible for having not done anything over the course of a year. I'm sorry. EDIT: Yes! I got it working! I'm recording now.

Ah, okay. Cool. Well, it's finally Winter-Break here, so I am all ready to get to work on these recordings. Eruton, would you be willing to start posting at your own leisure some IPA transliterations of the Ancient Greek? You could make a post with only one IPA and then edit that post over time, adding more and more. That way, I can work on a recording while you work on putting the next word(s) into IPA.

Thank you so much!

He'll probably be fine with it; he's usually pretty laid-back about things and has a pretty liberal sense of humour. The fact that I actually made a videogame (well, hardly that; four maps and a half-finished UI, but, eh, whatever), a website, and an FTP server for the project will probably make-up for any minor faults elsewhere (I kind of went a little over-the-top for the "Create a Product" part, lol). Besides, it's the day before it's due; I'd probably have to set-up appointments with anyone else, and today's Wednesday -- the busiest day of the week. Thank you for your concern though! EDIT: Interesting... every post thus far has been posted more-or-less exactly 2 hours after the one immediately before it.

Greetings! I'm supposed to conduct an interview for a school-project for economics-class. The project is that we're all supposed to create our own "companies", and one of the required parts is to interview a similar company to the one we're creating. The "company" I chose to create for this project is called "Arrowe Softworks" and it produces a cheesy, 2D MMORPG (I actually started this "company" awhile back, but I've more-or-less forgotten about it since the ninth grade) in VB6 (an open-source VB6 application... it's just full of contradictions! I just put it on sourceforge last night, lol). But I digress. I was hoping that someone here might be willing to answer just a couple questions (I'm supposed to ask several, apparently. I'll come-up with a few): 1. What kinds of skills does a videogame company such as Wildfire need in order to produce it's games? (yes, I know; this is a very easy question -- but I have to ask something and be able to prove that an interview took place) 2. How long does it usually take to create a community-driven, open-source game? 3. Do you prefer advertisements or donations? 4. How do you attract new players? (yes, I'm well-aware it's only an alpha version ) 5. Do you use a release-cycle? 6. Do your users prefer a certain OS or group of OS's? (I'm presuming Linux distros) 7. Do you have any sort of central location, or do most of the people who work on your games work-from home? (I'm presuming the latter) Okay, that's all seven of them. I'm sure a lot of this information is already provided on the 0AD website, but, again, I have to show proof of an interview (the teacher's). I would be very grateful were someone to quickly answer these questions; it's due tomorrow... Thank you in advance!

Thanks! I was worried about the macrons. The IPA would be the biggest help -- especially with the Greek; its tones are something I can never remember (though I should be able to do everything else for Greek from the orthography itself, so long as that orthography is that of Ancient Greek avec accents). The Latin I won't really need IPA for; I can do it so long as I have the macrons (which the WORDS dictionary unfortunately does not include). Oh, I didn't say "Delendus", but "Delenda est". In classical Latin (according to Wikipedia), when there is a vowel at the end of a word and the next word has a vowel at its beginning, they sort of slur together. So, what I said was "Delendaest", but the /t/ at the end of "est" is difficult to pick-out when spoken quickly and immediately next to another plosive, /k/, which would have made it sound more like, "Delendaes", which is somewhat allophonic to "Delendus". Oh, and about the word-order, I was quoting Cato (if I remember correctly), so the sentence wasn't SOV like usual and as you suggested. But, you're right: for the commoner, "Carthago delenda est" or "Carthago est delenda" is more appropriate (from what I saw in Latin class (maybe it was purely for instructional purposes and not historically accurate ones), SVO was more common than SOV for linking-verb statements. Not sure why, but I remember Old English doing something like that too). Thanks again! This will be fun. I won't be able to work full-time on this until Winter-break (exactly one week from Wednesday this week), but I'll bet we could knock-out all the Greek and Latin Wildfire needs before school resumes. Postscript: I wish I'd been given a chance to take Latin and Ancient Greek like that, but my school only offers English (obviously), Spanish, French, and Italian. I took a year of Latin online and started a second year this year, but I had to drop my second year of Latin due to lack of time (AP Lit. and Laureates are often very time-consuming -- too time-consuming).

I do not speak Greek, but I can pronounce all of those words -- but for maximum accuracy, I require the quotes in their original Greek (like, in the Greek alphabet); I know for sure that I'm pronouncing it correctly when I read it with that rather than with the Latin alphabet. Did you just use Google translate for those? If you did (I hope you didn't, as Google Translate uses MODERN Greek), I can find the Modern Greek versions, learn how the Greek language's pronunciation has changed from 0AD until now, and change the Modern Greek versions into more or less their historical ones. The downside of this method (as opposed to having a scholar of ANCIENT Greek) is that I don't speak Greek any better than I do Ancient Greek (I don't speak either), so the grammar wouldn't likely be perfect (the pronunciation and spelling, however, would be). I mean, I could spend a week or two familiarizing myself with the grammar, but, well, I have neither the time nor the intention to do that. A bit irrelevant, but Ancient Greek has a really cool /r/.

...So, may I have a list of what all you'd like me to say for the game?

I couldn't hear any clicking noises in "My Lord" (no matter how many times I played it on WMP/Winamp/Audacity... Are you sure it was that audio file which was causing that problem for you? I haven't tried playing it on my Linux's media-players, but I don't see why they would be any different (except perhaps driver-differences than my Windows' media-players). I'll work on Carthage. I will try to get more stuff to you guys this week. I should be able to finish all the sounds you need for the Romans over Christmas break (well, hopefully, anyhow -- at this point, I don't see why not). Thanks! Me, too. It'll be nice not to have to hear "Pranto" all the time anymore (or whatever it is they're saying).

That's because I didn't edit the Long Latin one. I recorded inside in a room with a rug on the tile floor (we don't have any carpet in the house; mom and iIwould have have bad allergies if we did). I didn't hang any blankets on the walls this time because doing so in this room would be quite difficult and I wasn't such if with this microphone I'd need them (and apparently, I didn't). I used a $30 Logitech desktop microphone with noise-cancelling. It records 16-bit PCM's at a rate of 48000 Hz. I did not compress anything.

Here they are! WFG_Latin_2.zip

Alright, another week of way too much homework. I promise I'll get the files up by the end of the day tomorrow; it's the start of the weekend -- plenty of time to record. Oh, and thanks iap for the advice! UPDATE: Currently recording.

Thanks!

I'm sorry it's been so long since last I replied! A lot has happened that prevented me from being able to record sounds for you guys, most notably: * I had a bunch of essays to write for school again * It took us a while to get a microphone *Skyrim came-out (a three day (weekend-only) distraction from recording things) * [immediately after that] A cold knocked-out my voice for about a week, so I wasn't able to record. * [immediately after that] My family and I for Thanksgiving were in Indiana for an entire week with my grandparents who have a weak internet-connection and underpowered computers running Windows 98 (plus, I didn't want to risk travel-damage to my new Logitech microphone (I would have gotten one of the ones you guys suggested, but this was the only microphone available at the BestBuy near where I live (if it still isn't on-par with what you're looking-for, I suppose I can always return it and look-for a different one))). Consequently, I wasn't able to record. I have run some preliminary tests on the new microphone, and its noise-cancelling technology is working quite nicely. I'll hopefully get some sound-files to you all by tomorrow.

Okay, sure. Thanks!

Thanks! I'll check it out.

I don't think we'll have to worry too much; I just showed this to my mom and now she's obsessed with getting me a better microphone (I'm using the one built-into my webcam right now). When I get it, I'll record once indoors at my computer, once outdoors on one of my parents' laptops, and once in the small office my dad made (it could potentially give good acoustics) and upload the results in a .zip.