Voice or no voice?

[greg147]

I'm not sure if this is really the right place for this, but it does say 'Suggest and converse on various concepts for Missions & Campaigns', under the discription of this part of the forum, so I suppose it can go here  ;D

I'm sure we have all heard of text to voice programs, that produce robot-like speeches of what ever you've typed.
Well, my question is what do you prefere? Robot voices, or no voices at all?  

Consider this a poll, to help me and other people decide weither to use them or not  ;D

Thanks

[GI-YO]

my personal opion is that all voices are good, they add a whole new level of depth to any mission, obviously 'real' voices are best but taking orders from robotman could be amusing. I say use robot voices unless you have access to the real thing, have you tried the recruitment depot? thats the place to go for help.

GI-YO

[macguba]

Real voices - best
OFP voices - next best
No voices - middle
Robot voices - worst

If you really cannot get real voices, then design your mission around this.    It's perfectly possible to make a perfectly good mission with little or no dialogue.    If you are cunning, you can design it around the voice files already included with OFP.   There are quite a lot.   I don't just mean the ones you get in triggers (which can be found in DTA/sounds.pbo) but the dialogue from the campaigns.    

However, making voices is not hard.    Bloodmixer's sound tutorial is a little old now but still gets you started.  If your computer doen't have a microphone (and most do) you can buy a cheap one for $/£/€10 or thereabouts.   Get your friends and family to act for you.  Don't beg:  bully.    ;D    Standard of acting doen't matter:   even really bad acting is better than nothing.   Experiment a bit to make the quality of the recording as good as you can.

Got no friends or family?   Do them all yourself with different accents and pitches.  We don't care how bad your accents are or how stupid you think you sound, it's still better than nothing.

Can't afford a mic?   Go out and wash cars until you can.   Borrow one from your uncle.   Get people from the community to record the voices for you.   Track down somebody from the community who lives near you and has a mic and go round to their house.

Native language not English?   So what.  Even bad acting in a foreign language is better than nothing, as long as you have titletexts in Engish.   Better still design the mission around this.    If you are from Ruritania get some Ruritanian addon units and make it a Ruritanian mission.

Robot voices, as well as being dreadful to listen to, just prove that you didn't care enough to do any of the above.    They do not have the human emotion and inflection which is what having voices is all about.      The point about having voice files is to hear somebody speak:  with the robot you do not achieve that.    

In other words, never, ever, use robot voices.    IMHO.

[Artak]

If you're referring to the MEC MP mission CTF vs. AI Houdan where these 'robot voices' were used, I personally think it sounded terrible. A good joke for laughs yes, but terrible idea for a serious mission. It doesn't suit the realistic environment of OFP.

[greg147]

lol, OK, I swear I will never use robot voices  ;D

I just spent about 10 minutes looking on the internet for a 'high qualtity' STT program, but the trial ones just don't handle long sentances well enough.  :-\

I'll stick with titletexts until I buy a mic  

@GI-YO
The recruitment dept was down last time I checked. Shame, as that would be an easy way to get authentic voices  ;D

[dmakatra]

One must remember that there are different quality of the robot-voices. Taking CTF AI vs. Houdan. The female pilot's voice was rather good quality, even though the voculthingy-don't-know-how-to-spell-it was shite. Me and my squad even had a lil' joke if she'd date us and stuff. ;D

The male pilot on the other side was of shite quality. At that point, text would be much better.

It is so hot... LMAO ;D

I think KICK ASS ENEMY is going to be OFP's answer to All Your Base Are Belong To Us. ;D

:beat: *Gets Thank You, Play Game* :beat:

[Tyger]

I've seen a 200 $/£/€ program out there that will make decent and emotional voices - you could try that. I don't suggest it though. A sodding mike is a lot cheaper.

[The-Architect]

Wiuthout a doubt, for me robot is better than none.

[greg147]

Thanks for the opinions guys  ;D

I think I'll get a decent mic, and see try to get emotional voices instead of robot voices, as 2 people were for robo-voices, and 3 against  

Thanks again