U8 with Speech Pack... with subtitles viewable... posible?

[lazar0]

Hi,

sorry to ask to many things about U8. I have finished the spanish translation for the English CD version (with speech pack) of Ultima VIII: Pagan. Now I'm betatesting and upgrading/improving things, gumps, fonts, etc...

It would be very fun for a lot of Spanish users to use the Speech Pack (although in english), but WITH text subtitles enabled (subtitles that are translated into Spanish right now). So my question:

Is possible somehow to use in the English CD version of U8 (with Speech Pack) voices AND view text subtitles at the same time? I have not seen any option in the game. But who knows...

In Spain, although voice dialogues be in English, we like to play the games with subtitles in spanish. Maybe it seems odd, but this manner is how we like to play.

Thanks a lot.

Regards,
L@Zar0.

[P]

ey, this project is interesting, do you have a website or something?

[lazar0]

Hi P,

no, I have not any website, when I have finished the translation I will let in Exult forums where you can download it. For now I'm finishing the last things, betatesting, voices, etc...

Regards,
L@Zar0.

[Dominus]

I guess it may be doable if the subtitles are not displayed from usecode but another flex container.
OR have everything in Spanish but exchange the voice file (no idea which that is - far away from the source right now).
Let's ask wjp

[lazar0]

The Speech Pack, I assume you know that, is a compendium of voice files, E44.FLX, E80.FLX... until E666.FLX (and a modification in .exe file, I assume).

In this files there is:

0000 object -> Lines of text separated by '00' byte, which are EXACTLY the same tan in usecode. I assume that the .exe compares this lines with the ones in usecode.flx AND then makes appear the voice instead text.
0001->nnnn object -> voices for each of the lines in 0000.

Having translated usecode, as the line does not corresponds to speech pack voice flx lines, appears the text line. If I mod the E44.FLX, E80.FLX, etc... adding the spanish lines, then appears the voices (ONLY the voices, no text).

I don't know how to make the first thing you've posted. It would be a good idea, but I don't know how to make it.

I've thought about the second thing, but I will need people (boys and girls) for the voices and they should be with quality, apart that I would need a tool to convert AMF format into "something" (WAV,MOD), and viceversa.

It seems a bit more difficult for me.

If Sound FX Option is deactivated in game, texts are viewed, but there are no more sounds, of course. Right now this is my choice for eventually see this texts if someone wants to ear english voices.

I think Pentagram permits see text with voices... I've not tried this, though.

[lazar0]

I've finally looked at dcmpsound2.cc that there is in Pentagram repository. I've created a simple code to convert U8 voices into .WAV format.

Is there any form to invert the process? Convert from .WAV to U8 voice? I've tryied to use directly sonarc 2.1 tool that there is in the web, but I have not any success in repacking the .WAV to make it useful for U8.

Any ideas?

[Colourless]

It might be possible to hack the v2.12 u8.exe to display text and play voice at the same time. Probably wouldn't work well though and would act a bit weird.

The sonarc tool wouldn't be able to be used *as is* to compress sound. U8 does a few things a little differently to the how the tool works. In theory, it should be possible to get it to work with a front end program that fixes the tools input and output to be as u8 expects.

[lazar0]

Hi Colourless, thanks for your answer.

The first, I've tried to look into u8.exe... and well, to many assembler for my head. I thought that maybe the:

if (text_of_voice == text_of_dialogue) then
play (dialogue_sound);
else
print (dialogue_text);
end if

Could be easily changed for:

play (dialogue_sound);
print (dialogue_text);

but I don't want to make a mess in u8.exe, and I have not the knowledge for do it either. Also, we don't know how will respond in-game this thing. I suppose that doing this in Pentagram is faaaar easy than modding u8.exe.

About the second, I've thought about it also, try to find sonarc.lib (for inet there is Star Trek old videogame which has it) which I think it has de procedures to compress and decompress sounds from some (as you say) front end coded in c. This would be a trial and error procedure, but well, I think it could be done.

Right now, I'm very proud to having done the Spanish translation of the game for the people enjoy from the beginning to the end this unfinished game in his Spanish version. Now I'm concentrating to review my Spanish translation of the Fan Patch for U9.

If in the future there is some possibility to do the voices for U8, I will try to create something like an Speech Pack for Spanish translation.

[Colourless]

Yeah doing it in Pentagram would be *a lot* easier.