A.I. in Computer Games Part 1

Video Games | Overgrowth | Alpha 123: Vision & Hearing Changes HD

Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 | Nintendo Wii | PC Games

Interesting video from builder editor for game Overgrowth by Wolfire Games. It shows some AI logic in their engine, interactivity and visualisation of ray casting and sound in the software is very nice for debugging. In this series, we will introduce some main concepts and A.I. approaches of in different game engines.

Overgrowth Video Game, Alpha 123: Vision & Hearing Changes HD | Video Clip | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

It Talks! Speech Synthesis for Games.

You would be surprised how much sound affects the perception of  a multimedia.  You can have quite minimalistic graphics, but   with good sound effects, music and voice acting it is hardy noticable. On the other hand, poor sound fx and voice dubbing can ruin the atmosfere of a movie or game.
We will cover the theme of sound processing in later articles, today we will focus on speech synthesis sofware.

Ok. So you need to have voices in your game.
There are several solutions for this problem:

A. Pay real actors (recommended)
B. Outsource recording studio (usually plus A)
C. Use voice synthesis, for a placeholder in game prototype

Ah, and there is some nebulous option to record voiceovers yourself... (not recommended)

There was certain technology leap in voice synthesis in the last 10 years. You can have completely synthesized voice, or sampled voice solution.

SOFTWARE TIPS:

Ivona Text to Speech  Probably the best sound in speech synthesis, M/F English, German, Spanish and Polish voices. Professional, however the most expensive solution. The online recording or the software license could cost you approx. $1k for a project (or $10 - $20 for couple of sentences) ...

Cepstral There are very good sampled voices in their list, somewhat more computer sounding but usable as placeholders or special characters voices. Price is from $7-30 per voice, demo is free.

Voiceforge.com is a Cepstral Project, with better presentation of the same technology.

AT&T Labs Natural Voices® Classic synthesized voices. Many "Voice Synthesis Companies" are just reselling their voices, with a hefty bonus.  Distribution is doing  Wizzardsoftware  , we are supposing the price   $300 - $1,500 , depending on number of Sound Fonts used.

There are many TTS (Text to Speech) Readers, but most are based on (or support) AT&T and Cepstral Voices (Texttospeech , Oddcast , Coolspeech etc.) There are also SDKs available for using TTS Readers directly in your software (for a indie developer, the main issue is license cost).


WARNING Online demos are usually legally restricted, and you will need to buy a license to use the voice (or recording) in your game or movie... 
When on doubt, write the developer and let them specify their license offers. Keep the communication and contracts for (possible) later trial...


TO BE UPDATED.






 

Task Force 341 Review!

Model Pack 53 aka Task Force 341 is newly available in TGC shop. It brings a lot to the lot!
TF341 offers 39 new character models and 10 new weapons. Well, it would be worth the price for those weapons alone!

The characters are fully scripted, and are pretty good just out of the box. The modelling and texturing is brilliant. Only critique would be insuficient idle animations, however you may not notice it at all in the heat of the battle. Actually with default scripts there is not much idlesness even in test game! Also, no character blinks (next update?), but maybe its deliberate because they are so hardboiled...

Weapons mods offer alt fires (check video). Modeling and texturing are professional, animations (putting silencer on the gun, melee attack) are great (walking with knife anim would require more scripting though). There seems to be some problem building the game in beta7 in certain entity constellation, but i hope its more likely engine problem (there were "forgotten" assets in previous beta builds before).

If you are looking for a character pack to use in your prototype game, look no further. Well, it would be great even for the final game actually!

Task Force 341 were developed for 2 years and shows huge amount of effort and talent put into one pack. Go buy it!

Modelling: 4.5 stars
Texturing: 4.5 stars
Animations: 4.5 stars
Value/Price: 5 stars
Overal rating: Pure awesomeness!

TIP: When placing character entities, drop them a little higher above ground level (in corridor segments), or else the entity will stuck in given segment.

Installationl: As standalone pack or for FPSC9/10.
Testing in FPSC 1.18beta7.
(continued?)

How to record gameplay with the best result?

• Goal: Capture game Video PLUS Sound, as fluently as possible.

So. You just downloaded ton of screen capturing tools, convinced that recording your FPSC game is the simplest thing in the world.
Wrong!
Most likely, you will spend a night installing crappy programs, which are demos anyway. Or in best case half baked not working betas.

How to copy directory structure without files?

First Aid for FPSCreator users:

How to copy directory structure without files?
You may know you can use xcopy command for this. Damn, you even read some help how to use it. WHY O WHY is it not working?

The problem is with long directory names containing special characters. Please don't ask why  is Microsoft putting crucial system files into such.
So, after one hour of typing crap into command line, you found this page.

The Solution: 

1.  Make directory, where you will put your "stuff". Maybe g:\fpsupdate.
2.  Using Total Commander, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\The Game Creators\  (supposing its your instalation path)
3.  type cmd into Total Commander command line
4. type xcopy *.* g:\fpsupdate   /t /e  

The command will copy directory structure WITHOUT files. You may then copy your files to proper folders for easy upgrading fpsc versions. All about XCOPY command.

Note: You don't need Total Commander for this. If you are retro Tron freak, you may spend afternoon navigating your folders with system commands. Enjoy!  

Viral Outbreak Review

Viral Outbreak (model pack 52) delivers several fully scripted and animated horror characters. New shader feature, "planar projected shadows" gives another bit of realism to fpsc characters. The high point of this pack are shaders, although modeling, animating and texturing are fantastic.
The best character regards overall performance is Grendel, by my opinion. The other characters are good too, but I think that are not very generic by nature (which may be problem if you want to customize the content of your game at max level, and still using stock entities).
The demo of advanced shader techniques in darkbasic-fpsc, Medusa character, is also very intense, and not before seen in any fpsc related product (although its name could be rather Mr. Hankey, buy the pack to see what I mean).

Considering price of Viral Outbreak pack, it would be very good even if there was only one character in it.
Conclusion: Must to have.

Overall Rating: Super Cool

Zombie Apocalypse Review

Zombie Apocalypse (model pack 39) includes 21 zombie characters. The modeling, texturing and animation is excellent and the characters are really creepy.
Scripting is very good and usable just out of the box. However, when there are many characters in one level there seems to be some confusion in entity behaviour (but, they are fraggin zombies anyway, so its not much a problem).
Entities are ok to place even in segments with no problem. They are following you even up the stars by default.
The characters are complete with nice default sounds for your game prototyping.

Overall rating: Best zombie pack for fpsc ever!