Lemma Soft Forums

Hi, I'm a total newbie, but I've got a serious question.
Is there any possibility a speech software would cooperate with renpy?

I'm creating a game without sprites, but with a lot of illustrations, something like "Painted Walls". I would like a reader to focus on pictures, but text itself is too dominant for that task. I wonder whether I have to record a speech and then use it in renpy as a voice acting or let it be read by software itself (inside renpy), which I think would be much easier, espacially with a lot of text.

I hope you help me and thanks in advance

This is probably what you're looking for: http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/doc/ref ... ce_Support
It is indeed possible to add voice acting.
(Also, the wiki is a pretty good source of info, so you might want to bookmark it to check later if something else comes up. That being said, we're still all here for you. )
Ah, that's right... make sure that you put the sound file in the "Game" folder of your game too.

_________________

Not really checking the forums any more due to time constraints, so if you want to contact me, PM. I'll get a notification and log in.
Also, I've been hit and run posting, which means I don't see many replies. If you want to respond to something I've said, also feel free to PM me.

I take it what you want is to feed each line of written "speech" directly into a voice synthesizer to get the audio in real-time, to avoid having to record each and every single line?

I believe this is not possible, as you would have to change the Ren'Py module itself to change the processing of VN text lines.

However, just voice acting is no problem, just as panda here wrote. But you would indeed need a separate audio file for every single line.

Thanks for help

Changing Ren'Py module means instigating revolution.
Though it doesn't help me that much, I'm more confident about things. But it means there's a lot of work waiting for me, hope I manage with this Recording a speech for every single line... Ok, this is a chalange!

I have another question, but it still deals with voice acting. I know deaf people also read VN, so it would be kind of offensive for them if I cut away visible text. I wanna give a choice whether you can read text, hear it or have both of them in the same time. Is it possilble to do this and put that choice in the "preferences" menu?

When you build the game, Python files with the built-in Ren'Py functions are made in the folder "commons". There you MIGHT find the function that displays the text, which you can then modify.

Alternatively, you could tamper with the text window.

It wouldn't require changing Ren'Py proper. You can override the say() function to have it call the speech synthesizer (using subprocess or whatever) before calling the original function. The default implementation is in renpy/exports.py, if you want to refer to it - you'd then want to wrap it.

Actually, subclassing ADVCharacter and overriding the do_add function might be the best way to do this. (That's defined in renpy/character.py, but can be subclassed in script code.)

It's a PITA, and you'd need platform-specific code all over the place. But it can be done.

_________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming" - Theodore Roosevelt

Thank you for your answer, PyTom

I'm searching through websites right now, looking for VN I can refer to. It's good these scripts (exports, character) are editable in jEdit and similar programs, so it still feels like doing almost everything inside Ren'Py. After seeing your comment I'm much more optimistic! Of course, using a speech software means I have to include this software with my Ren'Py game and it's making things quite difficult (a licence and stuff). I'm going to work on this and report here if I succeed.