Adding a New Line of Dialogue

Add a line to the plist using NPCEditor

The first step to make Brad say something new is adding the line to the plist.

1. Launch NPCEditor using the VHTK Launcher
2. On the right side, hit "Add". A new blank line will be created in the plist, generally at the bottom of the plist.
3. Type the dialog you want Brad to say in to the text box. You can also paste in text, but make sure it doesn't contain any special punctuation marks, such as those found in MS Word or Excel.
4. Fill in the External ID line at the top. This should be the file name of the audio file for the line without the extension (test_line, not test_line.wav), if using prerecorded speech, or a name that will help keep things organized if using TTS.
5. Fill in the other information.
6. : - Ensure the Domain is 'brad smith' or whatever domain you want the line to appear in.
7. : - 'Type' can be blank or one of the control types.
8. : - 'Speaker' should be "brad" or your character and must be set to something for playback.
9. : - 'Addressee' should be "user"
10. : - 'Topic' is not required, but useful for organization.
11. : - 'Sound' is used to sort prerecorded or text to speech lines, set accordingly.
12. If you are using TTS, Brad will speak the line when you double click it in NCPEditor, provided the rest of the Toolkit is running.

Set the sound path and voice in SmartBody

By default, the Smart Body sequence files for the VH Toolkit include references to two voices, a prerecorded voice and a Text to Speech voice.

From \trunk\data\sbm-toolkit\scripts\init-unity-basiclevel-brad.seq

Line 8

An audio path is set in Smart Body:

Line 35

The voices are set:

Brad will search for a prerecorded sound file in the path defined by the path audio command above, then roll over to the TTS voice using the TTS relay. The sound file is sought by name, based on the External ID specified for the line in the plist.

Add a sound file

Sound files are stored in /data/sounds by default. Brad will look there first for a file to playback before using Text to Speech. Sound files used in the VHTK are 44.1khz, 16bit, mono PCM WAV files. Other sample rates and bit depths will work, as well as other formats, but not consistently across the renderers shipped with the Toolkit.

To have Brad speak your recorded line, simply add a file of the type described to the sound path with a file name that matches the External ID field you specified in the plist. For example, to have Brad speak a line with the External ID "test_utterance", there should be a file test_utterance.wav in /data/sounds.

Add basic lip synching

To get simple lip synching (just opening and closing the mouth):

• Update 00_bradmasterlines.txt in /data/sounds
• Run 00_splitmasterlines.bat in the same directory
• Run 00_runvisemeschedulersox.bat in the same directory