Voice in SL?
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Bloop Cork
This space for sale.
Join date: 27 Apr 2006
Posts: 277
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05-18-2006 16:49
From: Argent Stonecutter Ergh.
And you want to use *SL* for this?
There's enough problems with lag making *text* come up out of order. Getting voice to work for more than a few agents per sim seems optimistic to say the least! Yes, it is optimistic and more than likely will not be practical in SL as it currently stands. However, if we were to experiment with this idea, it would be a 4-sim conference island so that it would only be our activity (and clients) that tied up the server's resources. Of course, this type of proposition would be more practical if LL was to license their SL engine so that companies like mine could run it on a portion of our server farm instead.
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grumble Loudon
A Little bit a lion
Join date: 30 Nov 2005
Posts: 612
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05-18-2006 16:54
From: Michi Lumin The only reason anyone wants voice chat is to find out whether the person they're talking to has breasts or a penis. 1. Voice changers can make you one or the other. 2. Voice Stress anaylizers can tell if you think you are lying. 3. Voice changers can change the stress levels. And then there is Seven hakings and his voice machine.
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Pelanor Eldrich
Let's make a deal...
Join date: 8 Feb 2006
Posts: 267
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So what do you do?....
05-19-2006 10:04
Say I'm RL female with a male avatar, or just don't want to be voice griefed by the idiots.
1)Chat only, "I don't have a mic", you can always listen in and type chat. 2)Voice transcription, talk and have the chat transcript voice->chat 3)Synthesize your voice, be Darth Vader for all I care, who'll know you're female? Now this could be tough if you're first language isn't English, you can always ask for 2 way chat, or even transcript other's voice->chat onto a window, then even pipe the chat through a translator. You could even have text/voice translation services as a business.
4)You may laugh, but I've worked with both the blind and the illiterate, and while text->voice is an option, they'd prefer real-time voice.
This is an *option*, a feature, not a requirement. I don't think it will "take away" from the experience, MMORPGs notwithstanding. This is not a MMORPG or a game. This is the Metaverse, and Hiro talks to Raven and Juanita and Da5id using voice (and facial gestures).
For non-alphabet languages like Chinese, where it can be tough to chat quickly via keyboard, I think voice is a natural fit. For my Cree friends, who come from an oral tradition, voice/telephone is *the key*, even among those who read well and who have English as a mother tongue. I've emailed several, and typcially get 3 line email responses. When I call, I get 2 hour phone calls. There's a cultural preference there.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper by the day. LL already uses bandwidth, to quote Philip, "quite cavalierly" as a result.
BTW for RL business, I'd like the naming option of using my real name for my avatar.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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05-19-2006 11:40
From: Pelanor Eldrich This is the Metaverse, and Hiro talks to Raven and Juanita and Da5id using voice (and facial gestures). Hiro also has an immersive view of the metaverse, and doesn't have to bring up Poser to animate his swordfighting gestures, and can walk around in the metaverse while riding a motorcycle up the West Coast, and practice his RL bike skills in a Metaverse simulation. The Metaverse also has real-time translation of both modern spoken language and Babylonian Cuineform. So you really can't say anything about the user interface that they're using. For all you know they're using ASL in their decks and it's being converted into colloquial English in real-time, with voice sampling to make it sound like them. Certainly their facial expressions and body movements are regenerated that way. The Metaverse is fiction, and SL isn't the Metaverse. It's not just that it's such a stunted parody of the Metaverse, it's far less like the Metaverse than it is like many other virtual realities. If anything it's turned out more like a clone of Vinge's "Other Plane" in True Names, the first real "cyberspace" story, and its user interface was light-years away from "voice".
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Spirou Dougall
Registered User
Join date: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 6
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05-19-2006 12:35
From: BJSmooth White Voice is the only way to go! Message me in game for my Skype name if you wanna discuss this any further. Typing is for the birds!~  lol Oh, Lord, yes,... I been on Skype with SL ever since I was introduced to it. Unfortunately, typists are not aware when I'm on Skype, so they sometimes react to my slow typing replies as snubs. I really should work on finishing that floating Skype indicator I been futzing with,...
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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05-19-2006 14:44
From: Spirou Dougall Unfortunately, typists are not aware when I'm on Skype, so they sometimes react to my slow typing replies as snubs. Hmmm? You mean you're talking on Skype and not replying to them fast enough? That's not a problem unique to Skype, you can end up in the same situation with IMs. Or just human slowness, interruptions, qwertyitis, and calls of nature.
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Pelanor Eldrich
Let's make a deal...
Join date: 8 Feb 2006
Posts: 267
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05-19-2006 15:23
From: Argent Stonecutter Hiro also has an immersive view of the metaverse, and doesn't have to bring up Poser to animate his swordfighting gestures, and can walk around in the metaverse while riding a motorcycle up the West Coast, and practice his RL bike skills in a Metaverse simulation.
The Metaverse also has real-time translation of both modern spoken language and Babylonian Cuineform. So you really can't say anything about the user interface that they're using. For all you know they're using ASL in their decks and it's being converted into colloquial English in real-time, with voice sampling to make it sound like them. Certainly their facial expressions and body movements are regenerated that way.
The Metaverse is fiction, and SL isn't the Metaverse.
It's not just that it's such a stunted parody of the Metaverse, it's far less like the Metaverse than it is like many other virtual realities. If anything it's turned out more like a clone of Vinge's "Other Plane" in True Names, the first real "cyberspace" story, and its user interface was light-years away from "voice". This is all true. But SL, as a founding LL goal, is to mimic, model and as much as possible *become* the Metaverse. Voice and webcams move it in that direction. Anyway it's a moot point, because voice is going to happen per Phillip. So the best thing to do is to find ways to limit and mitigate the pain you and other chat-only folks are predicting.
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Gwyneth Llewelyn
Winking Loudmouth
Join date: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1,336
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05-19-2006 16:32
From: Pelanor Eldrich [...]Anyway it's a moot point, because voice is going to happen per Phillip. So the best thing to do is to find ways to limit and mitigate the pain you and other chat-only folks are predicting. Oh yes, we'll all move to our own sims and have fun there  Quite frankly, I think that the problem here is the way people use SL as a tool. If I want a good, free, videoconferencing system, I can set it up pretty easily with a set of external tools, and use SL at the same time. Better than that, if I don't like Skype/Ventrilo/TeamSpeak, I can use voice chat through one of any other of dozens of different systems, each one with the unique set of tools that better suit my own purposes. If people aren't able to "integrate" their tools into SL, just wait for the release of 1.10.0 with the new llHTTPRequest() function — it will be quite easy to send "signaling" information to external systems, in order to give clues to your audience that you're on Skype/Ventrilo/TeamSpeak, or whatever else you prefer (although I agree this might not be so easy right now — but we have only a week or so to wait!). Besides my earlier points — the notion that voice conveys more information faster is just half the story, based on the fact that you type three times as fast than you speak; I've noticed that no-one cared to comment on my post that you can read 10-20 times as fast than listening (so overall a text-chat communication is assynchonous, allowing slow "upstreaming" but way faster "downstreaming" of information). "Forcing" everybody to use the same voice chat tool (which highly likely is going to be ViVox), just because it's "better integrated" in SL, is also an unwise move. Many have posted here that they expect to be able to do their business communications through SL. Have you considered that many of the people won't want to log in to SL just to communicate to you? Instead, they would rather prefer simply to join the communication through their Skype connection — or even by phone! You can do all of that outside of SL right now. All you need is a way to do some clever "signaling", which you will be able to do starting next week. It seems that with the eagerness to get voice-inside-SL people are forgetting that this is not what one really wants. One wants ubiquous voice communications, and somehow, we are presented with the notion that the way to do it is by integrating some third-party voice communication facility inside the SL client. But that's a fallacy; no matter how good SL's solution is coming out, I dare them to beat a combination of Skype/Ventrilo/TeamSpeak/[insert favourite voice chat software here], VoIP with a dial tone, and regular phone communications. You have them all in real life, as icons on your desktop, or as a mobile phone inside your purse/pocket. What I would like to see is a better integration of SL with all those tools. I want to listen to my mobile phone ringing and see the number being displayed on a HUD attachment (while the phone is communicating over Bluetooth with my laptop); and then be able to click on that HUD and pick up the call. Or I want another HUD attachment, one that ties into some external calendaring/contact system, where I can browse through names, and, from inside SL, intiate a phone call — which might get routed through Skype or something else instead. Also, LL showed off "Skype broadcasting" — ie. people being able to join into a multi-user voice chat conference, and one of them is broadcasting it into a Shoutcast/Icecast server. That kind of technology is available right now (and I haven't found a reference at ViVox's site for doing the same). People have mentioned the need to do conferences using SL — while point-to-point chat will soon run out of bandwidth for a few dozen participants, this approach works way better. But integrating a "closed" voice chat protocol inside SL will still mean you'll have to use external tools for doing that! I'm not saying that Skype/Ventrilo/TeamSpeak/[insert favourite voice chat system] is the best approach. No, I expect that the one that comes up next month (whatever that might be) will be better, more feature-rich, and integrated with lots of new tools to manipulate voice communications among different setups. Instead of being able to switch to that "next best cool tool", what you're going to have is a closed approach — "here is voice-in-SL, take it or leave it". How narrow-minded is that path! So SL should become the interface for voice communications — not the provider of voice communications! And we can have it now. Or rather: we can have it next week. In my mind, even IMs (and public text chat) should not be tied to the SL client, for exactly the same reason. I guess someone at Linden Lab finally understood that and gave developers the go-ahead to start porting the whole system to a Jabber-based one. I don't want my business associates to be "forced" to log in to SL just to send me an IM; I wish them to be able to use Google Talk or iChat or anything else which is Jabber-based and talk to me while I'm in-world, and naturally enough, allow me to do the reverse. I want to get Google to inform me in-world that I've received an email, or even receive stock quotes through Jabber-based IMs. All this will be possible with the move towards a model where IMs are not "tied" into the platform. Voice chat sadly seems to be taking the opposite approach! And why not tie the two together? Use Jabber to signal voice communications! I mean, both Google and Apple use exactly that approach! Surely they are doing things the right way? The model I'm suggesting is one that is actually much more far-fetching, more expandable, way more flexible, and, naturally, more interesting — to both gamers who wish to talk while shooting others at Jessie, to people doing business in SL needing good (and complex) voice communications, as well as for all the people really just wishing to know their partner's gender. The "one-size-fits-all" solution is never the best. The SL client is growing all the time to add new features that sadly are not related to SL any more. Instead, the focus should be on breaking up SL into modular bits, allowing the client to integrate with all the nifty tools you already have on your desktop. Huge monolithic applications are really out of date these days; not even Microsoft does them any more. In my mind, you wouldn't even need to implement audio streaming in SL — only a way for your parcel to "signal" your favourite streaming client with a new URL. Video is slightly different just because it needs access to a prim's geometry and has to be integrated into the rendering engine. So, yes, I'm all for having better APIs inside SL that would allow you to use your favourite voice chat system (even a mobile phone bluetooth'ed to your computer!) to communicate with your fellow residents. The (slight) effort to achieve that is way less (in terms of developer hours) than to integrate some "new voice chat technology" into SL and become hostage of that single choice forever. This will also be the only way to protect the voice-impaired — they won't get any pressure to use any of the many available voice chat systems in the future, since right now, the ones that really wish to talk through the Internet, are already doing it — and very happy with the results, just eagerly awaiting next week to deploy their HUD attachments integrated into the tools of their choice...
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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05-19-2006 20:17
I prefer text. It's easier to understand then listening to someone with a foreign accent (i'm not too good with that). Even IRL i have trouble understanding some people. Either they talk too fast and i didn't catch it, or they just plain don't talk clear enough. Also having mics would introduce the bad quality of some peoples microphones. [Some Guy rezzes from the telehub and comes up "*BUZZING* Hai iy need'a sohm lynden foor ah affatah! *SCREECHING* OW! Sorry bout dat!".
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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05-21-2006 14:06
From: Pelanor Eldrich This is all true. But SL, as a founding LL goal, is to mimic, model and as much as possible *become* the Metaverse. Voice and webcams move it in that direction. I don't believe that literal a design goal exists, and not just because that's a stupid goal. Even becoming some kind of "best of" all the various Science Fiction virtual realities would be awfully blinkered, but at least it wouldn't imply a kind of "tunnel vision" that exluded everything from Vinge's "Other Plane" through Egan's various VRs. And, on top of that, SL has moved away from the "Metaverse" model in all kinds of ways. From: someone Anyway it's a moot point, because voice is going to happen per Phillip. So the best thing to do is to find ways to limit and mitigate the pain you and other chat-only folks are predicting. Havok-2-3-4 and Speedtree are "going to happen" too, as well as things like HTML-on-a-prim that are totally bonkers. Oh, and llTeleportAgent() was going to be in 1.8. I don't give much credit to LL's announced plans any more.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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05-21-2006 14:21
From: Gwyneth Llewelyn If people aren't able to "integrate" their tools into SL, just wait for the release of 1.10.0 with the new llHTTPRequest() function [...] Many have posted here that they expect to be able to do their business communications through SL. Have you considered that many of the people won't want to log in to SL just to communicate to you? Instead, they would rather prefer simply to join the communication through their Skype connection — or even by phone! You can do all of that outside of SL right now. All you need is a way to do some clever "signaling", which you will be able to do starting next week. [...] What I would like to see is a better integration of SL with all those tools. I want to listen to my mobile phone ringing and see the number being displayed on a HUD attachment (while the phone is communicating over Bluetooth with my laptop); and then be able to click on that HUD and pick up the call. [...] In my mind, even IMs (and public text chat) should not be tied to the SL client, for exactly the same reason. I guess someone at Linden Lab finally understood that and gave developers the go-ahead to start porting the whole system to a Jabber-based one. [...] In my mind, you wouldn't even need to implement audio streaming in SL — only a way for your parcel to "signal" your favourite streaming client with a new URL. Video is slightly different just because it needs access to a prim's geometry and has to be integrated into the rendering engine. Wow. BOOKMARK THIS POST. A couple more things I'd like to see, that would complete the process of turning SL into a local workspace: 1. the ability to request that an arbitrary external program replace a texture. This wouldn't involve anything under SL or script control, it would just happen in the client... the texture would be replaced by the application like the video texture is now. This is not hard to implement, and would let you use any application as a HUD or part of your workspace. Why limit yourself to HTML on a prim? And for X11 users (Mac OS X or Linux) the application could even be running remotely! [X] Program 1: [iTunes-Monitor] displayed on texture [image ] [X] Program 2: [XBiff ] displayed on texture [image] ...
2. The ability in LSL to request a local socket that you can read or write text over, so that you could have a HUD that connected to "port 1" and a local application that connected to localhost:3701 (or however the SL client mapped it), and read and write text over that connection. This would let you write local programs that mapped extended input devices (joysticks, trackballs, extra keyboards) into controllers for HUDs and other SL objects. [X] Socket 1: listen at [5661] [X] Restrict to localhost (default) ...
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Moriz Gupte
Registered User
Join date: 25 Apr 2005
Posts: 103
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05-21-2006 16:36
Responding to an old request for real time voice morphing software, just a result google spat out http://www.mymusictools.com/download/real-time-voice-morph/Of course, voice will be intergrated in SL  sooner or later... and there should be no fear of exposing biological sex etc... I think this is certainly a major factor among those who at all cost want to slow down voice SL integration. MG
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Bloop Cork
This space for sale.
Join date: 27 Apr 2006
Posts: 277
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05-22-2006 04:22
From: Gwyneth Llewelyn Quite frankly, I think that the problem here is the way people use SL as a tool. If I want a good, free, videoconferencing system, I can set it up pretty easily with a set of external tools, and use SL at the same time. I agree that with small-sized video conferences the SL platform does not necessarily offer advantages. But for large conferences, seminars, and conventions, there are some very significant business advantages to holding them in a VR setting without having users Skype or Teamspeak in. As I said several posts ago, I do not think the SL platform as it is currently coded is the proper environment in which to do this. Several of the feature requests/development initiatives that Gwyneth and Argent discuss are already available in Croquet. As an open source P2P application, Croquet has significant potential. It is not visually feature rich at this moment and is not necessarily an SL replacement, but give it several years for the development community to do their magic! I've typed enough in this thread. If any of us ever have the chance to meet in person at a conference or convention I'd be happy to talk about this more 
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MenuBar Memorial
WaterMoon Artist
Join date: 20 Nov 2005
Posts: 214
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So crazy it just might work...
05-22-2006 12:15
Some years ago I briefly checked out a 2-D Avitar-Oriented Chat Program - I think it was called The Manor.
One option they implemented was the use of Macintosh Voices, which allowed each person to pick the voice and pitch that they spoke with (Text-to-speech voices, a part of the Mac OS since 1984, FYI). Varying pitch with the many Text-To-Speech Voices the Mac used allowed for a wide variety of voices, so you could usually tell who was saying what quite easily without even looking.
I don't know if the Windoze world has anything like the Mac's Text-To-Speech that could be used in this way, but it sure would be a step in the right direction for speech in SL.
Plus it's an optional thing - can be turned on or off without degrading your enjoyment.
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Warda Kawabata
Amityville Horror
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 1,300
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05-22-2006 15:30
At least 5 years ago there was such a program, and MS's Agents can do the same thing too. But the voices don't sound particularly natural, and are all pretty much natural accent-free.
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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05-22-2006 20:24
Monotone Robot Voice: I am the Funk Bot. I am Programed to get Funky! *dance*
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Neptune Rebel
Evil Trivia Master
Join date: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 28
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05-23-2006 11:44
From my perspective, I don't think that there will be a mass exodus of SL people should voice capability be added. Maybe some places can be designated as "no voice" just like we designate some lands as "no teleport" for site-to-site.
Also, there is at least one decent benefit for voice chat. People who do radio shows can do them closer to "real time" instead of having to deal with the lag time of streaming through a Shoutcast or Teamspeak server. So while I may not use voice chat to 'talk' with other people, I would use it for events.
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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05-23-2006 19:39
There already is a voice client for SL. I don't know its website but its called Second Voice. Yea its not part of SL its another download. but i think its a better solution because then it wont alienate us non voicers. Text can still be mostly used.
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Neurosis Darkes
Registered User
Join date: 12 May 2006
Posts: 49
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05-24-2006 07:16
doesnt sound like a bad idea to me...
me and my RL friend just use skype.
Doesnt hurt speed at all.
Of course we are 64bitters w/ high end machines and 10mbit/sec Net connections... but still...
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Pelanor Eldrich
Let's make a deal...
Join date: 8 Feb 2006
Posts: 267
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05-24-2006 07:32
From: Gwyneth Llewelyn ...In my mind, you wouldn't even need to implement audio streaming in SL — only a way for your parcel to "signal" your favourite streaming client with a new URL. Video is slightly different just because it needs access to a prim's geometry and has to be integrated into the rendering engine. So, yes, I'm all for having better APIs inside SL that would allow you to use your favourite voice chat system (even a mobile phone bluetooth'ed to your computer!) to communicate with your fellow residents. The (slight) effort to achieve that is way less (in terms of developer hours) than to integrate some "new voice chat technology" into SL and become hostage of that single choice forever... .
I agree with you. I think LL will move towards open source, a published API and thus the ability to interface or plug in best of breed tools. It still doesn't hurt to have a bare bones minimum in client as the lowest common denominator for newbies. It gives everyone a lingua franca if they don't have your particular cool plug-in.
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Neptune Rebel
Evil Trivia Master
Join date: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 28
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05-24-2006 09:37
The problem with Second Voice is that it requires a seperate download for anyone who wants to use it and it has limited range. An integrated voice client would be much easier.
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Cameron Witte
Registered User
Join date: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 12
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05-24-2006 10:46
From: Yiffy Yaffle Also having mics would introduce the bad quality of some peoples microphones. [Some Guy rezzes from the telehub and comes up "*BUZZING* Hai iy need'a sohm lynden foor ah affatah! *SCREECHING* OW! Sorry bout dat!". This is part of the reason I quit another MMPOG I used to frequent. I couldn't stand the sound of people breathing into their mics all the time. Plus the point made earlier about being able to read 10-20 times as fast as you can listen is true. I can carry on may conversations with typing - with voice, just one, and in my last game it was most often to explain I wasn't playing a game with mostly men on it to find a boyfriend.
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Morrigan Gwynneville
Registered User
Join date: 3 May 2006
Posts: 29
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05-24-2006 11:30
From: Cameron Witte This is part of the reason I quit another MMPOG I used to frequent. I couldn't stand the sound of people breathing into their mics all the time.
Plus the point made earlier about being able to read 10-20 times as fast as you can listen is true. I can carry on may conversations with typing - with voice, just one, and in my last game it was most often to explain I wasn't playing a game with mostly men on it to find a boyfriend. Preach it Sister! I wholeheartedly agree.
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Morri 
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Striker Wolfe
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Join date: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 355
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05-24-2006 11:36
I was thinking something a bit different, instead of having your voice broadcasted to many avatars, I think we should bring back an old feature but change it with voice. There used to be an option when you right clicked on an avatar labeled "Talk To". Of course this wasn't with voice but it made a convo with you and another person as whispers. What do you all think about that but with voice, so its just a convo with only 1 other person and you need to ask permision via a yes/no box.
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Loydin Tripp
It may be virtual but...
Join date: 28 Apr 2006
Posts: 150
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05-24-2006 13:09
Maybe people here need to think outside the box here a bit.
This not a chat room, if you think Sl is nothing more than a chat room then you are missing the point. SL is a simulation of life, in life you speak and listen, you cannot due that because you are disabled or choose not to then, then cool.
But to say typing is good enough because this is chat room really needs to get with the program. Typing is slow and unnatural, if we could talk to each other it would be a lot faster.
Voice carries personality. If people choose not to use that is cool. If someone cannot use it because they are hearing impaired or have voice difficulties then typing is cool. But think about the visually impaired should they be blocked from participation?
Why block and advancement because you don't want it. How does it harm you? For every negative I can think of a positive. Remember we found out that the world was not flat and we survived that solution as well.
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Loydin Tripp -in Lingua Franca
"No man is an island", but I bought one anyway...
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