Re-Used Graphics and Vocal Synthetisers.

[MacDeath]

Will mast... wanking... er... doing serious researches  on the web, I found out a strange thing...





Ok look closely at this mountain...
Yes, they reused it.

Well it seems slightly redone and of course use another palette, yet the design is clearly the same (Youtube pictures, not best quality nor that accuratez pixels)


So, do some of you have other examples of such thing in games ?

[AMSDOS]

Very similar, the Mountain in Operation Thunderbolt seems to have a more tip at the Summit of the Hill, where the Mountain in Burnin' Rubber has a more gradual rise to towards the Summit. Though the detail on the face on the side of both hills is a weird coincidence! 

The most obvious example I can see with Re-Used Graphics is in Roland in Time and Roland in Space.

Roland is the same in both games, though in Roland in Space there's extra definitions of Roland not shown in Roland in Time. Some of Rolands Friends such as the Bird, Helicopter & the same ol bombs are featured in both games.

Obviously though Roland doesn't always look the same as he differs in the other Roland games, though it just appears that Roland in Space and Roland in Time share the same production crew, if not simular.

[Devilmarkus]

But Roland in Space has cool hardware speech

[AMSDOS]

But Roland in Space has cool hardware speech

You mean the Firmware Hardware Scrolling thing moving the screen around? Haven't heard any Digitized sound if that's what you mean.

[Devilmarkus]

Well, connect an Amstrad SSA-1 speech synth.- module to your CPC and you will hear...
Or use JavaCPC -> Misc Settings -> Enable speechsynthesis -> Select Amstrad SSA-1 emulation.
Or check my video:

[AMSDOS]

Well, connect an Amstrad SSA-1 speech synth.- module to your CPC and you will hear...
Or use JavaCPC -> Misc Settings -> Enable speechsynthesis -> Select Amstrad SSA-1 emulation.

Bizarre!

Oh and it appears some of those cloud like platforms from that Roland in Space Preview were also in Roland in Time! 

[McKlain]

Well, connect an Amstrad SSA-1 speech synth.- module to your CPC and you will hear...
Or use JavaCPC -> Misc Settings -> Enable speechsynthesis -> Select Amstrad SSA-1 emulation.

I remember that 3D Stunt Rider used the speech synthesizer to say "Prepare to jump" 

[Devilmarkus]

I remember that 3D Stunt Rider used the speech synthesizer to say "Prepare to jump" 

True.
Together with Kukulcan I made a list for all speech compatible games we found:
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=4725

(Scroll down to "jeux compatible")

Well, the dk'tronics speech synthesizer list is a bit smaller:
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=4724

Interesting for Roland In Space is:
Amsoft released this piece of crap in 1984!!!
The SSA-1 was released in 1985!!!

[McKlain]

The beta testing took longer than expected 

[AMSDOS]

Interesting for Roland In Space is:
Amsoft released this piece of crap in 1984!!!
The SSA-1 was released in 1985!!!

Ok I acknowledge that Roland In Space isn't state of the art, but a piece of crap is something I'd use to describe "Count Duckula 2" or "Howard the Duck". How can Roland in Space fit in the same category?    That's unfair! 

[MacDeath]

How fun this topic sliped into Synthespeech devices...

perhaps opening or re-opening a topic on those could be more usefull then.


The bad thçing with those specch synthetizers... there are not compatibles...

BTW I always wondered the possible application in Chiptune.

Can you get the stuff singing ?
Is it heavy on CPU and/or RAM to get them to be used ?

Kraftwerk seem to use those.

[McKlain]

The speech synthesis concept is quite old in fact:

From memory I recall that when you used the SSA-1 the computer stopped completely. I always wondered what was inside that piece of plastic (besides the stereo amplifier). I know that speech synthesis could be done via software in the amstrad, as you can hear in the spanish text-adventure game "el enigma de aceps". http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=814

Jump to 0:58 to hear it (the synthesis is not very good if you can understand spanish).

BTW, Kraftwerk always used a mix of vocoders, voice modulators and speech synthesizers. 

And speaking of computers singing:

Can get more cooler than this 

I just remembered a demo for Commodore plus/4 that had a synthesized voice singing the main tune of the demo, but I can't find the video on youtube 

[MacDeath]

The NEC PC6601 (don't remember which model) was supplied with inbuilt "vocosynth".

Got to remember that those NEC machines were actually sporting the same tecnical specs as Speccy (PC-6001) or CPC (depending on the model...NEC PC-6601 and PC-6001 MK2).

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=1798.0

Just the more advanced versions (latter series... PC-6001 MK2 SR and PC-6601 SR) got their Video resolution "overclocked" (feature we miss cruelly on PLUS imo...)

Also bigger RAM because of the various Japanese characters... which needed better resolutions actually, hence the "overclocked" video on latter models.

And also the Palette is limited compaired to CPC.
Just imagine a CPC with ZX Speccy's palette (sort of) and in-built SSA-1.

[arnoldemu]

From memory I recall that when you used the SSA-1 the computer stopped completely.

yes the code wrote the allophone and waited for the sound to finish, really you only need to check it 1 time a frame.. so interrupt speech is possible

[Axelay]

yes the code wrote the allophone and waited for the sound to finish, really you only need to check it 1 time a frame.. so interrupt speech is possible

This sounds ... interesting.  From a quick scan of the manual of the SSA-1 on the wiki, it seems to suggest you could add support for in-game speech through the SSA that doesnt cause the game to halt with only a few dozen bytes of code and data and less than a scan line per frame of CPU time.  Would that be correct, could it be that simple?

[arnoldemu]

This sounds ... interesting.  From a quick scan of the manual of the SSA-1 on the wiki, it seems to suggest you could add support for in-game speech through the SSA that doesnt cause the game to halt with only a few dozen bytes of code and data and less than a scan line per frame of CPU time.  Would that be correct, could it be that simple?

yes, that simple.
You write 1 allophone code to the ssa-1. then in the vsync or another int, you can poll it to see if it finished speaking. If it did, send the next.
So interrupt driven speech is easy!

If anyone plans to write a program to use speech this way, please support both ssa-1 and dk'tronics. The code to support both is very similar.

[McKlain]

Now we just need to make them sing XD

[sigh]

I know that speech synthesis could be done via software in the amstrad, as you can hear in the spanish text-adventure game "el enigma de aceps". http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=814

Jump to 0:58 to hear it (the synthesis is not very good if you can understand spanish).

I had no idea that you could do speech via software. It sounds pretty distorted, but I would like to know if it's possible to refine the sound and also, how memory intensive is this?

[Axelay]

yes, that simple.
You write 1 allophone code to the ssa-1. then in the vsync or another int, you can poll it to see if it finished speaking. If it did, send the next.
So interrupt driven speech is easy!

If anyone plans to write a program to use speech this way, please support both ssa-1 and dk'tronics. The code to support both is very similar.

Nice.  Or possibly another stupid idea, but if the over head is so low, gotta be worth a look.  I did see the DK seems near identical barring the port, so I had thought that would be the thing to do, bound to be few enough people with the things as it is without restricting it to one model!


I dont have one my self, so what emulators support these speech synths?  JavaCPC, any others?

Now we just need to make them sing XD

Well, I'd settle for the occasional "Destroy the core!" 

[MacDeath]

Not sure any emulator support those.

Weren't one of those supposed to speack "english" and the other one to speack "french" ?
The technimusique ? (even less supported I guess)

I think there were more than only 2 models available...I may be wrong.

Anyway, this is a more interesting piece of crap than what was actually done for it at the time.
What would be needed to re-do some card that would emulate/re-do those cards ?
a modern redo which would be able to switch between both cards could be nice.


Also check if this is possible to get them talking betterly = more understandable and less robot voice...
The timing of sounds must be important, also the "melody" (accentuation, long or short sounds...) but this then must be more CPU intensive or even RAM intensive.

[McKlain]

Java CPC supports the SSA-1.

I just remembered about the one from MHT Ingenieros, the spanish hardware company:

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/MHT_Speech_Synthesizer

This one speaks in spanish 

[AMSDOS]

I always wondered what they did to get those aliens to talk like that in some of those 60s Dr. Whos!  60s Cybermen are particularly interesting! 

[McKlain]

I always wondered what they did to get those aliens to talk like that in some of those 60s Dr. Whos!  60s Cybermen are particularly interesting! 

** The BBC did the first Cyberman voices by actually building a mockup of the human vocal system, running a stream of air through it, and adjusting it to produce the sounds that made up the speech for the Cybermen. Later versions simply had an actor's voice run through a ring modulator with a different setting to what was used for the Daleks.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SyntheticVoiceActor?action=source

[MacDeath]

This would be great...

[MaV]

This would be great...

I was wondering myself if something similar was possible.

Have you heard the song to Portal 2?