Balkans Airbase Renaming/Update Project
-
All,
In the main Balkans Theater thread, @justonce01 asked: “Has there been any consideration of adding the few missing airbase names via the cloned voices project?”Currently, by my count, there are 21 Balkans airbase names that were previously updated (18 NATO, 1 Croatian, 1 Slovenian, and 1 (Lecce) which does not appear in the list of Objectives (Airbases and Airstrips) per Mission Commander). There are enough “slots” to update a total of 51 airbases/airstrips by substitution. That means I can update 31 more airbase names (and also clone the 20 currently renamed airbases) to the Falcon ATC voices (12 Female and 13 Male).
Here are the totals that I see in MC:- Greece: 4 Airbases, 0 airstrips
Slovenia: 8 airbases, 2 airstrips (1 Airbase already renamed)
NATO: 49 airbases, 0 airstrips (18 already renamed)
Bosnia: 5 Airbases, 2 airstrips
Albania: 10 Airbases, 1 airstrip
Hungary: 6 Airbases, 0 airstrips
FRY: 11 Airbases, 3 airstrips
Croatia: 10 Airbases, 4 airstrips (1 Airbase already renamed)
Total: 103 Airbases, 12 airstrips
My initial plan to update airbase names would be:
- Clone all existing Airbase Names (18 NATO, 1 CRO, 1 SLO) = 20 slots
- Make a “generic” slot for each non-NATO team (e.g. “Slovenian Airport” etc.) which would play for every airbase/airstrip on that Team = 7 slots
- Add 23 more updated/re-voiced NATO Airbase names = 23 slots
- Add a “generic” slot for the left-out NATO Airbases (e.g., “NATO Airbase”) - see below
There are currently 29 NATO airbases that have not been renamed/re-voiced. Per the above plan, I can only include 23, so six will NOT be included. I am not very familiar with this theater. Therefore, I am looking for inputs from the community for which 6 NATO airbases should NOT be included in this project (i.e., those that see the least player usage in TEs, campaign etc.) and will get just the “generic” “NATO Airbase” voice update.
Left to my own devices, I will look at the map and find the 6 NATO airbases furthest from the front (the Adriatic area), and will not include those: Matarello, Peretola, Ampugnano, Grosetto, Pratica di Mare, and Latina.
When completed, and with permission of the Theater Developer (BMS or someone else?), I will provide the necessary updated sound files as an optional Theater modification.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) - Greece: 4 Airbases, 0 airstrips
-
All,
Made some progress today. V12F (“Glenda” the female ATC) is done. 153 cloned airbase name .wav files (3 per available slot) have been generated. 153 more to do (for V13M “Don”, the male ATC). Then tweak a few files, resample all the new .wavs to 8 KHz, mash them all back into the falcon.tlk file, test the mess then make some instructions for the readme and zip it up, and post!I’ll also include some fixes that I included in Mideast128’s sound updates (fixes frags for “platform”, “furball”, some other inconsistencies, and corrections for frags “2 6” through “6 9” for all pilots (those used the wrong voice).
Should be done within the next couple or three days.
Regards,
TC2 -
@tomcattwo what, you don’t like it when Sentry1 says “fyurrrball”?
-
@jstnj
Lol! Exactly. That’s been corrected.
R/,
TC2 -
I took my information on Airbases/Airstrips above from te_new.tac. I just was having a look at Campaign0.sav, and saw that a number of Slovenian airbases are part of NATO in the Campaign. These airbases are nearer to the “front” in campaign than are some of the more distant Italian airbases. Since I have a limited number of “slots” to play with, I need some fast feedback from folks who play this Theater .
Would you prefer to see more Slovenian (closer to the front) NATO airbases spoken properly or more Italian Airbases (those further from the campaign FLOT? Where are you normally flying from in campaign and TE? Based on how I approach this, would need to drop more Italian airbases and add more Slovenian airbases to the “supported” files. Looks like a +5 of Slovenian (Slovenj Gradec, Orehava Vas, Cerklje Ob Krki, Secovilje, and Varazdin) and a -5 to Italian (possibly Birgi, Punta Raisi, Urbe, Ciampino, and Fontannarossa)
What say you?
Regards,
TC2 -
It is in work. Maybe on the next major build
-
Update 11\07\21:
Some really good news on this project.- I finished the voice cloning for V13M “Don”, the male ATC, and then went on to clone a few more airbase names for a test
- I updated all the necessary files and added an additional 30 .wavs with properly identified frags (5 airbases above the 51 slots I had done) and then repacked the falcon.tlk file with the extra frags and all the other non-airbase fixes I had done previously for Mideast128 Theater (over 900 new .wav files)
- Initial testing of the new falcon.tlk file outside of the sim was good, and the cloned wav files sound very good.
- Then I took it up in Falcon BMS for some test flights from Amendola and from Grazzalise (which was one of the new “extra” airbases I added above the 50 slot limit) and both worked properly (ground ops, taxi, takeoff, approach and landing sequences). Both flights sounded fine for both the male and female ATCs.
What this test shows is that, since 4.35, we are no longer “slot-limited” for airbase frags! I can put in as many as I like and have proven it will work.
So, I ask for a little patience. I now plan to add cloned airbase voice frags for every airbase (but not airstrips) in the Balkans Theater. My clones will probably murder the pronunciation of many of the Slavic language airbase names, so apologies ahead of time. This will take me another 2-3 days to finish since I now have to clone and re-pack another 50 or so airbase names (6 .wavs per airbase ~300 more .wav files), then edit the .csv file, fragfile and TTSEval files and stations+ils.dat, make installation readme instructions and then zip it all up. If I don’t run into any snags, I hope to have it all finished by Friday this week.
Regards,
Tomcattwo -
My clones will probably murder the pronunciation of many of the Slavic language airbase names, so apologies ahead of time.
I’d love to help with that, but the question is how. I had installed everything according to your instructions from the original thread and got it to work, but it didn’t sound that great. Perhaps it’s because you trained your models more? Is there a way for me to get your files to experiment locally?
-
You are doing a great work here. Thanks a lot !
-
@tomcattwo said in Balkans Airbase Renaming/Update Project:
My clones will probably murder the pronunciation of many of the Slavic language airbase names, so apologies ahead of time.
Well, the NATO forces who are running ATC for their air force would also probably murder the pronunciation at times. Ultimate realism
I will try to make some time this week to get it up and running. There is some low hanging fruit for default KTO, including:
- QNH/QNE tower requests
- (May be a lot of work, and not sure if this is the realistic think for all airfields, but) making ATIS a “human” voice
- “Raygun” uses same voiceline for every pilot voice (possibly a bug but yea)
- Other stuff I’m forgetting
But like others said…thanks for this contribution
-
@tomcattwo said in Balkans Airbase Renaming/Update Project:
My clones will probably murder the pronunciation of many of the Slavic language airbase names, so apologies ahead of time.
No idea if needed or useful, but hit me up if you need help WRT Slavic pronunciations. Maybe the bot can be persuaded a little
-
@dumba ,
Thanks! Greatly appreciated. I also realize that our ATCs are American English speakers, so if they butcher it a bit, that is not necessarily unexpected.
R/,
TC2 -
@justonce01 ,
Glad to see you got things working! I appreciate the help on Slavic .wav files.
Regards,
TC2 -
@jstnj ,
ATIS conversion would take a LOT of effort, and, IMHO, necessitate changes within the code associated with evaluation, which we (non-devs) don’t have access to. Airbase renaming does work properly with ATIS as currently implemented, and is easy to do.There are some phrases in KTO that could use some improvement. You may want to try to coordinate with @Mav-jp PM me if you need help on that project or in getting RTVC/SV2TTS up and running with my single-voice-trained synthesizers and vocoders.
R/,
TC2 -
All,
Status update 11/12/2021:- The project is proceeding well. I have completed the additional cloned voices for all NATO/Italian airbases, all Hungarian, Greek, and Albanian airbases, and all generic airstrip phrases.
- @justonce01 has been able to get the voiceclone tool up and running using my Falcon voice synthesizers and vocoders and is producing amazingly good results on the remaining Slavic airbase names (Bosnian, Croatian, Slovenian and Yugoslav airbase names). He anticipates finishing up this work in the next day or two.
- I have updated all of the necessary data files to add the new voice frags and matching subtitles and ATIS. All together, we will have added or updated over 1200 .wav files to produce this modification.
- When I receive the final batch of Slavic airbase name .wav files from @justonce01 , I will pack all of the remaining .wav. files into a new falcon.tlk file and test the results.
I think we are on track for release of the mod sometime this weekend. Stay tuned
Regard,
TC2 -
@tomcattwo amazing ! I’ve been following this
-
Status Update 11/14/21:
We are still working to get all the .wav files together. Some are taking a little longer to produce than expected, but no worries. I ask for a bit more patience. We’ll have this mod out soon.
Regards,
TC2 -
All,
Status Update 11/17/21:
All .wav files are done. All necessary files have been updated, and we are testing. So far, all airbases I have tested in the sim (a few from each of the seven “standard” teams (1=Slovenia, 2=NATO, 3=Bosnia, 4=Albania, 5=Hungary, 6=FRY, 7=Croatia) have worked just as they should.The below error was fixed on 11/18/2021.
But I have run across one snag that I have, as yet, been unable to fix, and would appreciate any help from those of you who fly this theater regularly.1) I cannot get ANY ATC response at any of the four Greek airbases (Aktion, Anna Pollatou, King Pyrros, or Dionisius Solomos). I am certain I am on the right freqs, as they come direct from the Comm Ladder, and I tried them all (ground, Tower, Approach, on all presets). I’ve checked stations+ils.dat in Mission Commander and no errors are shown. The frequencies look valid to me.Is this a known issue?I know Greece is listed as “Team 0” in te_new.tac, and is not one of the seven “default” teams for TEs. I used MC to switch ownership of these 4 airbases to NATO in te_new.tac, then set up a quick TE of a NATO flight in an F-16 CM-40 from the Greek airbases (my typical test platform). The sim launched properly in 3D on the runway. I see “Tomcattwo entered as Jackal 61” on the subtitles, and normally I would get immediate direction from the tower that I was cleared for takeoff (this is how I start testing of every airbase). But I see nothing. The ATC menu options allow me to ask for “Clearance for Departure” and “Say Again” on the Tower page. When I press either one of those, I hear my pilot voice say the appropriate words, and see the appropriate subtitles. But no response at all from ATC. Same for the other ATC menus. Anna Pollatou has ATIS (the other three don’t); ATIS did not work either. It seems like an eval call is getting missed for ATC events at these airbases or the game doesn’t think the frequencies are correct.Other NATO airbases work just fine using this same TE. The problem only exists at these 4 airbases.I also tried setting up a TE using Falcon TE Edit in the sim, removing a team (Hungary) and adding Greece, then setting up a TE to fly. That produced the same result - no ATC at all from Greek airbases.Anyone have an idea of how I can test the Greek airbases by setting something up that will work for providing ATC, using Mission Commander?
Thanks,
TC2
(VoiceClone) -
@dumba said in Balkans Airbase Renaming/Update Project:
@tomcattwo said in Balkans Airbase Renaming/Update Project:
My clones will probably murder the pronunciation of many of the Slavic language airbase names, so apologies ahead of time.
No idea if needed or useful, but hit me up if you need help WRT Slavic pronunciations. Maybe the bot can be persuaded a little
@Tomcattwo And I volunteer gladly for Italian language too… mine may be more tricky than you may expect, and the overall result very funny at times, you know.
With best regards (spoken with heavy Italian accent, heh heh heh).
-
@jackal
Thank you! As we are almost complete with the project, I am anxious to get it out to the community. We’ll see how good my attempts at Italian were, and you can send me corrections if something REALLY annoys you . Remember though, our ATCs are NATO “American English” speakers, and they themselves might not do pronunciations as would a native Italian-speaker! Also, I can only do so much with the pronunciation of the clones - it is a real challenge to get the clone synthesizer to put the accent on the correct syllablesExample: “Pratica di Mare” - I know it is pronounced like this: PRAH’ tee ka dee MAH’ ray. The best I could get my clones to do is: PRAH’ tee ka dee mah RAY’ I know it’s wrong, but it’s close enough for “government work”
In any event, once the mod is released, please feel free to check it, and send me any proposed changes if they are really annoying to you Same goes for native Hungarian, Albanian or Greek speakers.
Thanks,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone)