Voiced Play-by-Play and the future of AI in OOTP?

[dannymac420]

As someone who watches all my teams games I've tried using the in game text to speech, but it's way too unnatural and has me thinking about AI and it's possible uses in OOTP.

I know trying to license the voices of Vin Scully or Michael Kay is probably a long shot, but just a generic AI voice commentator would be leaps and bounds better than the text to speech we have.

It also makes we wonder if we can get full photo realistic AI generated player portraits for fictional generated players, maybe even AI generated game write ups and sports journalist articles.

Would this even be possible to implement into a game like this? It's my #1 wish for OOTP 26, but even if it takes 5-10 years to fully implement I think it can be a huge game changer.

[seven]

And getting any kind of audio play-by-play to work on Mac OS would be a big leap forward.

[Syd Thrift]

Other games do have the Microsoft voices doing PBP. I think maybe you might be able to get OOTP to use them as well, I'm not sure. This is useful from an accessibility standpoint to be sure: people who have eyesight issues should still be able to enjoy the game. If I'm being honest, however, I'm usually speeding past the text anyway once I'm like 40 hours into a game like this. The idea that AI is going to add in more flavor text seems like asking a lot, I think, and the cost of this would be to have the game stay connected to the Internet at all times and to wait several seconds per play while the centralized AI comes up with a way of describing the play. And then of course you're going to need to be able to train the AI so that it "learns" what PBP is good and what isn't, and that's in turn going to require some people with a lot of free time on their hands...

On top of that I kind of have a personal, visceral dislike for AI being used in place of people doing creative work. AI is good at looking up stuff on the Internet and after a few seconds making up something that's convincing. It's not good at all at evaluating what it just came up with: as far as it's "concerned" it did its best and it's up to you to tell it if "best" was good or not. And I'm not at all convinced that it's going to actually improve the repetitive nature of the play-by-play; play-by-play is kind of repetitive in real life, too, we just don't notice it so much because it's sitting there in amidst interesting commentary.

[FSUKegman]

Would love to see some type of voice PBP so my eyes can stay on the action instead of splitting time between the on field action and reading the PBP

[tehsuigi]

I would happily offer my services as a voiceover guy (DrDynastic would be a great option too). I think OOTPD could manage something like how NHL 2004 does it with base lines and then have the player names as their own miniature files with limited intonations.

[dewelar]

My wife and I are both legally blind, and always use the voiced PBP. It would indeed be very nice not to be locked into the one available robotic-sounding voice -- even just the ability to choose from the voices already installed on my PC would be a welcome change! AI voices would kind of be beyond our hopes -- and yeah, if there was ever an option to do an AI Vin Scully voice, we would be in HEAVEN!


(...well, and being allowed to fix pronunciations would be nice, too...)

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by dewelar

My wife and I are both legally blind, and always use the voiced PBP. It would indeed be very nice not to be locked into the one available robotic-sounding voice -- even just the ability to choose from the voices already installed on my PC would be a welcome change! AI voices would kind of be beyond our hopes -- and yeah, if there was ever an option to do an AI Vin Scully voice, we would be in HEAVEN!


(...well, and being allowed to fix pronunciations would be nice, too...)

It would be nice to select a different voice, if only for variety.

I play using TTS and "short pbp", for me it is good enough. I can watch the play unfold and not be bothered with the text. I can't imagine playing on a Mac and not having audio.

Now if I could make the pbp box go away while watching replays I'd be a happy camper. And yes I've put that in the suggestion thread several times.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

On top of that I kind of have a personal, visceral dislike for AI being used in place of people doing creative work. AI is good at looking up stuff on the Internet and after a few seconds making up something that's convincing. It's not good at all at evaluating what it just came up with: as far as it's "concerned" it did its best and it's up to you to tell it if "best" was good or not. And I'm not at all convinced that it's going to actually improve the repetitive nature of the play-by-play; play-by-play is kind of repetitive in real life, too, we just don't notice it so much because it's sitting there in amidst interesting commentary.

As someone who does voiceover work, thank you for that sentiment.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Other games do have the Microsoft voices doing PBP. I think maybe you might be able to get OOTP to use them as well, I'm not sure. This is useful from an accessibility standpoint to be sure: people who have eyesight issues should still be able to enjoy the game. If I'm being honest, however, I'm usually speeding past the text anyway once I'm like 40 hours into a game like this. The idea that AI is going to add in more flavor text seems like asking a lot, I think, and the cost of this would be to have the game stay connected to the Internet at all times and to wait several seconds per play while the centralized AI comes up with a way of describing the play. And then of course you're going to need to be able to train the AI so that it "learns" what PBP is good and what isn't, and that's in turn going to require some people with a lot of free time on their hands...

On top of that I kind of have a personal, visceral dislike for AI being used in place of people doing creative work. AI is good at looking up stuff on the Internet and after a few seconds making up something that's convincing. It's not good at all at evaluating what it just came up with: as far as it's "concerned" it did its best and it's up to you to tell it if "best" was good or not. And I'm not at all convinced that it's going to actually improve the repetitive nature of the play-by-play; play-by-play is kind of repetitive in real life, too, we just don't notice it so much because it's sitting there in amidst interesting commentary.

I can't wait for 'radio' type broacast where i can set my lineups and strategy. sim a game then pick and game or games that day to listen to while i am walking the dog, jogging, mowing the lawn, whatever. Even if just mp3 files i would just have to transfer to my phone. Although an app would be cool

[swoboda]

A big YES to any PBP improvements , real people speaking greatly preferred!

Still hard for me to understand how TLR baseball was able to do this well over 20 yrs ago, and OOTP still cannot.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by swoboda

A big YES to any PBP improvements , real people speaking greatly preferred!

Still hard for me to understand how TLR baseball was able to do this well over 20 yrs ago, and OOTP still cannot.

Audio was part of the original game design for TLR Baseball, while OOTP was designed with text as it's base in a "garage" by one coder?

I have no idea what the biggest hurdle would be in getting new dedicated audio into OOTP? Cost, time, or both?

Would I like to have it? Of course.

[Edster007]

My first computer baseball game was APBA and it did make a difference with Ernie Harwell doing PbP, even when it got a bit redundant

[dannymac420]

I'm going insane trying to figure out a way to switch it from this microsoft sam defaullt voice. There's gotta be a way I can change it...

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by dannymac420

I'm going insane trying to figure out a way to switch it from this microsoft sam defaullt voice. There's gotta be a way I can change it...

Correct, it should not be this hard.
Is there a way to SIM a goame, save the whole pbp text for a game and export the pbp file?
I haven't found a way

[silvam14]

I'm a huge graphics guy as you might have guessed, but I think it is now time to upgrade the game audio and have a realistic pbp "narrator" Action PC has a narrator which uses the robotic sounding voice we are all used to, but it uses it in a much better way and has options to change the pronunciation of every player's name. Not to mention it offers the option to read the PBP word for word, or just a quick synopsis of the play once finished (which I like) If all of this could be replicated by OOTP with a better AI generated voice, I think this would be absolutely huge! I love playing out my games and I follow many who broadcast OOTP on youtube. Better audio would be a must in opinion.

[Markus Heinsohn]

As soon as there is a good AI voice system out there which runs locally on a machine and can be licensed for a fair price, we'll be all over it

[robedits]

Originally Posted by Jason

As someone who does voiceover work, thank you for that sentiment.

I'm with you,Jason. I worked in television as an editor, producer, director and voice over talent for 40 years before retiring a few years ago. I have a visceral distaste for AI replacing voice and visual aesthetics that humans can create better.

[dannymac420]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

As soon as there is a good AI voice system out there which runs locally on a machine and can be licensed for a fair price, we'll be all over it

Awesome! As long as it’s a possibility then I’m hyped! I sometimes daydream about what OOTP 35 and on will be like haha

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

As soon as there is a good AI voice system out there which runs locally on a machine and can be licensed for a fair price, we'll be all over it

Forget AI. Hire one of our streamers. Some of them are really good! Personally, I really like tehsuigi's understated style, but I can see why a lot of people would like DrDynastic's more upbeat style.

[fredbeene]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

As soon as there is a good AI voice system out there which runs locally on a machine and can be licensed for a fair price, we'll be all over it

YAY! but please allow to listen to the pbp on remote device
Nice to have during the game.
My goal is true radio broadcast.
I would guess somehow the pbp text needs to be stored
So many possibilties of what you could integrate into the broadcast