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  1. #1

    Authoring alternative Crew Chief voice packs

    Crew Chief version 4.9.4.9 and higher allows installing alternative Chief voices. This post's intent is to explain alternative voice pack authors the process of packing and installing their sound packs.

    Alternative Chief or Spotter voices are installed by manually extracting voice pack or voice pack update patch into the base sound pack location. Supported folder structure is described below.

    Note: automatic updates and versioning for alternative packs is not supported.

    Base sound pack location
    CC sounds are normally installed into: c:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Local\CrewChiefV4\sounds\ hidden folder. Note: that location can be overridden by the "Override default Sound Pack location" preference.

    Alternative Chief voices installation
    Alternative Chief voices go into: [base_sound_pack_location]\alt\[chief_name], except for shared sounds (see below).
    Here's example of [base_sound_pack_location] content:

    In the above screenshot alternative pack is already installed, so alt folder is present. It does not exist in the default CC installation.

    Alternative Spotter voices installation
    Alternative Spotter voices are installed by putting sound files into:
    [base_sound_pack_location]\voice\spotter_[spotter_name]

    Shared folders
    Folders:
    [base_sound_pack_location]\background_sounds
    [base_sound_pack_location]\fx
    [base_sound_pack_location]\voice\spotter
    [base_sound_pack_location]\voice\spotter_[spotter_name]
    [base_sound_pack_location]\voice\radio_check
    [base_sound_pack_location]\voice\radio_check_[spotter_or_chief_name]

    are shared between all the voice packs. Note that those files are not under the alt folder.

    Radio check folder
    radio_check_[spotter_or_chief_name] folders can contain two subfolders:
    test
    test_chief (optional).


    If selected voice is used as Chief, and test_chief folder is present, Radio Check message will play contents of test_chief folder. Otherwise, if folder is missing or voice is in Spotter role, test folder is played.

    Alternative pack distribution layout
    Here's an example alternative voice pack distribution structure (in this example, alternative Chief and Spotter are named Mike):

    +---alt
    ¦ +---Mike
    ¦ ¦ sound_pack_language.txt
    ¦ ¦
    ¦ +---driver_names
    ¦ +---personalisations
    ¦ +---voice
    +---voice
    +---radio_check_Mike
    ¦ +---test
    ¦ +---test_chief
    +---spotter_Mike

    Note that test_chief and spotter_Mike folders are optional and are only necessary if you would like to allow distinct Radio Check sound for Mike used as Chief, and you are including Spotter named Mike with your pack.

    Also, note sound_pack_language.txt file. It should contain pack ISO language, for example en, de, fr or es. If file is missing, en is assumed.

    Tools
    Because main sound pack continuously evolves, we are providing this PowerShell script that should help figuring out what's new in the base pack. This script can also speed up process of alternative pack recording. It compares base sound pack to alternative pack and prints out folders that are non-empty in the base pack, but are empty in the alternative pack, meaning they were either recently added to the base pack, or still need to be recorded in the alternative pack. Here's the script: https://github.com/mrbelowski/CrewCh...ifferences.ps1

    Example usage command:
    Code:
    .\Get-FolderDifferences.ps1 -LeftTree c:\Users\vvv\AppData\Local\CrewChiefV4\sounds\voice\ -RightTree C:\Users\vvv\AppData\Local\CrewChiefV4\sounds\alt\Mike\voice
    Script ignores spotter folders. You could pass -IncludeSpotter switch to disable that behavior.

    Alternative Voice Packs
    This section will contain links to the available alternative packs.

    Stock Car Sound Pack by Mike Schreiner:
    http://thecrewchief.org/showthread.p...-Spotter-v0-50

  2. #2
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2017
    Posts
    8
    Finally! Great job!

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Posts
    3
    Is this last part really necessary? Thank you for the help!

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Poody View Post
    Is this last part really necessary? Thank you for the help!
    What do you mean by the "last part"? Tools and powershell script? It is not necessary if it does not help you The point of those is to make you more productive - entirely optional.

  5. #5
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
    Posts
    1
    Thank you very much for this!

    May I request the name "Thanasis"?
    YouTube has a pronunciation video that will help with this Greek name!

    Thanks again,
    Thanasis

  6. #6
    Will there ever be more names recorded for this voice pack? 'Brian' in particular?
    Last edited by sBryansGames; 11-05-2022 at 04:32.

  7. #7
    Creating voice packs in different languages

    I haven't tried this but I think the process would be (working in c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\CrewChiefV4\sounds):

    1) Translate each subtitle file (example \voice\acknowledge\cut_warnings_disabled\subtitles .csv into your language. This can be done with an automatic translation program though it's probably best to exclude the sweary ones and translate them yourself (or leave them out).
    2) Create a list of the phrases in \composite_personalisation_stubs
    3) Create a list of driver names you want to use
    4) Find a native speaker with a lot of time on their hands to record all the messages and names or
    4b) Use a text to speech program to make the files. The results won't be as good but it's a lot easier.
    5) Use https://gitlab.com/mr_belowski/CrewC...e-from-raw.txt to add some "realistic noise" to all the files.
    6) Now follow the instructions in the first post.

    Over to @Mr_Belowski for corrections!

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