GLaDOS (Voice & Comments) for Picochess

[jonthorjohn]

Hello everyone!

I am very excited to share this with you all! Over the past three days, I have been working on adding the voice of GLaDOS from the videogames Portal and Portal 2 to Picochess. If you have not played either of the Portal games (and I highly recommend them both), you may still be interested in GLaDOS’ comments. I think most of her comments are very funny. Personally, I will be using this voice for all my future chess games on Picochess.

To give you a little more info on my process, most of her comments were taken from the Portal Wiki at https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/GLaDOS_voice_lines

The phrases and words more specific to chess were created using the GLaDOS voice generator at https://glados.c-net.org/

I also used Audacity to edit each audio file. Now that I know how to do this, it’s actually not that bad. It just takes some patience as there are a lot of files.

Without further ado, you can find the audio files here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/olaiyz9j866f3zi/AACgg5vxQ0tjdcvNrA_6dfQTa?dl=0

Please let me know if the link does not work or if there is a better place to host the files. Feel free to change or add to the comments as you like. If you find a change (or additional comments) that works better for you, I would be very interested in hearing from you so that I can update my files as well.

For convenience, I’ll go through the process of how you can add this voice to Picochess:

1.      Download the files from the Dropbox link above.

2.      Transfer the files to your pi.

3.      Copy the GLaDOS file into /opt/picochess/talker/voices/en (or your voice region of choice)

4.      Add the voice to the voices.ini file

[en]

    [[al]]

        small = al

        medium = Al

        large = Al

    [[christina]]

        small = christ

        medium = Christin

        large = Christina

    [[GLaDOS]]

        small = glados

        medium = GLaDOS

        large = GLaDOS

5.      Uncomment the #comment-factor = 100 in the picochess.ini in order to hear the comments (I set mine to 40% so that the comments don’t repeat too much)

6.      Then just reboot your pi and you should be able to select GLaDOS from the voices in the settings.

A big thank you to Dirk for his post and guide on how to do this! His post found here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/picochess/2.0%7Csort:date/picochess/ZecURopxPjk/4bQW-OzoBgAJ

Also, thank you to everyone else who has added to this system from this forum. I’m sure there could be improvements made to GLaDOS’ voice, but I am very happy with the result right now.

P.S. If you have never heard of the video games, Portal and Portal 2 are both physic-based puzzle games. They are both really good. If you get a chance, look them up. You may get more of a kick from the voice comments if you know a little about GLaDOS’ character.

Best,

Jon

[Dirk]

Hi Jon,

that is awesome - thank you for that, I will have a look/hear later in the next days.

Portal 1&2 were the only games I played for a longer time since the late 80’s (over the internet with a good friend) - was really fun and I can remember the voice very well.

Really cool and glad you figured out how to add voices!!!

Thank you!

Dirk

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[Scally]

Hi Jon,

Good stuff, I’ll include it in my new image if that’s ok ?

I’ll also include my 2 earlier efforts, with Borg & Voice Challenger voices, both were synthesised from my voice before the MAME engines came to Picochess.


Al.

[Dirk]

I just figured out that you even included voice commentary with this voice - that is really nice Jon!

Thanks again 

Dirk

[jonthorjohn]

Dirk,

I'm glad you are familiar with the games! I hope it will make the voice more enjoyable and bring back memories for you. I really went the extra mile with the commentary, so I hope you get a kick out of it :)

Al,

Yes, please do. That would be awesome!

Best,

Jon

[Scally]

Hi Jon,

Yes adding a voice with comments takes a long time. With Dirk’s permission I’m going to include his ‘Dimitri Komarov‘ compilation with my new image.

We have others, but can’t include them because of copyright issues.


Al.

[Shivkumar Shivaji]

Great work. I am going to try this out soon. Can someone post an audio sample or a youtube recording of this? This can be a great way to get a lot of views on your youtube video, just saying.. :)

Shiv

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[jonthorjohn]

Shiv,

I'm not the best with video, but I'll try to post something if no one else gets back to you.

Best,

Jon

[jonthorjohn]

Shiv,

It's not the best quality, but here's a short video demo for you and anyone else who wants to see GLaDOS in action: https://youtu.be/ThVWGdgUA5s

Best,

Jon

On Sunday, May 17, 2020 at 1:59:28 PM UTC-5, sshivaji wrote:

Great work. I am going to try this out soon. Can someone post an audio sample or a youtube recording of this? This can be a great way to get a lot of views on your youtube video, just saying.. :)

Shiv

On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 9:50 AM Scally <scall...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jon,

Yes adding a voice with comments takes a long time. With Dirk’s permission I’m going to include his ‘Dimitri Komarov‘ compilation with my new image.

We have others, but can’t include them because of copyright issues.


Al.

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[Shivkumar Shivaji]

Wow, its really cool. Thanks for uploading it! Will try the new image soon. Or the git update.

Shiv

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[Scally]

Hi all,

Here’s the Dmitri voice compliments of Dirk that will also be included in my image:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5g5jozjf4khaxon/AADFE4tglxGle4q_LUtbxAkLa?dl=0


Cheers,

Al

[Etienne Chaffanjon]

Hi, just amazing what you are doing with a small piece of Pi!!
Adding latest engines including LC0, adding Mame and now this voice added ....just fascinating.....
Un grand bravo to the team!
All the best,
Etienne

> Le 18 mai 2020 à 14:53, Scally <scall...@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> Hi all,

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[Kyle Washington]

@jonthorjohn - I know this is an old thread, but I must revive it and commend you for your excellent work!  I am quite the Portal fan, and I had seen the YouTube video referenced above when searching for PicoChess knowledge, so I knew it was out there.  I had gone as far as downloading the files to my drive, then I saw where @Scally had already included it in the image update.  Great!  I updated the picochess.ini file as shown above... and it did not work.  Ugh.  But I reset it back to Christina, and then I used the menus from the webserver buttons to cycle through voices.  

Looking back at the picochess.ini file, I see that the voice name has to be 'en:glados' and not 'en:GlaDOS'.  Very cool - I have learned yet another thing about Picochess and file editing.  (48 hours ago I didn't know what ssh, sudo, or many other terms meant.)

I rebooted and started a game.  Her comments are on point and funny.  I was expecting something about eating cake, but instead, I got PicoTutor telling me I made a BLUNDER... so I did the suggested takeback.  GlaDOS said "YOU CHEATER! I see what you did there..."  That is Hilarious!  Even if you didn't know anything about Portal, that would be funny - but I can see her saying that to you in any game where she is in charge.  I had to take time out and find this thread and reply.  Hats off to you sir!  

Kyle

[jonthorjohn]

Kyle,

Thank you very much! I am happy to hear that you are enjoying the voice/comments! Yes, Al included GlaDOS in his image, and, more recently, Dirk included it in his V3 image. I didn't think about coming back to this thread to post an update, so I am glad you posted in case there are others trying to search the forum. So, if you download either of those images you won't have to go through all the steps I listed above.

The only thing a new member might need to check is the picochess.ini file via:

sudo nano /opt/picochess/picochess.ini

The following line needs to be uncommented if you want to hear comments during the game:

#comment-factor = 100

Just delete the # and change the number to your preferred percent of comments (I have mine set at 50 right now).

It sounds like you have already done that, Kyle. I quite enjoy her voice and comments during a game. It definitely adds to the experience!

Oh, and if you or any one else has suggestions about changes or additions to her voice, I'm all ears!

Best,

Jon

[Kyle Washington]

Tonight I got my 9 year old son to come and play.  I edited picochess.ini to show me as an 800 level player (I'm just guessing), and I usually get more blunders than compliments.  He's actually good at it, so I let him play.  He went 40+ moves and was still going when we had to stop for dinner.  He loves to go fast, so he would get ahead of the engine occasionally.  If Picotutor suggested a takeback, he would do it and then GLaDOS would fuss at him.  Once he realized he wasn't winning, he started to get irritated at her.  He made a good move and she said "I hate you."  That really got him going!  It was hilarious.  He understood it was just the Portal voice, but he was bothered that he couldn't beat her.  So I may turn it off until we get the finer points of Picochess down.... but this is a treat.  It keeps it lighthearted while we're learning!

Kyle