This is the proof of concept video made by GauchoRS in his first post. Thanks for leading me into this "new" area in race simulation! This is so awesome!
A plugin plus GlovePIE could be used to create something like this. The plugin is used to control the required input/output, while GlovePIE is used to handle speech recognition input and text-to-speech responds. GlovePIE is good, but it's not enough, since in rFactor2 different car seems to have different on-board pit menu. If the rF2 plugin could handle speech recognition input and TTS at the same time, then we may not need GlovePIE anymore. But I found GlovePIE is very useful in first person shooter games like Operation Flashpoint and also in complex flight simulators (FSX and X-Plane). The voice of Microsoft Anna is not loud enough, barely hear her voice in the middle of the race in an open wheeler. I'll give IVONA a try, since they give a 30-days trial period, much better than Acapela Infovox3 one hour trial period per session. I also found that Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit) voice recognition feature is not as smooth as Windows Vista Home Basic (32bit). Weird. In my Vista Home Basic 32bit I can use the Speech Recognition easily, after "training" the app only once. In Seven-U is the opposite. I had trained the app three times, and it still can't pick "start listening" command correctly! On the plus side, the 'audio feedback' is working correctly in Seven (it doesn't work in Vista Basic 32bit) Anyway, GlovePIE speech recognition works smoothly in Vista (32bit) and Win7 (64bit). And it works better than Microsoft Windows 7 Speech Recognition feature.
Rocket science to me. Still can not hear my spotter, imagine setting up this program and talk to him ...
This is my GlovePIE scripting first try. I tried to make the command as general as possible, since different car class is using different on board pit menu. GauchoRS' version is more ideal though, since you can talk more naturally. Also my script is relying too much on high confidence input level, where it will force user to talk more slower (but it guarantees more accurate result), and the result is big distraction in racing as you'll see in my video below, where I drove slowly because of it. Below is the list of voice commands I created using GlovePIE, divided into two type, general commands and pit radio commands. To begin/open pit radio, you have to press Button 8 on your steering wheel. And to close it, you press Button 7, or just say 'thank you' or 'thanks'. General voice commands - FPS (to show frame rate) - Lights (turning on/off headlight) - Ignition (ignite the engine on/off) - Start Engine (start the engine) - Replay (to watch replay) - Enter (to switch information view in HUD menu 6) - Auto (to let AI drive your car) Pit Radio commands - Abort (to cancel pit stop request) - Coming in / Come in (pit stop request) - Up / Down (to navigate up/down in pit stop menu) - Left / Right, followed by 'one' or 'five' (to navigate left/right 'one' or 'five' times --still not working properly) - Thank you / Thanks (to close pit radio, you can also close it by pressing Button 7 on steering wheel) Side note: programming/scripting with GlovePIE is really different. For example the standard looping command such as WHILE and FOR is working a bit different. According to its author, it's because programming in GlovePIE is not linear. To me a PIE script is working more like a DLL file.
I don't really know, I didn't check the actual FPS. As far as I'm concern, the FPS is smooth. Except for night racing, where my FPS will drop as low as 17 FPS in crowded scene (usually it's in the first turn, first lap, in Sepang) with or without GlovePIE. The FPS you see in the video is the result of FRAPS recording at 30 FPS. The actual FPS is way higher than what you see in the video. I also amazed that GlovePIE is working very fast, being an interpreter and no byte-code compilation, hats off to its author.
After playing rFactor 2 with GlovePIE, I must say that I'm totally impressed by GlovePIE, it doesn't hurt the performance at all! My GlovePIE script also had been reworked, now instead of saying 'left (pause) five', I just simply say 'five less'. GlovePIE also will recognize this command faster than my original form. My next goal (time permitted) is to create an rF2 plugin that will give GlovePIE more data such as number of lap to go, lap time, position, and so on. You can then 'ask' GlovePIE and it will give you the info thru synthesized voice. By the way, I found that hearing a female voice in a long race --50 lap in Spa--, is very relaxing. Oh, and a new video will be ready soon.
Keep up the good work, will gladly try this out when you guys find a good combo of commands and so on!
personely, I am waiting for a "virtual raceengineer" made by ISI, but as the spotter plugin for rf1 shows, this could be realised by a plugin. I would prefere such a external implementation, due to configuration possibilities .... This concept is not able to read any rFactor data, it´s just "saying something" and answer, but it could be combined with a plugin, reading rFactor data and invoke the right reactions ... my hope is that a programmer will get hooked and give us a new realism to simracing - PLEASE !
Agree. This voice input and its respond will be much better if were done internally. What we do here is more like a hack, a patch for existing platform. At the moment I'm still trying to find a better communication between GlovePIE and rF2 plugin. It would be great if rF2 plugin can make GlovePIE 'talk' whenever a specific event is taking place (accident in sector one, or overheating tire for example). Anyway, here's the new video with the slightly revised GlovePIE script.
Hi, sorry for a little OT but i have a small question, how can i activate this small display about tyre-temp and contact patch in the upper left of the screen.
Yes, open your .PLR file, and change the value of variable with word "TGM" in it to '1' (forgot the exact variable name)
This is interessting and maybe im dreaming but i would like to remove all game related stuff as much as possible to improve the immersion that im at a racetrack. Like the chat for example is very unreal. I would like to only hear what i should hear irl, for example when im in my car the only talking i would hear is from my radio (if i dont have a passenger and this guy have a headset ), and when im in pit i only hear the person/persons next to me in my headset. When im in the garage i dont want to suddenly jump out of the car into a gamemenu, i want to still sit in the car until i jump out of it and be able to walk around in firstperson view. So when i need settings to be changed on my car i talk to the engineer from my cockpit in my headset like this: Im oversteering! (the script reacts on oversteering and do the settings required in the garagemenu, maybe even with an animated engineer running around the vehicle). Or if i dont have an engineer i must do it myself, and this could be done like this, jump out of the car and walk to the right hotspots on the 3d model of the car in the garage where appropriate menu pops up for that hotspot. (Ofcourse it would be even more fun to get the right tool and screw the right screws, but thats a little too much even for me, hehe) How i usually setup my audio for multiplayer gaming is like this: I have my surround system delivering all sounds from the game with my x-fi, and i also have my headset for communicating separate with another soundcard wich can be the builtin from motherboard. This way makes the sound when im communicating with anyone in fps shooters/sims more realistic since they can actually hear the sounds around me in the background, its more immersive. Btw, when x-fi first came out there was an option for 3d sounds streamed live from headsets, i wonder where that feature went. This feature made me hear only the voices of the closest persons near me with fading volume the further away they walked and also from the right position in 3d. This made it very useful to have a radio if you got lost from your party also.
im impressed, Really awesome stuff here. Will give it a try tommorow. But you said they will implement this in the game? you sure bout that? Greetz mike
