Ren'Py Renpy self vocing

moskyx

Engaged Member
Jun 17, 2019
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12,419
Self-voicing reads everything displayed on screen (it's a tool intended to help people with visual disabilities), so the only way would be editing the game script to delete the character's names (I'm assuming that's what's bothering you). But then you wouldn't see them on screen so you could only know who's saying what by context, and this could lead to some missundertandings on your part.
 

qwerty132

Newbie
Aug 3, 2017
44
5
Self-voicing reads everything displayed on screen (it's a tool intended to help people with visual disabilities), so the only way would be editing the game script to delete the character's names (I'm assuming that's what's bothering you). But then you wouldn't see them on screen so you could only know who's saying what by context, and this could lead to some missundertandings on your part.
Thanks
 

DD-MegaDoDo

Newbie
Jun 13, 2023
18
2
i second this. i understand self-voicing is an accessibility feature first, but it would be nice if there were a few in-games options that extended to the casual users.

the 'issue' is, the time it takes self-voicing to announce the characters name and the subsequent *pause* before it starts speaking the dialog can seem too long. It's more pronounced (and annoying) when there's a series of back-to-back screens with 1-2 words of dialog.

Idk if devs think about this, but some games are packed full of these which can really slow the story down for self-voicing users.

I'm not a developer but if speaker names are already their own type class/type of text in the code..then I would think enabling it's status from text that is read via self-voicing, to text that is not read would be pretty straight forward.

also, as a non-developer, i acknowledge there's likely a list of other implications that i'm completely unaware of.
 

moskyx

Engaged Member
Jun 17, 2019
3,865
12,419
i second this. i understand self-voicing is an accessibility feature first, but it would be nice if there were a few in-games options that extended to the casual users.

the 'issue' is, the time it takes self-voicing to announce the characters name and the subsequent *pause* before it starts speaking the dialog can seem too long. It's more pronounced (and annoying) when there's a series of back-to-back screens with 1-2 words of dialog.

Idk if devs think about this, but some games are packed full of these which can really slow the story down for self-voicing users.

I'm not a developer but if speaker names are already their own type class/type of text in the code..then I would think enabling it's status from text that is read via self-voicing, to text that is not read would be pretty straight forward.

also, as a non-developer, i acknowledge there's likely a list of other implications that i'm completely unaware of.
Well, using the it's totally possible to 'mute' the characters' names so they are not read by the self-voicing (4 years ago I wasn't aware it was possible, so I wrongly recommended just deleting all those names). And you can even include some explanation text within the dialogues that won't be shown if self-voicing isn't enabled so that self-voicing users don't miss who is saying what. It's not that hard, but hardly any dev thinks (or knows) about this.

I know at least one dev who writes their scripts in a full narrative mode instead of 'screenplay' dialogues (the lines read like 'Sarah said, "Thanks for your support, John."', instead of 'Sarah: "Thanks for your support, John."'). This leaves some room for a bit more creative writing and a more literary tone in descriptions or other passages while making self-voicing sound more natural, but ordinary players seem to hate that style, as they are not used to it on this media.
 

anne O'nymous

I'm not grumpy, I'm just coded that way.
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Jun 10, 2017
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I know at least one dev who writes their scripts in a full narrative mode instead of 'screenplay' dialogues (the lines read like 'Sarah said, "Thanks for your support, John."', instead of 'Sarah: "Thanks for your support, John."'). This leaves some room for a bit more creative writing and a more literary tone in descriptions or other passages while making self-voicing sound more natural, but ordinary players seem to hate that style, as they are not used to it on this media.
But it force to pass in third person narrative, what personally annoy me.

So, I thought about it a bit, found a really basic, easy and powerful solution, then took some time and wrote this...
Among other things, any dev that will follow this How-To will have dialogs that follow the usual display, but that will be voiced "Name is saying: dialog line" ; or whatever formulation they'll chose to use.
 
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