[WIP] GLaDOS voice generator
Hi there, I'm new here as you probably noticed and, truth to be told, I'm not really into Portal mapmaking myself (although I love playing custom maps!).
What I am into, though, is GLaDOS's voice (now that sounds a bit wrong...). So I've read some tutorials around these forums on how to generate such GLaDOS-y sound files, and they're perfect, save one thing: sound files have to be created manually (using a text-to-speech software or recording from microphone, then applying effects). That's perfect for mapmaking, but as I said, I'm not into mapmaking. What I would really love to have is a direct GLaDOS text-to-speech tool that I could use for stuff like reading my news, telling me how many emails I have in the morning, reading their subject lines, etc. So, of course, it would be pretty pointless to create these sounds by hand...
So I've dropped the idea for a while (that was somewhere mid-2008). But every few month, I'd stumble upon a random Portal-related video on YouTube for some reason... and I'd inevitably hear GLaDOS's voice again, and the idea would come back to me.
This happened again 2 days ago, and this time I swore to myself I'd just do the damn thing. I happened to have set up a server with a graphical environment a few days ago, which would allow me to run graphical applications (I'm looking at you, Melodyne), so all I needed to do was to automate the text synthesizing part (easy), then importing that file into Melodyne (easy), and then creating a script that would know where to click or what button to press to apply the effects needed to get the GLaDOS effect I want (much harder). But I gave it a shot, and while it is painfully slow (the server is running Linux, so it has to run Melodyne through Wine, and its processor isn't exactly a beast either), so it can take up to 5 minutes for one message to be synthesized. That is fast enough for my needs alone, but now what if I wanted to let others profit from my work? That's what I told myself yesterday, so I coded up a little queuing web-based front-end for the thingy. It queues up messages and slowly processes them on a first-come-first-serve basis.
And today, it's complete.
[/End of boring intro]
So, without further ado, I hereby present:
The GLaDOS voice generator!
insert Zelda "new item found" sound effect here
(caution: Contains some minor spoilers, mainly some of GLaDOS's in-game lines)
The thing's simple: you enter a message and your email address. Your messages gets queued. When it's your message's turn, the server does its GLaDOS magic and emails you when the resulting audio file is ready for download. That's it 
Now why did I mark this as a "WIP"? Because I did all of this (the GLaDOS voice thing AND the web interface for it) in 2 days, so obviously there's probably bugs everywhere. That's why I'm asking you, community-that-I-don't-know-very-much-yet-but-can't-be-that-bad-since-you-all-play-an-awesome-game, to test this thing out
But please, the thing is fragile. Please do not make the queue huge (I'd say, if you see that there are more than 100 items in there, don't add stuff), and please don't enter stupid or short messages just for the hell of it. Do, however, test for the security of the website if you have experience in that domain (XSS/RFI/SQL injections/etc.). And above all, enjoy (And please don't hammer or sap mah server)
tl;dr:
1) Go to http://glados.biringa.com/
2) Type message and email
3) Hit Enter
4) ???
5) PROFIT!
The first thing that happened is an email "Your request has been processed, and you are now ready to download the file proper:" I was like "OMFG, referring to Portal?"
Then, the download. No full size, no prediction on time whatsoever. 
Then, the file. When I did a generation on my own (with AT&T Crystal) I got "Three. Two. One." like normal, but here (with Festival nitech_us_slt_arctic_hts), it's like "three two one" (but you can download the file anyway )
And yes, it's a reference to Portal
Just like the "thank you for helping us help you help us all" at the end of the email~The text-to-speech tool used sucks a bit on punctuation indeed. I recommend using commas instead of periods, they seem to provide longer pauses most of the time for some reason; or you can add pauses yourself in a sound editor. In any case, this thing isn't the best for mapmaking, you'll get a better result if you use the AT&T Crystal voice with a pitch that you can adjust yourself. This thing just adds the same pitch regardless of how good or bad it sounds. Maybe I should make it use the Crystal voice instead... That's an interesting idea, but would lengthen synth time, obviously.
Apparently the server crapped out at some point after you put your message and before someone else put the message "Welcome to the awesomeness place.". That's what testing is about, right? Server should be back up now~
WindPower wrote:
and before someone else put the message "Welcome to the awesomeness place.".
That would be me
I waited about an hour, but is that because the server "capped out"?
And yes, that's why, so it was left hanging until I woke up this morning and got a topic reply notification for this topic, which prompted me to try and access the server, and, upon failure to do so, I rebooted it and it seemed to work. I hope it won't happen again...
WindPower wrote:
Added full size/time prediction on downloads. The sound files are usually so small and takes seconds to download so I didn't think it would be necessary...
Say this. My Internet is 32 KB/s, my file is 453 KB. So it takes several seconds.
But for most of you, your Internet is >512 KB/s, and that would mean it would take less than a second.
WindPower wrote:
The text-to-speech tool used sucks a bit on punctuation indeed. I recommend using commas instead of periods, they seem to provide longer pauses most of the time for some reason; or you can add pauses yourself in a sound editor. In any case, this thing isn't the best for mapmaking, you'll get a better result if you use the AT&T Crystal voice with a pitch that you can adjust yourself. This thing just adds the same pitch regardless of how good or bad it sounds. Maybe I should make it use the Crystal voice instead... That's an interesting idea, but would lengthen synth time, obviously.
Well, I found out that with the same message with Crystal, Melodyne won't detect pitch and the results are sh-t.
Mek wrote:
Hmm, I wanted to try generating a message "Please, don't do that!" a hour ago and nothing... it shows the message is still in the queue.
Are "Budete o chvilu mrtvy." and "lubim ta mojko" also by you?
ASBusinessMagnet wrote:
Are "Budete o chvilu mrtvy." and "lubim ta mojko" also by you?
No 
but I am surprised that someone wrote something in Slovak
//edit: heh now there is "ahoj ja sa volm Diana" but the page has incorrect encoding so the character "?" is garbled
Anyway, it looks like the system isn't running as messages are added to queue but not processed.
Mek wrote:
as messages are added to queue but not processed.
They are. Look again.
Mek wrote:
"Don-tea do that"
Like I said, the TTS program this generator uses is flawed.
ASBusinessMagnet wrote:
At least it said "You are epic gay" right.
The grin after that makes me worry just a little bit.