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Speech recognition technology allows the user of any software application including PC and video games to control the application by means of direct speech commands. This eliminates an annoying necessity to search for proper menu buttons and options while playing. The player just says the command for its immediate execution while his/ her eyes don't have to leave an action. In addition Speereo's speech engine provides players with the ability to use their voice to communicate with the characters, making the game fully interactive and immersing. It consumes no system resources during the gameplay.
Speereo's proprietary speech recognition system is speaker-independent and provides an exceptional level of speech recognition accuracy even in the high ambient noise environment that can be easily revealed upon testing.
We believe speech interface can be efficiently applied in the games of all styles to make the game more entertaining and easier controllable.
It enables the developers to realize innovative ideas creating advanced gameplay with simple and natural interface.
RTS
Tactical Combat/Simulations
RPG/Adventures
Technology
Speereo™ Speech Engine
Contact
RTS
Using speech control in RTS you can choose a unit or a group of units, target or destination by clicking on it and then choose the type of action from the speech commands list.
Say: "surround", "attack", "guard", "repair".
Your eyes don't have to leave an action for the search of a proper menu button.
Likewise, there is no need to mark the destination when it is obvious.
For instance, you give an order to the unit: "Get to N base!" (name the appropriate base), "Guard the Tank plant" or "To the nearest repair box", while controlling other units by mouse at the same time.
Also you can name the group of units and command: "Yellow Squad, attack" without spending time on selecting the unit. It could be useful when the big battle goes on, the units move to different directions and you just have no enough arms to control all the units by mouse.
Unit's selection is another good opportunity. For example: the column of land and air defense units is attacked by enemy air force.
In this case you must choose the proper units and the targets very quickly. With voice control you just have to click on the target and command: "Air defense! Fire!"
In current games you may just move the unit to the destination point by clicking.
With speech recognition you click the unit and destination and choose the manner of movement from the speech command list. For example: "Move!", "Move quickly!", "Sneak", "Scout", etc.
The combination of mouse and voice control will, undoubtedly, diversify the tactics and make the game even more entertaining at simple speech interface.
Another example: using voice control you may not just order to destroy an enemy unit but say: "Come closer and attack!" (for more effective fire), "Attack from a safe distance!", "Stay and fire!" (let the enemy come closer)
You can also choose the type of shells from the speech commands set.
SR provides one more good opportunity:
you can give real or fantastic names to every group of units to control them by voice.
Imagine, how fine it would be in the heat of a battle just to click on the enemy headquarters and command: "Alpha Squad! Destroy them!"
Also you could use voice commands to select unit.s special abilities.
Say "special weapon" and it will select that option that is useful.
Same thing goes for "hold fire", "return fire", and "fire at will".
Another innovation is that the units can be divided into parts and controlled by voice. For example, you may say: "Split working units into 3 parts". And give voice command to every group to collect needed resources, to create/repair the buildings, to fortify.
The same thing goes for combat units. Split them into parts and command: "First group, move there", "Second group -there" (just mark the destination).
Voice control allows to implement the tactics that cannot be implemented in current mouse controlled RTS. This helps the games to evolve.
Voice control will not eliminate other controls. But it could be efficient combination to diversify the gameplay at simple interface.
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Tactical Combat / Simulations
In tactical combat speech recognition may be used for orders entry.
Say: "Attack", "Hold fire", "Fire at will", etc.,
Select the groups of units to control them by voice.
Say: "Red Squad, attack" (just click on destination).
Make different types of formations (Column, Wedge, Vee, Line, etc.), point direction/distance (for example, say: "2000 north"), select vehicle types and objects, select types of weapon, emulate radio communication (say: Ready to fire, Need fuel, Can't get there, etc.)
For the on-line players it would be rather convenient to have an additional opportunity to communicate with the help of gestures.
This feature could be really helpful for coordination of the players actions during on-line game.
But if this opportunity is realized just by using the keyboard, it.s not very convenient for the player as his hands are permanently busy and he can get defenseless while using the keyboard for communication.
Therefore it might be more conveniently and naturally to use speech for communication between the players of the same team, i.e. to convert the phrases said to the companions into gestures produced by the screen characters.
As the number of understandable gestures used during the combat is limited, all of them could be related with speech commands.
For example:
voice command "from the left!" means indicating gesture to the left , "from the right!" - indicating gesture to the right, "in front"- indicating gesture,
Say:
"watch the N1","nobody is here", "come together", "two opponents", "cover me", "sniper is up on the left", "I'm going ahead", "wait me here", "follow me", "lets go in", "heal me", "need a help?", and so on.
The list of recognizable words and phrases may be extended to 200.
All the phrases can be identically converted into gestures.
Speech commands will be recognized on the player's machine and then converted into movement/gesture codes.
The advantages of speech interface are the following:
- No need to use hands for tapping the keys.
- The sniper can warn his mate without watching interruption.
- The number of voice commands exceeds the number of keys.
- Doesn't reject other ways of data entry.
In addition to gestures speech interface can be used for emulation of radio communication between the companions by means of headsets. Simple commands, requests and names can be recognized by speech engine and played back to the other players of the same team.
The number of commands/phrases can be ranging from 100 to 200.
The recognizable voice command is being converted into the digit/number and transferred to the companions machines to activate audio file.
This can be any one of the voice samples selected by the user. This kind of speech command transmission is much faster than the same of compressed human voice.
At additional speech emulation switching between the modes can be realized by means of voice command as well as by means of keyboard.
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RPG / Adventures
In this kind of games character.s movement is controlled by mouse.
But during the action (e.g. before the fighting) the player can pronounce the spells or ask for some facilities (special abilities) to protect himself or his companions.
The characters. skills can be driven by voice. The modes (defense, attack, neutral) can be switched by voice as well.
The panes and inventory box could be also controlled by voice. It means that the player can change the weapon or use different items with the help of voice commands without spending time on clicking. For example, you may ask for the most powerful weapon you have earned for the last quest.
The quick items and disciplines also could be selected and used by voice.
You also can ask about character.s status or how does he feel at the moment.
You can control the character's movement during the action giving voice commands to pick up certain artifact, to reach the selected object, target or destination, etc. Just say "rush", "repair", "unlock", etc.
The group of followers also can be controlled by voice.
You can ask them about the situation and correspondingly change the style of their behavior.
And, of course, the dialog between the gamer and non-players could be realized by means of speech recognition.
For example, if you give a proper response you are entitled to proceed or to get what you need.
Also when you get to the shop you may ask the merchant to sell something.
Natural communication with the characters allows the player to get deeply immersed into the action.
No more annoying necessity to look for proper menu options.
Natural speech communication brings you an unparalleled feeling of immersion into fantasy world!
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Technology
Speereo's technology differs radically from other systems in the market and offers users many unique advantages, as outlined below.
- Exceptional level of recognition accuracy (99.9%)
- A large vocabulary of words and phrases.
- No need to learn individual speaking styles or dialects.
- An intelligent system that can deal with multiple command formats and wordings.
- Easy to use.
- Capable of operating in a high ambient noise environment.
- A very economical price.
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Speereo™ Speech Engine (SSE) key features:
- On PIII600 processor recognition of 100 words takes 0.1 sec.
- The recognition latency depends on the number of phrases (alternatives)
that must be recognized simultaneously (but not on the volume of the whole
vocabulary).
- There is a simple API enabling an interaction between SSE and your software.
SSE with a vocabulary of 100.000 words takes about 6Mb RAM (100 words and
phrases takes 1.5 Mb).
- Recommended sampling frequency of voice is 16 kHz (minimum 11 kHz).
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Contact
If you are interested in collaboration please contact us at:
spr-feedback@speereo.com
Tel. +7 (812) 324 86 35
Fax. +7 (812) 327 44 55
You may download Speereo speech products at:
http://www.speereo.com/Download/download.php
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