With the ringing in of the New Year it is once again time to recap the Top 5 blog posts from 2011, click on any of the below links for the full entry. Happy New Year to everyone!
In an article featured in the August 2011 issue of Military Training Technology the magazine asked, “What role(s) will your company best fill as the United States military turns more to the use of serious gaming in an effort to reduce the military’s training costs while maintaining the combat readiness of the warfighter?”
Virtual Worlds for the Defense Sector
The Department of Defense has been in the news on a number of occurrences in past months highlighting the use of virtual worlds by the organization. They are utilizing virtual worlds for a host of different applications, one of which deals with post-traumatic stress in our soldiers, see this story for more details. This project is called The T2 Virtual PTSD Experience and is based in Second Life. By being based in Second Life it does allow an extra layer of interactivity as the player/ trainee is able to interact with anyone else that is experiencing the simulation. It just goes to show that the immersive nature of virtual worlds make them a prime candidate for this type of training and much more!
The blog post title may have you scratching the top of your head a little bit…The “Uncanny Valley” is a phenomenon that leads to a reaction from an all ‘but-not-quite-right’ simulated human form, whether it be robotic or animated. The term was invented by roboticist Masahiro Mori to depict the negative emotional response ‘real’ humans exhibit when a robot (avatar) seems practically human. Appearance and action are the two biggest factors that could potentially lead to this phenomenon playing out while one is immersed in a virtual world. Thus the overall quality of the avatar is paramount in any type of training simulation, the worst thing you can do is lead the player to possess detachment from the training. The human brain never ceases to amaze me.
Elearning! Magazine recently came out with a report on Virtual Learning Environments: Trends and Insights. The report outlined that virtual learning environments are one of the fastest growing solutions for learning. According to the report “In a June 2010 study conducted by Elearning! Media Group, 64 percent of all corporate respondents have implemented virtual learning within their organizations, and 18 percent more plan to add them. The same study reports virtual worlds for learning will grow 250 percent over the next year to 21 percent of enterprises. At the same time, social learning and collaboration is exploding, with 77 percent of enterprise using or planning to use these tools for learning.” Let me summarize that for you in case you weren’t paying attention…64 percent of respondents have implemented virtual learning within their organizations!
An often-overlooked critical aspect of simulation training is the best manner in which to train: individual or collectively. Visual Purple offers three modes:
1) Single Player, Single Role – The trainee will always play one role; synchronous interaction with live players not supported or desirable due to intelligent simulation world.
Available: Decision-Based, Virtual World, Hybrid, Embedded
Visual Purple was just recognized as a Top Training and Simulation Company for 2011 by Military Training Technology. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Visual Purple has made the list. MT2 publishes the list each year, with the winners selected by an impartial panel of judges from a highly competitive group of companies. A variety of criteria’s form the basis for selection, including total military sales volume, and overall program effectiveness. The winning companies from around the world are recognized as making a significant impact on the military training industry across the spectrum of technologies and services. We are very honored to once again be named a Top Training and Simulation Company for 2011.
We’ve been working behind the scenes updating our website to a more simplified format, although we thought Flash was pretty cool we decided it was time for a fresh website look to mirror our expanding hat trick of capabilities. We have some interesting projects with new technology in play that we’ll be announcing in the near future and the re-design of the website is an important step in the process. Click here to take a look around.
With the new site design we have also highlighted the newest training type that we offer called “Hybrid Simulations”. We are also excited to show off the latest and greatest technology that we offer, called “F.I.S.T” which stands for FloChart Integration System Technology.
By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.
Continuing with our vlog ‘how-to’ series called, ‘Emulating Human Voice-overs with TTS Voices’ we now offer this newer presentation, suffixed as ‘Part Three’. We recommend that you review Part One and Part Two first but that is not necessarily a requirement. For this exercise we snipped out a small piece from one of our past projects. Unlike the premise of Part 2, where you learned to sync a TTS voice to a human voice-actor, this video tutorial will focus on the tactics of humanizing synthetic voice-clips with added detail. Today’s presentation does not only reinforce the techniques discussed in Part 1 and Part 2, but will show how to set the talk-pace to improve the phrasings and expressions of synthetic voices. And the concept of formant manipulation is introduced as well. Disclaimer: these are helpful tips, but generalized. Not all editing tools or TTS engines respond to specific techniques that you might try in the very same way. Mainly, just try to grasp the concepts, then adapt your technique to idiosyncrasies of your chosen tools.
The How-To-Humanize your TTS Clips exhibit (Exhibit Part 3). A follow-up on VO elements originally presented in Part 2’s vlog. This time, we introduce Formant handling.
As always check back in for more on this topic and other fun and useful information!
By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.
Since there was great interest in a blog entry last Fall called, ‘Emulating Human Voice-overs with TTS Voices’ I have elected to present those lessons as a Vlog, and so it makes sense that we give this newer presentation the same title, but suffixed with ‘Part Two’. We recommend that you review Part One’s scenario before you proceed (to do so, click here) but doing so doesn’t have to be a requirement. For this exercise we snipped out a small piece from Part One’s cut-scene where there were several actors in the cast, but there is only one actor dealt with in this clip. Recall that the premise is that your project’s budget can afford only one human voice-actor. So, you’ve recorded your one human voice actor doing each role of the entire cast. This video tutorial will show the techniques discussed in Part One. Learn how to sync synthetic voices to the phrasings and expressions of your human model. Disclaimer: these are helpful tips, but generalized. Not all editing tools or TTS engines respond to specific techniques that you might try in the very same way. Mainly, just try to grasp the concepts, then adapt your technique to idiosyncrasies of your chosen tools.
Sound effects were mentioned in Part One, but that discussion will need to wait for a future vlog. Music was mentioned also, but we cover music in other vlogs, so be sure to look for those as well.
(Ex. Part 2) The How-To-Create synchronize TTS to Human Model exhibit. A Vlog on how we developed the VO elements originally presented in Part 1.
As always check back in for more on this topic and other fun and useful information!
By Rudy Helm, Audio and Quality Assurance Tech, Visual Purple, LLC.
This is to fulfill my promise to describe how we were able to develop that functional, copyright free, royalty free, original music that we showcased within the video that we presented in Part 3. Click here for a review of that video, as it is essentially prerequisite viewing to get the most from this article’s tutorial. Yes, this video-blog contains the bona fide instructional ‘how-to’. That is — a fun, informational video show-and-tell regarding the background music-making tool and processes involved with the production in the Part 3 exhibit.
Recall that Exhibit Part 3, embodied a variety of musical styles. In this latest video, Exhibit Part 4, animated avatars will act as both your tour guide and mentors. Also remember that we had promised to discuss the usage of the music tool, with emphasis on reinforcing ‘the 1-4-5 principle’ (we initially introduced that here). But today…well, with this video you can see that principle in action.
We think you will enjoy this. Please don’t hesitate to send us feedback!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UTjeCRDSb8
The How-To-Create BGM exhibit (Exhibit Part 4). Learn how we developed the musical elements originally presented in Exhibit Part 3.
With the virtual world phenomena of recent years and the oh so many virtual world platforms on the market today, what’s the right choice for an organization? License technology and build? Buy a generic off-the-shelf product? Or, pay for a customized solution? Well there is no clear cut right answer here; it is all dependent upon the individual situation. Here are a few things to keep in mind…
1) You know the old saying – “Build it and they will come.” Well first off if you go the route of purchasing technology to build an in-house vw solution, you are buying the technology but not necessarily all of the components to build a full vw simulation. When Visual Purple licenses technology our philosophy is not to hand over the reins and say “here’s the technology, have fun learning how to use it.” Rather we provide training to all core team members on how to use our technology and offer the full gamut of tech support throughout the entire build and implementation processes.
2) Purchasing a generic platform. Let’s buy a license to Second Life and build the training. Well that sounds all fine and dandy but you still have to come up with the assets to place in your plain vanilla world and have a means to control those assets unless you are prepared to have ALL training proctored or “fat fingered” by real people: that costs real dollars every time someone needs to be trained. Not to mention what’s the purpose of the vw? With both of the above listed options there is no clear cut path on building the training material and implementing it. Moreover, there does not yet exist commercially available authoring tools to create true simulations in SL. Although a certain level of customization is available is it all worth the time and manpower and persistent costs to keep trainers in the loop?
3) Onto the customized virtual world solution route. You supply the Subject Matter Experts and content you want the vw sim created around, a timeline is defined and the work gets done. You end up with a real vw sim that costs less to build than traditional e-learning or CBT and saves you money from day one over any other solution. Collaborative, asynchronous or both…hmmm, why wouldn’t you go this route?!
So there you have it, three pragmatic options when considering virtual world platforms and real world approaches to training. Keep in mind this is just a brief overview without getting into all of the nuts and bolts.
Active in a number of key simulation and training markets, Visual Purple offers you the possibility to change the way people train, through its state-of-the-art technology platforms in Virtual Worlds, Embedded Training and Decision-Based Simulations. Learn more...
