Pleo's voice

[Siren]

I am curious about Pleo's voice. Did they hire a voice actor or is his voice a combination of several people?

And any idea of the range of his speech. As in, how many individual sounds total? From normal "talking" to reaction noises (sneeze, sniff, cough)

[BauerMECH]

As in, how many individual sounds total?
There are over 400.

[brian55127]

There are over 400.

Wow! How do you know so much about pleo's specs BauerMech? Do you know how much internal memory is in pleo and what speed processor he's using? How did they cram so many sound samples in? Is it possible to customize and/or to add to pleo's sound library so that he will use more sounds that you like and less of ones you don't like? Personally I love the little cooing sounds he makes and the more cat-like purring noises, but I don't like the dog-like panting as much.

[BauerMECH]

The audio files are very small… most are only one second in length, and all are sampled in 8-bit mono. At the very least, you could shadow the sounds you like to hear most often over the sounds you don't like to hear as much.

I'm sorry - It's unclear what I'm actually allowed to say. I don't work for UGOBE per say, but am a participant of a very small alpha developer team. I was given certain permissions, but also believe it unfair to the UGOBE developers in Idaho if I start revealing things. They've all been working very hard to bring Pleo to life, and I wouldn’t dream of making light of all that work.

[Siren]

Thanks BauerMECH!

[brian55127]

The audio files are very small… most are only one second in length, and all are sampled in 8-bit mono. At the very least, you could shadow the sounds you like to hear most often over the sounds you don't like to hear as much.

I'm sorry - It's unclear what I'm actually allowed to say. I don't work for UGOBE per say, but am a participant of a very small alpha developer team. I was given certain permissions, but also believe it unfair to the UGOBE developers in Idaho if I start revealing things. They've all been working very hard to bring Pleo to life, and I wouldn’t dream of making light of all that work.

OK thanks BauerMech. Maybe when the SDK is released to the public more will be revealed?
Did not know there were both developers in Idaho AND California! :)

[PleoPet]

(FWIW: I'm not under NDA)
> How did they cram so many sound samples in?
The released personality has about 2MB of audio (397 sound 'files').
Most is 11kHz ADPCM compressed audio (ie. 4bits per sample). That's about 6 minutes total.
BTW: About 1MB of motions (375 motion 'files') and a few other things. They are also small individually, but they add up.

The Pleo has an internal 4MB data store for storing the personality (sound, motion, Pawn code, etc). It is swapped into memory as needed. Larger personalities are possible from SD card.
The main CPU only has 64KB of RAM (killo-bytes), and 256KB of Flash ROM (for the main firmware). The camera/audio CPU is even smaller. They've done a great job cramming a lot of functionality into a relatively small space.

[Lu Bu]

Pleo's voice also gets deeper as he matures. The processor he has is 2 32-bit ARM7 Processors for digital imaging and 4 8-bit Processors for motor control. I do agree that 400 sounds are ALOT, even if they are under a second.

[UgobeTyler]

To answer the original question: Pleos voice was done by one voice actor. Not sure if I can say who though. Would make a nice contest though... :-)

Later,
Tyler

[brian55127]

To answer the original question: Pleos voice was done by one voice actor. Not sure if I can say who though. Would make a nice contest though... :-)

Later,
Tyler

Cool pleo was voiced by one actor? Can you tell if it was a human or other animal? Some of the sounds sound like it could be from a baby.

[roschler]

Cool pleo was voiced by one actor? Can you tell if it was a human or other animal? Some of the sounds sound like it could be from a baby.

It was a human. A friend of Caleb's who is a professional actor.

[eric]

lol maybe he or she did the furby too! lol

[Lu Bu]

Remember, with today's technology, you can edit sound files and the way they sound. For example, rubbing resin on the violin strings or horse hair can be edited to sound like a dinosaur.

[crawshanty]

Somewhere (Engadget?) it was mentioned as sounding like Tim Allen. Is that who it is?

[pleoguy101]

pleos voice is done by an actor?? a famous one, or a ventriliquist?? ( dont think I spelt that right) I have learned to mimic many of pleos sounds:D I'm very weird:D I can do all kinds of weird noises.. some sound like dinosaurs:) pleo is rubbing off on me, a few days ago I tried opening a cabenit door using my head LOL:D!!!

[Micresendo]

I think it's Howie Mandel's voice! From what I can tell only from You Tube videos, because my Pleo hasn't arrive yet, Pleo kinda sounds like Gizmo from the movie Gremlins. What do yall think?

[smile4wandini]

:rolleyes:
I have only had my Pleo for a few days and I am already hearing my Husband make some of the same sounds!
How Funny is that? But funnier was that I answered him back with a little song!
SMILE4wandini ; )

[Siren]

Frank Welker also comes to mind. The man is a master voice actor. He's been in at least 90 movies. As well as probably over 100 tv shows and commercials. Not sure if he voiced Pleo. But he is proof you don't need a computer to edit a voice to make it sound more natural.

[fancyfont]

It is the sounds that make Pleo so special.:)

[sarusani]

If it's an actor and a good friend of Chung it has to be Gary Schwartz! :)

Maybe anybody remembers SCHWARTZ & CHUNG "the clean cut kings of kids comedy"?

[Allosaurus]

I think when I get older I could be a voice actor for a life form! I can imitate most of Pleos sounds, different animals, almost all Pokemon, and I can make strange alien sounds! And I can also just make plain dino sounds. :)