Sunday, October 27, 2013

Voice Commands in Arma 3: Soldier, patch yourself up!

As a squad leader, 'Soldier patch yourself up' is the command you give to your injured squad member (AI) to have him treat himself. One of the cool things you can do with GlovePIE in Arma 3.





This video demonstrates issuing 'heal command' aka 'treat yourself' command to members of your squad (AI) using Glove Advanced Voice Commands.


To understand better, we must first look into how we give a 'treat yourself' command to AI in Arma 3. There are two ways to do that:

1) Referring to the squad icon on the bottom-left portion of the screen to know which member is injured, you have to press the corresponding F key (F2 to F10), aim at or point to the injured soldier then watch for a menu to appear at the left upper portion of your screen. Once you see the menu, a 'Treat self' option is then available. Highlight that option then finally, hit the Spacebar of your keyboard.


The selected injured soldier would then patch himself up. This particular portion of the video demonstrates what I mean.



2) Another commonly used method is via the Action menu. Unlike the first option described above, this does not require you to aim at the injured soldier. Again, referring to the squad icons at the bottom-left portion of the screen, determine which member is injured, press the corresponding F key then press number 6 button of your keyboard to bring up the Action menu which would appear on the upper left corner. You would then notice a 'Treat yourself' option on the menu. The number prior to that option can be used to quickly execute the command using your keyboard, no need to highlight the option and hit Spacebar.


Therefore, the keys used to have soldier 3 patch himself up are F3 6 1. This particular portion of the video explains this method.




Now here's how its done with GlovePIE.
Looking at the squad icons on the bottom-left portion of the screen, determine which member is injured. Let's say for example soldier 6 is injured, then just say 'Soldier 6 patch yourself up'. That easy! This portion of the video explains what I mean.


No need to point at soldier 6 or wait for the 'Treat self' option  to come up in the command menu. No need also to use the Action menu of selected soldier. Just determine the injured squad member's number then say 'Soldier X patch yourselft up'. X being the soldier number indicated in the squad icons on the left lower portion of the screen.




So, why use GlovePIE?
Voice commands / voice recogniton / voice control in ArmA 3 using GlovePIE and voice_com addon can accomplish a lot of things. Things you can do with this setup can be summarized into two categories:


(1) BASIC commands for player (yourself) or squad (AIs, NPCs)

- Commands like change view, kneel, stand up, go prone, open watch, open map, assign team, mount vehicle, disembark, engage target, open fire, hold fire, watch direction, copy stance, etcetera.

- Of course, those basic commands above can also be programmed in other 3rd-party voice recognition softwares like PiLfluS, Shoot, VAC or Windows Speech Recognition Macros. A walk in the park task.


- What happens here is that GlovePIE translates your voice command/s to the corresponding key bindings. For instance, when you say "squad", GlovePIE would press for you the "~" key (tilde key) which by default would select all members of your squad.

- Another example is when you say "two" "three" "return to formation", GlovePIE would press in consecutive order the following keys: F2  F3  1  1. Those examples are dependent on the default game key bindings. GlovePIE clicks them for you when you issue a command. The voice commands can be programmed to your own liking. So, instead of saying "squad", you could use "all" or "guys listen up" or whatever phrase you desire and the end result would still press key "~".


Check this link for the write-up and video about how basic GlovePIE voice commands in Arma 3 work.





For a list of Arma 3 key assignments, check out this link. Thanks to alpha-kilo.
http://tinyurl.com/nyh4agh

Here's a video from Royal Gamers UK demonstrating squad commands in Arma 3 using GlovePIE:
http://youtu.be/xWIfB-aM7h4

Reddit discussion:
http://redd.it/1i04oz




(2) ADVANCED commands for player (yourself) or squad (AIs, NPCs)

- Adding or removing your own/your squad member's rifle attachments such as optics, flashlight and suppressors, adding or removing clothes/ uniforms, commands for player or squad invincibility, adding (spawning) any weapon, ammo, vehicle, item in ArmA 3 or from ArmA 2 (thru AiA), time and weather manipulation, calling artillery strikes, moving to specific map location, etc.

- Now, this is something unique since there is no in-game menu or dialog interaction involved, no keyboard shortcuts pressed. Just use your voice. To each his own. This setup is not dependent on injectors, cheat menu or hack menu found elsewhere on the internet.


So...

If you need a Glock, then just say "add Glock"
Want a AMV-7 Marshall? Just say "add Marshall"
Need a ARCO optics for your rifle? Just say "add A R C O"
To add 2 hours to current time, just say "add two hours"
To call artillery strike at designated map location, just say "artillery"
To order your squad to fire at specific target, just point and say "target that"

... and so on and so forth.


Very easy to use. I haven't seen a video on YouTube using similar approach. I could be wrong though.


Wish Bohemia Interactive devs integrated some sort of voice recognition feature in Arma 3 for us who love to say what we want in game. Of course, not all commands of the not-so-basic stuff like weapon and vehicle spawning, calling for artillery or nuke strike, weather and time manipulation can be added to the proposed feature but I think adding voice recognition support for basic AI/squad commands is plausible. I believe that it adds realistic immersion to the already awesome game that is Arma 3. One could just say 'Two, gunner get in that chopper' instead of pressing the equivalent key bindings.


Wishful thinking? Who knows, the devs might give it a go. Vote up!
http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=2843



Files featured here are for personal use only. Video shared on YouTube just so you know something like this exists. Videos or it never happened!


Thanks for dropping by. Voice commands and Arma 3 rocks!


USEFUL LINKS

ArmA 3
http://www.arma3.com


GlovePIE 0.45 Free
http://glovepie.org/glovepie_download.php


How To Use GlovePIE Voice Commands in Arma 3
http://voicecommands.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-to-use-glovepie-voice-commands-in.html