Dev Blog #78: Generative Technology

[LukeFF]

Generative technologies are a powerful tool, but without a skilled creator, they cannot produce something truly beautiful.

Today, we will talk about our approach to this tool and how we use it in Korea. IL-2 Series.

Read more on the official website - https://media.il2-korea.com/news/dd_78

[Aapje]

Are the voice-over lines generated offline and added to the game, or is the model inside the game and the voices generated during play?

[Avimimus]

Considering the devs are training their own engine - I wonder if it'd be possible to someday get 1940s accents / radio-intonations? If I recall correctly there were some efforts made to speak over the radios in ways that would come through clearly in spite of the technological difficulties.

British 'sang-froid' mode? I've sometimes wondered if one of these recordings was a propaganda piece (recorded outside of combat, if not on a sound stage)... however, I doubt all of the recordings are - and in any case, it gives some idea of what contemporaries thought it should sound like:

 

[Lofte]

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

Are the voice-over lines generated offline and added to the game, or is the model inside the game and the voices generated during play?

Ask the question more deeply. Ask what percentage of Korea is made with vibe coding )

[Drewm3i-VR]

Very cool! I hope some of this can/will be back-ported to Great Battles, or that a remastered version will be made someday!

[AndreiTomescu]

Read the blog throughly.  It says:

"enabled us to create text-to-voice models in 11 languages, four of which will be used in Korea and five more in future projects "

Korea: Korean, English, Russian, Chinese, right?

Five more? what could they be?

Let's say:

1. Japanese?

2. German?

3. Italian?

4. French?

5. Dutch?

Dunno, but this slip of info shows the new engine is posed for great plans in the future. Provided, of course, the game sells well.

I really hope that, once the sim will launch, the core gamers will find the strength to focus on the good aspects of it. Which are plenty , imho. Thx LuftManu & Enigma for this.

So far, the active community has been, imho, too much focused on the potential/actual shortcomings. 

As Enigma said, "there is no perfect game".

This team, the devs, put alot of effort into expanding the air war sim world into this age. New incredible graphics, the use of AI, damage models like none before, the expansion of career into the ream of strategy, a new war zone, and sooo much more. Asked about the plane's AI , they said : il will be improving/developed in the future. They were honest.

I, personally, would give them more credit and appreciation, and I do, so: thank you, gentlemen, for all you've done so far. Can't wait to see your endeavour at work.

And I'm sure that the results of the "work in progress" will be seen still years to come.

 

 

Edited June 24 by AndreiTomescu
the missing link :)

[BlitzPig_EL]

Number 5: Dutch.  As in Netherlands East Indies.

[Big-Al]

I really like the open approach to this topic. People will always have different opinions about this, and I largely agree that AI should be something carefully used and the idea with character cards & voice lines is really good. I hope that, with the expanded voice command system, will bring some new form of immersion into the game. I'm really interested to see how it will play out. 

[Aapje]

Filipino, Malay, UK English, US English.

[Jaegermeister]

On 6/23/2026 at 1:44 PM, Aapje said:

Are the voice-over lines generated offline and added to the game, or is the model inside the game and the voices generated during play?

The voices are generated in game. You type the message into a text field in the advanced properties of an MCU similar to a complex trigger, and when you activate the MCU, the speech can be generated in a manner similar to a media player with recorded voice tracks. You would then need to deactivate the Voice Message MCU after it ends so that it does not interfere with other triggers. The voice messages can also be activated with scripted triggers, but that's a different topic.

You will be able to select from different voice options, and you can display a localized subtitle at the same time to repeat the verbal message on screen if you like. I believe the text to voice is then localized to the language of the player, but I'm not sure about that yet. That would of course be limited to the supported languages, and is managed through the .mission text files just like in GB.

I do not know exactly which languages will be included in this feature for Early Access, but I think you can count on English and Russian for sure.

For those that have not put much thought into this, it is a very powerful tool that changes how missions will be designed. As the options are expanded, it will replace on screen messages and the player will follow voice directions from various sources over the radio just as it was in real life. 

[Aapje]

7 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

The voice messages can also be activated with scripted triggers, but that's a different topic.

That is going to be awesome for campaigns! I played one campaign (Les Chevaliers du Normandie) for GB about a French unit that flew for the Russians, and they tried to put in French audio, but it was a bit of a mess. It played together with the standard Russian audio (which you were supposed to mute manually during mission start) and it also interfered heavily with the 8x speed option in the game.

[AndreiTomescu]

There are several campaigns with quite decent custom audio. But very, very hard work is.....

This new feature is great, actually incredibly great. Will bring huge immersion, without the enormous workload required .

Long live the dev team.

[Jaegermeister]

4 hours ago, Aapje said:

That is going to be awesome for campaigns! I played one campaign (Les Chevaliers du Normandie) for GB about a French unit that flew for the Russians, and they tried to put in French audio, but it was a bit of a mess. It played together with the standard Russian audio (which you were supposed to mute manually during mission start) and it also interfered heavily with the 8x speed option in the game.

When you play voice tracks you have to be careful not to trigger them at the same time as another message generated by other mission triggers. They will play over each other and that still applies. As an example, there is an automatic message when an attack command is triggered “search for ground targets in your own” or whatever. You would need to wait 4 or 5 seconds to trigger a text to voice message or it will cut off the other message.

[Aapje]

1 hour ago, Jaegermeister said:

As an example, there is an automatic message when an attack command is triggered “search for ground targets in your own” or whatever.

Ideally, it should be possible to override or disable the automatic messages, so it either plays what the mission designer chooses or nothing.

I've also been thinking that the new generated voices could allow different pilots and airfields to have distinct voices, which would be really cool. I wonder how difficult and costly it is to create a new model.

Of course, the upside of the chosen solution is also that if better AI models come available in a few years, they can upgrade the comm voices relatively easily.

[Jaegermeister]

7 hours ago, Aapje said:

Ideally, it should be possible to override or disable the automatic messages, so it either plays what the mission designer chooses or nothing.

That may happen if new features are added. The "Force Complete" command has already had the "Rejoin Formation and return to the mission" voice message deleted which I think is a good idea.

7 hours ago, Aapje said:

I've also been thinking that the new generated voices could allow different pilots and airfields to have distinct voices, which would be really cool. 

That is already available.

7 hours ago, Aapje said:

Of course, the upside of the chosen solution is also that if better AI models come available in a few years, they can upgrade the comm voices relatively easily.

My Impression is that they are still improving the voices. It's a process, hence the "Work in Progress" banner on the screen.

Edited June 26 by Jaegermeister

[KC23]

I found this article interesting. When I read an article like that I try to determine the motive of the article. What is the point of the article? I didn't study the article, but it felt like a "this is why our in-game voices sound lame". The English voices do sound uninspired and dry. Do they add to the gaming experience or does it take away from the experience? You need something, but they take a significant immerision away from the game. The article is to point out that there are too many different contexts that the computer response has to respond to and to cover how to examine the context would drive the cost of the game coding through the roof.

[Aapje]

I think that the main motive is to prevent people from figuring it out later on, and then getting very angry at not being told, since some people feel very strongly about it.

So this way they got ahead of the issue.

I also think that this will payoff over time, as it will make it far easier to add more languages, add more voice lines (including custom ones for campaigns), and improve the voices over time. 

[[I.B.]-=ViRUS=-]

18 часов назад, KC23 сказал:

The English voices do sound uninspired and dry.

As a russian speaker I can say that russian voices are dry too. That's a current iteration of generative AI. I think korean and chinese people might say the same about versions of chatter on their languages. You can only wait now when devs improve AI voicelines in future.

[=ILS=_Abu_27]

作为一个汉语言使用者，我对能有游戏愿意为中文语音进行适配的行为感到由衷的感谢，中文市场是一个巨大的市场，但是从中文到汉语音都很少被游戏厂商所支持重视。 我觉得目前的语音ai解决的是0到1的问题，还不到讨论他是否好听或者有真实感的问题，感谢游戏开发者的努力，我们乐于见到一切进步的结果，加油干！

As a Chinese language user, I sincerely appreciate the effort of game developers in adapting their products for Chinese voice support. The Chinese market is vast, yet game studios rarely prioritize or adequately support Chinese and Hanzi voice features. I believe current AI voice solutions are addressing the foundational issue of getting from zero to one—there's still no need to debate whether they sound pleasant or feel authentic. We deeply value the developers' hard work and are delighted to witness every step of progress. Keep pushing forward!

Edited June 29 by =ILS=_Abu_27

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, =ILS=_Abu_27 said:

The Chinese market is vast, yet game studios rarely prioritize or adequately support Chinese and Hanzi voice features. 

I'm pretty sure that these Chinese voices are not added to please Chinese flight simmers, but to provide 'flavor' for all flight simmers that use the game, including those that don't understand Mandarin.

My strong impression is that flight simming is extremely unpopular in China, and that much smaller countries like Belgium have way more flight simmers.

Developing a market that so far has very little interest in a product category is way more difficult than simply catering to already interested consumers, and is not really something that a small company 1CGS can be expected to do. 

[=ILS=_Abu_27]

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

我很确定这些中文配音不是为了取悦中国飞行模拟玩家，而是为了给所有使用这款游戏的飞行模拟玩家，包括那些不懂普通话的人，提供“风味”。

我强烈的印象是，飞行模拟在中国非常不受欢迎，而像比利时这样小得多的国家有更多的飞行模拟玩家。

开发一个目前对某一产品类别兴趣极低的市场，比单纯迎合已经感兴趣的消费者要困难得多，这也不是1CGS一家小型公司能做的事。

过于刻板了，比利时有多少il2gb玩家？  有什么知名联队可以告知以便参考吗？  东八区晚9点至12点期间，中国籍玩家占服务器的三分之一。每次taw服务开服的时候，中国玩家的联队都是人数在前五以内的规模，这很少吗？ 不过我并不指望中文语音需要取悦我们，我说了这是有与没有的问腿，而我是支持它的。

[Lofte]

27 minutes ago, =ILS=_Abu_27 said:

过于刻板了，比利时有多少il2gb玩家？  有什么知名联队可以告知以便参考吗？  东八区晚9点至12点期间，中国籍玩家占服务器的三分之一。每次taw服务开服的时候，中国玩家的联队都是人数在前五以内的规模，这很少吗？ 不过我并不指望中文语音需要取悦我们，我说了这是有与没有的问腿，而我是支持它的。

что, всё так плохо?)

[Aapje]

3 hours ago, =ILS=_Abu_27 said:

That's too stereotypical.

I mean, I never see them, aside from you now. Perhaps they just just themselves from me.

[=ILS=_Abu_27]

11 minutes ago, Aapje said:

I mean, I never see them, aside from you now. Perhaps they just just themselves from me.

need same timezone , or u come to taw server maybe

[Dash,Polder]

7 hours ago, Aapje said:

I'm pretty sure that these Chinese voices are not added to please Chinese flight simmers, but to provide 'flavor' for all flight simmers that use the game, including those that don't understand Mandarin.

My strong impression is that flight simming is extremely unpopular in China, and that much smaller countries like Belgium have way more flight simmers.

Developing a market that so far has very little interest in a product category is way more difficult than simply catering to already interested consumers, and is not really something that a small company 1CGS can be expected to do. 

Than why so many emerging flight controller designers and builders of Chinese origins, I think it's way larger than we know and growing, while in rapid decline here at least in the USA.  Find any USA squads recruiting lately, or even expanding?   

Wow, don't post with the translator active, it gives funny results on your own post.   

Edited June 29 by Dash,Polder