Toby Accessibility Mod - DOOM for the blind [V7.5 RELEASED!]

[Alando1]

Hey guys, I'm back for a bit. I am excited to announce a new version of the Toby Accessibility Mod will be coming out soon. Version 7.5 has some updates and some new features. We, too, have compatibility for Heretic. We're hoping to have it released by the end of July or beginning of August. My team and I will be doing some final testing this week to make sure everything is working well and take care of any issues that may be present.

Here are some things you can expect in Version 7.5:

- Updated and optimized pre-existing accessibility features
- Added Advanced Map Marker Menu
- Added Pathfinder accessibility feature
- Added Coordinate Checker Feature
- Added Heretic support
- Added Heretic Map Pack
- Updated Toby Doom Map Pack (Made some minor fixes)
- Small update to Toby's Death Arena

I'll let you know when 7.5 is ready to go!


-Alando1

[Proydoha]

Sorry, I didn't have an opportunity to update Project Brutality addons and I'm not sure if situation will improve anytime soon for me but for people who tinkers a lot like @stormdragon2976 or @t_doom-shroom-5440 there will be a new option in 7.5 to use console output instead of narration for some parts of the mod. It might not be as pretty but it should be more universal. I've seen that you know how to hook up your own TTS into console output so this might be useful for you.

So with this enabled regardless of loaded games/mods it should output lines into console that start with [Toby Accessibility Mod] and then information about menu navigation, weapon/item names as you select them, health/armor/ammo/keys statuses.

To enable it you will need to set Toby_NarrationOutputType cvar to 2 (default is 0). You will be able to find it in .ini file after you'll launch the core mod at least once.
Some lines that it will spit out might not be very human-readable, it might be "technical" names for things but it should always output at least something.

[stormdragon2976]

@Proydoha this is awesome. Some of the names of things are as you said they would be, but that's not a big deal; they can be fixed with sed.

I was just wondering, we have to change the narration setting from 0 to 2. Does 1 do anything?

Thanks for adding this.

[Proydoha]

@stormdragon2976
I wanted to put TTS from kodi on 1 viewtopic.php?p=1249585#p1249585

But the task turned out to be harder than expected and I've managed only console output for now.

Also seen your issue here: viewtopic.php?t=79323
Can't give you a solution but can offer you a workaround: I think if you'll provide launch parameter -iwad <path to iwad (DOOM2.WAD/freedoom2.wad)> you should be able to bypass that window.

[stormdragon2976]

@Proydoha for the time being, I just downgraded the package. I will try passing in the wad too, it will be useful on the Pi, which is running the latest version.

[t_doom-shroom-5440]

Heya there all, and a quick thanks muchee, as Stormdragon asked the very question I was going to. Very cool, indeed! Looking forward to this release, as I've been testing this beta.
It just keeps getting better and better! Rock on!

[Alando1]

Hey guys, I am proud to announce the release of the Toby Accessibility Mod Version 7.5! All download links are on the first page. If anyone has any questions, suggestions, feedback, etc., feel free to let us know. As many of you know, we aim to improve the accessibility mod as best we can so many of you can have a positive and fun experience while playing Doom or Heretic.

**NOTE: There was a brief fix post-release that solved one of the elusive bugs we had. If you had downloaded the Toby Mod prior to 2:25 PM EST on 8/9/2024, you may want to download the mod again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Enjoy!


-Alando1

[stormdragon2976]

There is a feature request from JasonBlaze on the audiogames.net forum. He is wondering if it would be possible to get an audio beacon to the nearest unexplored area on the current map. The text of the request is below:

I wonder if it is possible for the mod to include some kind of unexplore room or unexplore space pathfinding where you can navigate to it, this ensure for the player not to get lost and can fully explore the map.

[Proydoha]

@stormdragon2976 Reading the thread.

There is a 2 hour long video from IllegallySighted on how to set it up and what mindset to have while playing. if you want to you can pass it along to audiogames.net forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRHQCuBrPos
It might nudge people who are struggling to navigate in a correct direction.

Regarding your issue of piping console output on Windows. I think there is a launch parameter -stdout that allows doing it on Windows.
https://zdoom.org/wiki/Command_line_parameters#-stdout

People asking for cheats. I think Toby Accessibility Mod has quickcheats on numpad that work by pressing a single key. They don't have to fight with console for that.

I think it should be possible to add "Unexplored" beacon. There will be edge-cases in the wild where it will not be useful or can be confusing.
Cases when its confusing:

• You reach "unexplored area" and its just a little corner that you haven't "tagged" during your initial exploration. You will think that its a new and unexplored area but its just nothing.
• Possible path may be blocked by decorative prop - it will appear like there is an unexplored area ahead but its actually not meant for exploration.

Cases where it will fail to work:

• Closed doors or raised elevator platforms are for all intents and purposes are "impassible terrain", it will be hard to mark those as "unexplored".
• Weirdly shaped staircases (rhombus-shaped steps that only touch previous and next step in a single point)
• Deep crevasses that player can just step over
• Platforming sections on some maps where player could be expected to jump from pillar to pillar, I don't know how to make those accessible in general, not only in "Unexplored area" context.

If I would knew how to fix those issues I would be able to just "autoexplore" map on level load and give markers to points of interest right away. But unfortunately this kind of exploration is beyond my skill.

[stormdragon2976]

@Proydoha thanks for your response. I linked to it in the audiogames forum. The --stdout flag may be useful if I can figure out how to get past the block. On Windows, it worked with my tests both with and without it, but if I remember correctly it still locks passing from the game through processing tools until after the game closes. I have worked on so much stuff the last couple of days I can't remember for sure. I'll check into it again, but it would really be nice to have the same code working across all OS, less to maintain.

[stormdragon2976]

After talking to some people on the audiogame forum, and after an awesome powershell example from Proydoha, I managed to get the Windows TTS options on par with Linux. It requires some changes to the .bat files, and using a powershell script. Here is an example of the modified Deluxe map Pack .bat file:

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gzdoom.exe -stdout -config TobyConfig.ini -file TobyAccMod_V7-5.pk3 "./Addons/DOOM/TobyV7_Guns.pk3" "./Addons/DOOM/TobyV7_Monsters.pk3" "./Addons/DOOM/TobyV7_Pickups.pk3" "./Addons/DOOM/TobyV7_Decorations.pk3" "./Addons/MENU/TobyV7_SimpleMenu.pk3" TobyDoomLevels.wad | powershell -File DoomTTS.ps1

The DoomTTS.ps1 script uses sapi by default, and usually the default speed for the default sapi voice is painfully slow, so you may want to set the speed higher if you use this method. I think it can be changed in the control panel.

For people using NVDA, there is the option of using the clipboard reader, available from the plugin store, and having NVDA read the output from the clipboard. To do this, after installing the clipboard reader, make sure to open NVDA menu, select tools, and select automatic clipboard reader before opening the game. Also, edit DoomTTS.ps1 by right clicking it and select open with, then choose notepad. Change the line:

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$useSAPI = $true

so that it reads:

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$useSAPI = $false

I have uploaded a zip file that has the modified .bat files, the DoomTTS.ps1 powershell script, and the Project Brutality wad along with .bat files for it. Oh, and Proydoha's PB-Toby-Compatibility-Addon.pk3 is also included. Just unzip the file in the Toby Doom folder, and replace all the existing files with the new ones.

A note on Project Brutality. The latest version breaks the PB-Toby-Compatibility-Addon.pk3, also keys are not properly detected for doors, so it will say "Key is required" even if you have the key but it still works. The wad I have included is the one that works with everything, so one version back. In all of my tests, it is incompatible with gzdoom 4.12.X, so for Linux people, you may want to downgrade gzdoom if you want to use this version. If you use the latest Project Brutality, death match will not have any items on the map, but with the version included in my zip file, all the items are there.

@Alando1, what do you think about including the powershell script with future versions of the project? If you want to include it, it could be part of the git repository, or if you would rather have it as an optional addon, I can create a repository for it. This is litterally my first powershell script, so there are likely bugs. In fact, I fixed one earlier today where I forgot to remove some debugging stuff and it didn't filter out some things it should have. Now that it's fixed, it does the same as its Linux counterpart at least in my tests.

Some of the things it can do includes telling you who got killed and how in death match. announce items that are picked up if there is no speech already for it (there is some overlap), and read messages sent over the radio. It also supports narration mode 2 that uses the

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[Toby Accessibility Mod]

tag.

[Proydoha]

@stormdragon2976 I think in that archive you have an old version of your script. Also your regexp catches map names and it double speaking map name because it is also outputted with tts tag [Toby Accessibility Mod]

And another thing: script spams warning:
The regular expression pattern .*/:Game saved. ( is not valid.
This is because you have unescaped opening parenthesis at the end:
Should look like this instead:
.*/:Game saved. \(
Otherwise it will think that you wanted to make a capturing group and didn't close it.

[stormdragon2976]

@Proydoha the archive does have a slightly older version now. I will update it. I meant to remove the map match stuff, but forgot. Nice catch on the missing \, I'm not sure how I missed that one lol. I'll go update this stuff now.