Talky - Animate When Speaking

[supple nova]

A plugin that adds simple facial animation when players speak.

[v0.5.0] https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases (Download either EXILED or LabApi version)
EXILED: 9.10.0
LabAPI: 1.1.3

[tepid wasp]

Nice plugin

[frail kayak]

thats funny

[tepid wasp]

?

[restive dove]

cool <3

[weary aurora]

Insane

You should not be handling this stuff in the received event

Use OnPlayerSendingVoiceMessage

[stable cairn]

how it works

[weary aurora]

Look at the code

[strong bloom]

I've seen someone do this before with a song https://www.reddit.com/r/SCPSecretLab/comments/1kc43a0/scatman/

[weary aurora]

hello Central Autonomic Service System for Internal Emergencies

[strong cedar]

disable debug in plugin)

[weary aurora]

[supple nova]

Yeah I found that when writing it. It is actually using this but I forgot to rename the method it's calling

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/blob/master/Talky.LabAPI/VoiceChattingHandler.cs#L108

[weary aurora]

oh it's not a CustomEventsHandler

nevermind

[supple nova]

Uh oh. Let me remove that line and push a patch later today.

[supple nova]

Basically

1. Take in the player's speech and add it to a buffer
2. Estimate the average volume of recent speech (There are better ways than I used, but didn't want to require other libraries)
3. Pick from 3 emotion states based on volume.

[stable cairn]

so good

[supple nova]

Release v0.1.1

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.1.1

Should fix issues mentioned so far, and adds a new feature.

[heady dragon]

It doesn't work for the Tutorial role could you add it if it isn't there?

[supple nova]

Good to know. Would be curious if someone could see if Skeleton disguise animates as well. I'll also try adding that if it doesn't already.

[supple nova]

Hmm, Tutorial role is working on a server with no other plugins installed from a quick test. I'll see what I can find though. If you have any other info about your server to share like other plugins it would help 🙂

One thing I could think of is if there' s a plugin that has Tutorial talk on a different voice channel like a Global Chat

[heady dragon]

If you downloaded the latest version and the tutorials now work

sorry if my English is bad. But everything is fine

https://github.com/creepycats/EmoteForAll-SL @supple nova Do you think you could recreate this from another plugin and implement it? It's a suggestion

[supple nova]

Was going to check the progress on the request on EXILED, but I see that was also you lol. With the last patch to LabApi it might be possible without Harmony patches. Would be a separate plugin posting if I get it running

[heady dragon]

[supple nova]

Okay I see why people say it's not possible. The animation for transforming used to have the human model attach to the skeleton's frame. Now it just stands there and the skeleton turns invisible. I got the plugin running, but with the new player models its not possible anymore. The dance happens, but its invisible. New skeleton animation attached.

Also skeleton's disguise does not have its mouth move when talking. Deciding whether to keep that as a feature unless anyone really wants it

[heady dragon]

😭

[supple nova]

Release v0.2.0

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.2.0

Fixes

• Made voice decoding more efficient

Additions

• Volume is now calculated in dB,
  • New config options: low_db_threshold and high_db_threshold to control animation behaviour
  • More consistent volume calculation
• If both EXILED and LabAPI plugins are enabled, Talky.EXILED will not enable.

[supple nova]

Talky - Animate When Speaking

[supple nova]

Pre-release of the next update. Need to know the Server-Specific settings are working for others and feedback on keeping the new animation.

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.2.1

[untold cargo]

Whats that

[supple nova]

If you're talking about the animation it's what plays when you pickup an item, can be used to mimic picking something up, or spammed to look like a handshake.

BTW if anyone wants to help expand on this plugin please give my LabAPI suggestion an upvote to show it's worth implementing.

https://github.com/northwood-studios/LabAPI/issues/262

[untold cargo]

cool

by SSS?

[supple nova]

Yeah

[ashen moat]

Honestly this is peak

I would love to see this as a base game feature but it has to be done in a way that doesnt make everyone look creepy asf when they talk

[supple nova]

I've moved v0.2.1 to latest release. Please give the new SSSettings and Animation a try.

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.2.1

[viral basin]

you deserve to be included in my server (in the changelog message I said you did it, since this plugin is worth it)

[jovial crystal]

The Animation works great btw!!

Can you give us the option to change the Translation of the SSSettings?

❤️

[supple nova]

Something like this? Sincere apologies for the poor French example

[supple nova]

I'll tidy up some code and put out v0.2.2 with that added.

[jovial crystal]

That’s perfect! Tysm

[supple nova]

Release v0.2.2

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.2.2

Added localization/translation support for Server-Specific settings menu.

[gusty jungle]

how did you do that??

[supple nova]

Random plugins just seem to appear when I have free time. My next update will be around the game patch tomorrow. One small new feature.

This is another plugin in the works, though it may be too janky to see the light of day.

[storm raft]

third person pov on sl?

[storm raft]

HOW

endless ideas

[supple nova]

Attach a waypoint of the shoulder of a dummy, attach the player to that, profit (plus a bunch of other hacky workarounds).

[storm raft]

😭🙏

[supple nova]

It breaks game balance a lot being able to peak around corners and through walls

[storm raft]

not to that

but being able to make camera not on player is a good thing

it can be used to create security cameras that you can access with .cam and ur body never leaves

it can be used for a whole ui on intercom

it can be used for cinematic roleplays

[supple nova]

In theory, I was thinking of what a silent hill tank control camera would look like too

[storm raft]

you literally opened a way to immersive gameplay and roleplay

[supple nova]

Thank NW for adding Dummy Actions to Dummies too lol

[storm raft]

you gonna ever release it or no?

its so cool btw

[supple nova]

I could get a tech demo together at some point and see what the community thinks.

[storm raft]

not as a 3rd person as a api

[supple nova]

That might take a little longer, but I can also look at that.

[storm raft]

i think community will love that

you thinking outside of the box rather than being inside nw's limits

[supple nova]

Back on topic

Release v0.3.0

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.3.0

• Updated to LabAPI 1.1.2, EXILED 9.9.1
• Players will now react when hurt.

[supple nova]

Teaser for next update. If there are suggestions for any items I missed or changes to the facial animations let me know.

[viral basin]

sexy

[supple nova]

Talky v0.4.0 Release

• New Unified DLL, Talky.dll replaces Talky.LabAPI.dll and Talky.EXILED.dll in whichever plugin directory you use. Be sure to remove the old ones.
• Backup your config before updating.
• Added face animation on consuming items as seen above.

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.4.0
https://plugins.scpslgame.com/plugin/tayjay/Talky

[plain quiver]

[supple nova]

After further testing it's been found that the the unified dll crashes if EXILED is not at least present on the server. Don't update yet if you are a purely LabAPI server.

[supple nova]

Quick patch done. Confirmed to work on LabAPI only servers.
https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.4.1

[golden crest]

For some reason, on both the exiled and labapi versions of this plugin, it spawns an orb at 0,0,0 that overtime starts causing IMMENSE lag when looking at it, like halved framerate and even worse if you get upclose
any reason for this mystery orb? i love the plugin cause its silly but this makes it unusable

looking towards 0,0,0 from ANYWHERE on the map will cause lag after some time has passed

[neat schooner]

legitimately one of the most creative plugins i've seen in a while

[supple nova]

I had used the plugin as a scratch pad and forgot to remove that line of code. Didn't expect it to mess with performance.

If it's unusable, v0.3.0 doesn't have it. I'll patch it when I'm home tomorrow

Oh god I see what it's doing. Yeah I'll get that fixed

[heady dragon]

same problem

I used the latest version and it overloaded my server

[golden crest]

alright ill use 0.3.0, outta curiosity what is the orb of despair and chaos supposed to achieve

what were you messing around with lol

[supple nova]

I was testing collision flags for someone and forgot to remove a test orb. Where it is in the code causes it to spawn a new one every tick for every player...

Of course it comes up when I'm in another city away from computers

Lol

[supple nova]

Updated to v0.4.2

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.4.2
Notable update, removed Orb of Despair and Chaos!
Servers should no longer lag out.

[pure axle]

Vro my server crashed before u update it💀

Thanks anyway...

[supple nova]

😬 💀

[golden crest]

the orb of despair and chaos is gonna be an inside joke on my server now so at least something good came of it lol

its like telling your kids to go to sleep or the boogeyman will get them

[supple nova]

😂 I got a good laugh out of that. Thank you for catching it and letting me know. I'm sure there are other server owners panicing to find the cause of their lag.

[supple nova]

Release v0.5.0,

Update to LabAPI 1.1.3, SCPSL 14.2

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.5.0

[supple nova]

Release 0.6.0

LabAPI 1.1.4
Added head bobbing

• players heads move up and down while talking

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.6.0

[heady dragon]

@supple nova This latest plugin update is consuming too many TPS and lagging the entire server.

[supple nova]

Well that's not good. I do have a new version in the works that should fix a couple inefficiencies, but adds some more logic too :/ I'll see what I can find for more optimizations

[heady dragon]

If I added it to my 30-45 server and everyone was getting tethered, I removed this plugin and it was fixed
I had previously experienced the same issue with the "sphere" plugin I added before.

[supple nova]

I've definitely removed the sphere this time. For now the previous version of the plugin should work fine still if that performed better, or can disable the new head bob feature in the configs. I'll put out a new version when I find what could be causing the lag.

[weary aurora]

you can just use a static buffer here

should save a little time, but most of the time is probably spent decoding voice messages

i'd also recommend using NetworkTime instead of DateTime(Offset)

[supple nova]

May be a good idea to move the decoding into a coroutine rather than forcing the event to wait for it to finish huh?

[weary aurora]

eh, maybe, but we're still in a single-threaded environment so that would just move the bottleneck to a different time

dunno how well it would work if you moved stuff to a background thread

[supple nova]

[weary aurora]

(Awaitables)

[supple nova]

The majority of lag is probably being caused by the last feature I added that would send fake rotation data to players but was not really optimized.

[weary aurora]

sooo

this kills performance

you should use dictionary access

[supple nova]

Oh that's in another part

But will do the same with speech tracker

[supple nova]

I'll look at it all again when it's not midnight and try to put a patch out for it tomorrow.

[supple nova]

Release v0.7.0

• Added glancing mechanic where players will look at other talking players automatically
• Smoothed animations
• Optimized quite a bit
• Checks compatibility with plugins known to cause issues with new features
• Updated to latest LabAPI/EXILED
  https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.7.0

[supple nova]

If you're using this plugin, especially on a larger server, I'm hoping to hear how the new version is performing. If there is still lag or desyncs I'd like to know. I can put some time into optimizing more if it's needed.

[vague island]

I mean, I'm gonna be honest, if you can optimize it, do that, whether it needs it or not, always good to optimize things the best you can y'know

Better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it

[supple nova]

That's true, I will continue on it but want to check in to see how I need to prioritize it.

[vague island]

Fair enough, but yeah, literally if you're ever bored, just optimized, and if you think there's nothing to optimize then literally go through every file, line by line and perfect it

[supple nova]

Making some changes for performance improvements slowly. I may look into multithreading some logic, but it adds a lot of overhead that may undo the gains it provides. Just a quick update

[heady dragon]

[2026-01-31 00:42:14.680 +00:00] [STDOUT]   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[TKey,TValue].get_Item (TKey key) [0x0001e] in <069d7b80a3914a08b6825aa362b07f5e>:0
[2026-01-31 00:42:14.680 +00:00] [STDOUT]   at Talky.LookOverride.CalculateSpeechHeadBob () [0x0001a] in <2e524f23710347a9ac8268d82c60d582>:0
[2026-01-31 00:42:14.680 +00:00] [STDOUT]   at Talky.LookOverride.Update () [0x00041] in <2e524f23710347a9ac8268d82c60d582>:0``` @supple nova

[supple nova]

I see the problem, give me a couple minutes...

[supple nova]

https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.7.1 that should fix it. Was missing a null check.

[supple nova]

Release v0.8.0

• Head movement now works with CedMod's Fake Syncing
• Fixed players not looking at each other while talking
• Updated LabAPI version to 1.1.5
  https://github.com/tayjay/Talky/releases/tag/v0.8.0

[heady dragon]

[2026-04-21 02:18:23.951 +00:00] [STDOUT]   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[TKey,TValue].get_Item (TKey key) [0x0001e] in <069d7b80a3914a08b6825aa362b07f5e>:0
[2026-04-21 02:18:23.951 +00:00] [STDOUT]   at Talky.FakeLookHandler.OnRoleSyncEvent (ReferenceHub target, ReferenceHub receiver, PlayerRoles.RoleTypeId role, Mirror.NetworkWriter writer) [0x000ca] in <e3c0c39bdb444279a7986e7c8ae5fe2c>:0```

@supple nova what this?

[supple nova]

Role is being assigned to a player before the server has time to sync player positions which would have populated the dictionary that causes the exception. Another plugin may be setting a player's role early in their connection flow that my plugin wasn't accounting on.

I'll add a couple guards against it and put out a patch later today.

[heady dragon]