(EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Keenir »

Not long ago, I saw a photo thread (not hereabouts) that took a screenshot of a uniform from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and then, using the Star Wars universe's alphabet, showed that it read This End Up.

But I've gone looking through various Star Wars books (the atlas, the guide to the history of warfare, Jedi vs Sith, etc)...and none of them show the Star Wars alphabet.

So, is that alphabet , with each symbol representing one English letter, actually more fanon than canon?


thank you.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by clawgrip »

I assume you mean Aurebesh. The alphabet itself is canon, having first appeared fairly prominently in Return of the Jedi, and getting specialeditionized into the other ones. I guess your question though is, are the values assigned to each character canon or not.

I looked at the standard values given for Aurebesh in images on the internet, and then compared them to a screen readout from the beginning of Return of the Jedi. The values returned nonsense (e.g. "meonghm yqxaej eonghmn"), and since I am sure they did not create a whole constructed written language for a couple computer screens when the spoken language clearly is English, it does not appear that the standard values of Aurebesh apply to Return of the Jedi. However, the image you reference, Poe Dameron's vest, does in fact say "pull to inflate" in Aurebesh using the circulated readings, and even the special edition of A New Hope uses Aurebesh as a cipher of English. So, since it appeared in more than one canon Star Wars film, it appears that yes, it is canon.

Also, several of the letters in RotJ differ in appearance from the ones that appear in other films. I'm almost certain this is what happened:

When they started making the special editions, they decided that they wanted to replace all English labels with the alphabet from RotJ. However, a decade had passed since that film was made, and most likely they could find no records of what the letters of the original alphabet actually stood for. Wanting to preserve visual consistency but not caring for coherence of some random symbols, someone probably put on RotJ and paused it in the parts with the alphabet, wrote down all the symbols they saw by hand (accounting for the distortion of several of the letters), and then randomly assigned Latin alphabet values to them, which are consistent with the internet images and their appearances in the actual Star Wars films.

What might be fun is to look at the original RotJ images and try to decipher what the original values of the letters were, if they actually had any to begin with.

EDIT: I was slightly wrong, and my thing seems to have been answered:
Wookieepedia wrote:An Aurebesh-like script first appeared in the 1983 movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the last installment in the original trilogy of Star Wars. It could be seen on monitor readouts on the second Death Star at the beginning of the movie, when Darth Vader's shuttle is scanned while approaching the battle station. Erik Schroeder's decoding of the technical readouts further suggest that this readout is illegible, consisting of lines of character repeats.[5] However, it was Stephen Crane of West End Games who gave each character a name and a corresponding Roman letter or letter combination. At the time, West End Games's flagship product was the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. While he was writing the Star Wars Miniatures Battles Companion in 1993, Crane decided to develop an alphabet for gamers to use. Upon receiving Lucasfilm's approval, Crane came up with the "Aurebesh," a 34-letter alphabet. It was later expanded to include punctuation marks in Imperial Entanglements, a 1996 supplement to Miniatures Battles.[6]

Stephen Crane's alphabet was subsequently adopted in many Star Wars works, and even made its way into the movies.
Anyway, I suspect Stephen Crane did what I said, pausing the movie and writing down by hand what he saw in order to create the new version of the alphabet.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Keenir »

clawgrip wrote:I assume you mean Aurebesh. The alphabet itself is canon, having first appeared fairly prominently in Return of the Jedi, and getting specialeditionized into the other ones. I guess your question though is, are the values assigned to each character canon or not.
yes; sorry.
it does not appear that the standard values of Aurebesh apply to Return of the Jedi. However, the image you reference, Poe Dameron's vest, does in fact say "pull to inflate" in Aurebesh using the circulated readings, and even the special edition of A New Hope uses Aurebesh as a cipher of English. So, since it appeared in more than one canon Star Wars film, it appears that yes, it is canon.
thank you.

hm...a 34-letter alphabet and a 24-letter one. in-universe, it'd make sense, whether one is a coded transmission or another language.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by mira »

Anyone here using LaTeX? I'm thinking about how I should go about putting in vector images for the writing system, but keeping them together and out of the way. If someone else here has done such a thing, how did you do it?
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Adarain »

As far as I'm aware, it isn't very easy to get vector graphics into a LaTeX doc. You're probably best off converting them into pngs of a desirably high resolution and scaling them down in the document to the appropriate size. Alternatively, you could probably hack something together in tikz, but I expect it to be too much of a pain to be worth the effort. Perhaps there are svg to tikz converters though, i haven't looked into it.
Edit: It appears that indeed there are. This one seems to allow you to export tikz straight from inkscape.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by gach »

You better read the Wikibooks entry on importing graphics in LaTeX. The graphicx package is the way to include graphics in LaTeX documents. I use it all the time to do larger figures, mostly from graphic files in the PS or EPS formats, but I see no reason why you couldn't use it to typeset short snippets in a conscript as inline figures in the middle of normal text. Just make sure that the figures have a proper size to line well with the rest of the text.

Very basically, you should add the line

Code: Select all

\usepackage{graphicx}
to the preamble of your document and then include the images at their correct places with something resembling

Code: Select all

\includegraphics[height=<suitable height for the image>]{<image file>}
You'll probably have to try a few times to find good sizes for the images.

This approach should work fine for the most simple tasks of piling script block one after another, but if you want to achieve anything more complicated than that, I'd say that you are immediately better of spending the time to create an actual font.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by mira »

gach wrote:You better read the Wikibooks entry on importing graphics in LaTeX. The graphicx package is the way to include graphics in LaTeX documents. I use it all the time to do larger figures, mostly from graphic files in the PS or EPS formats, but I see no reason why you couldn't use it to typeset short snippets in a conscript as inline figures in the middle of normal text. Just make sure that the figures have a proper size to line well with the rest of the text.

Very basically, you should add the line

Code: Select all

\usepackage{graphicx}
to the preamble of your document and then include the images at their correct places with something resembling

Code: Select all

\includegraphics[height=<suitable height for the image>]{<image file>}
You'll probably have to try a few times to find good sizes for the images.

This approach should work fine for the most simple tasks of piling script block one after another, but if you want to achieve anything more complicated than that, I'd say that you are immediately better of spending the time to create an actual font.
Yeah I think a font would probably be the best approach. I'm fine with including the graphics, but the problem I'm facing is getting them lined up with correct spacing - and then the challenge of getting them vertical (vertical script) and having the text go around it and not leave a huge gap in the page where this vertical line of symbols is.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Dezinaa »

This is probably the wrong website to ask this, but I don't know where to even start looking. I'm looking for software that lets me play music using custom frequencies in Hz for each note in the scale, and that also lets me create equal tempered scales with different numbers of notes. I just calculated the notes for a 7-tone equal tempered scale and a 10-tone equal tempered scale, but I have no easy way to play them. I can generate waveforms of specific frequencies, then arrange them in an audio editing program, but I can't "play" music. I also have no way of tuning an electronic instrument to play these custom scales. Maybe I'm rambling, or this is just wishful thinking, but any and all help would be appreciated.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Dezinaa wrote:This is probably the wrong website to ask this, but I don't know where to even start looking. I'm looking for software that lets me play music using custom frequencies in Hz for each note in the scale, and that also lets me create equal tempered scales with different numbers of notes. I just calculated the notes for a 7-tone equal tempered scale and a 10-tone equal tempered scale, but I have no easy way to play them. I can generate waveforms of specific frequencies, then arrange them in an audio editing program, but I can't "play" music. I also have no way of tuning an electronic instrument to play these custom scales. Maybe I'm rambling, or this is just wishful thinking, but any and all help would be appreciated.
How I've done this in the past is use an ordinary music program to create a midi file, and then use a programme someone pointed me to to tune the pitches to the ones I want. I believe the programme was aimed at changing temperaments, so that might be a key word for you to look for - because of course if you change the temperament radically enough you're essentially changing the scale/tuning. But this was all a long time ago, so I'm afraid I can't tell you the name of the specific programme, even if it's still around.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by elemtilas »

Dezinaa wrote:This is probably the wrong website to ask this, but I don't know where to even start looking. I'm looking for software that lets me play music using custom frequencies in Hz for each note in the scale, and that also lets me create equal tempered scales with different numbers of notes. I just calculated the notes for a 7-tone equal tempered scale and a 10-tone equal tempered scale, but I have no easy way to play them. I can generate waveforms of specific frequencies, then arrange them in an audio editing program, but I can't "play" music. I also have no way of tuning an electronic instrument to play these custom scales. Maybe I'm rambling, or this is just wishful thinking, but any and all help would be appreciated.
MuseScore has a function that allows you to change the tuning of notes. I haven't played with it enough to know how suitable it would be for you.

As I understand it, Sibelius 8 allows you to tune each note individually as well.

If you really want to "play" the music you're writing, invest in a fretless guitar or an oud (if you're a string person) or a zither or psaltery (if you really like lots of strings!) or a clavichord (if you like lots of strings ánd a keyboard!). Any of these can easily be tuned to whatever scale you're working on.

Zithers and psalteries are also relatively inexpensive (like $20 to $50 on Ebay), are easy to restring and relatively simple to tune and maintain.

Another good choice is a hurdy gurdy.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Dezinaa »

Salmoneus wrote:How I've done this in the past is use an ordinary music program to create a midi file, and then use a programme someone pointed me to to tune the pitches to the ones I want. I believe the programme was aimed at changing temperaments, so that might be a key word for you to look for - because of course if you change the temperament radically enough you're essentially changing the scale/tuning. But this was all a long time ago, so I'm afraid I can't tell you the name of the specific programme, even if it's still around.
That seems like a good system. And "music temperament software" just turned up quite a few Google results, so I'll see what I can use. I don't know why I didn't think of using that exact phrase yesterday. In particular, Scala looks good.
elemtilas wrote:MuseScore has a function that allows you to change the tuning of notes. I haven't played with it enough to know how suitable it would be for you.

As I understand it, Sibelius 8 allows you to tune each note individually as well.

If you really want to "play" the music you're writing, invest in a fretless guitar or an oud (if you're a string person) or a zither or psaltery (if you really like lots of strings!) or a clavichord (if you like lots of strings ánd a keyboard!). Any of these can easily be tuned to whatever scale you're working on.

Zithers and psalteries are also relatively inexpensive (like $20 to $50 on Ebay), are easy to restring and relatively simple to tune and maintain.

Another good choice is a hurdy gurdy.
I've heard of MuseScore and Sibelius before, so I'll check them out. Especially MuseScore, since it's free. I hadn't thought of buying a physical instrument (as opposed to digital), but if I get serious enough about playing, that also seems like a good idea.

Thanks for the help, Salmoneus and elemtilas!
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

I can't find the function elemtilas mentions in MuseScore. Unless he means adding a tuning offset to each note individually, which I can see how to do - you can select a bunch of notes and add an offset to all of them at once, but I don't see how to change the tuning of a particular pitch all at once, which would be much more useful.

[I also note that they have visual korons and soris, which would theoretically let you have 24tet, but so far as I can see they don't actually change the audible pitch, so far as I can see...]
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote:I can't find the function elemtilas mentions in MuseScore. Unless he means adding a tuning offset to each note individually, which I can see how to do - you can select a bunch of notes and add an offset to all of them at once, but I don't see how to change the tuning of a particular pitch all at once, which would be much more useful.
Yes, that I think is the one I was thinking of.

I've never gotten into it, but I think in the synthesizer is where the tuning of a particular pitch is. Having not tried it, I can't speak to its actual function. A digital tuning hammer would be a Good Thing in deed!
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

elemtilas wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:I can't find the function elemtilas mentions in MuseScore. Unless he means adding a tuning offset to each note individually, which I can see how to do - you can select a bunch of notes and add an offset to all of them at once, but I don't see how to change the tuning of a particular pitch all at once, which would be much more useful.
Yes, that I think is the one I was thinking of.

I've never gotten into it, but I think in the synthesizer is where the tuning of a particular pitch is. Having not tried it, I can't speak to its actual function. A digital tuning hammer would be a Good Thing in deed!
Just looking at it now, it seems as though the synth lets you set a concert pitch (i.e. you can raise or lower the pitch of everything at once) but no more than that.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote:Just looking at it now, it seems as though the synth lets you set a concert pitch (i.e. you can raise or lower the pitch of everything at once) but no more than that.
Ah well --- not what's needed! Looks like Sibelius or zither would be the way to go, then! [:D]
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

Is anyone keeping on top of the ranks? Because it doesn't look like there have been any awarded since 2012, and yet I'm sure there are many people on this forum who have earned one or more of those ranks since then.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Frislander wrote:Is anyone keeping on top of the ranks? Because it doesn't look like there have been any awarded since 2012, and yet I'm sure there are many people on this forum who have earned one or more of those ranks since then.
Assuming you're talking about the Usergroup banners:

I joined after 2012, but I was given one. Otherwise that's pretty much true. The thing is, you have to contact a Mod and ask to be evaluated to see whether or not you qualify for any of the banners. I talked to Ossicone about mine, but that was before sangi39 and Dormouse559 were made mods, so maybe they'd be the best ones to talk to about that now?

I definitely agree that there are many people who have earned them, though.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

shimobaatar wrote:
Frislander wrote:Is anyone keeping on top of the ranks? Because it doesn't look like there have been any awarded since 2012, and yet I'm sure there are many people on this forum who have earned one or more of those ranks since then.
Assuming you're talking about the Usergroup banners:

I joined after 2012, but I was given one. Otherwise that's pretty much true. The thing is, you have to contact a Mod and ask to be evaluated to see whether or not you qualify for any of the banners. I talked to Ossicone about mine, but that was before sangi39 and Dormouse559 were made mods, so maybe they'd be the best ones to talk to about that now?

I definitely agree that there are many people who have earned them, though.
Right OK, yes that was what I was referring to.
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Re: (EE) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by GamerGeek »

Where can I find my bookmarked threads?
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Post by qwed117 »

GamerGeek wrote:Where can I find my bookmarked threads?
User Control Panel in the top right corner of the screen. Then click "Manage Bookmarks" on the left side of the screen.
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