Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => Help Wanted/Offering Help => Voice Acting => Topic started by: neoterran on February 01, 2007, 09:44:35 pm
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It's been said often by many that Derelict, although a great campaign, has some of the poorest quality and unrealistic sounding voice acting in the VA era.
I propose a poll to gauge enthusiasm for a project to re-voice act, either in whole or in part, Derelict to improve its feel.
Let the flaming commence... :o
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I really thought it was just how Blaise compressed the sound. The acting is great, but the sound quality is pretty off.
If we could the entire cast back, I'd love to see it given another whirl, but that's coming from someone who didn't do a thing with it. :nervous:
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Who are these "many" you speak of? Where are the hordes of complaints? I'm not taking offense at this or anything; I just haven't seen the type of sentiment to suggest that there's anywhere near so much of a need for this as you propose. In fact, when the VA work was released, I seem to remember quite a bit of praise for it. I mean, we were nowhere near the level of the WCSaga Prologue (which was just incredible), but I think we did a pretty damn good job. I know I never had any issues with hearing the voice files after tweaking my volume balance a bit.
nuclear, if it's just a matter of compression, it probably wouldn't be necessary to have anyone re-record lines. I know that I saved all of my original WAV recordings, and I'd be willing to bet that most other people did as well.
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For me, I don't mind the current voices. Interesting mish-mash of "mature" ( Ransom, was it? Did he voice-act Mackie? =X ) and "15-year-old kids" voices IMO.
:)
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Some parts could've been alot better. The script is absolutely flawless. (Looks like the defacation is about to hit the ventilation .... LOL ! ) , but yer, the voice acting was quite bland in some parts.
The part where those guys in the nyarlathotep were getting killed by the shivans waking up....that could've been SOOOOOOOOOO much better. . . . . .
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Who are these "many" you speak of? Where are the hordes of complaints?
I've talked to many people on the board, but they can speak for themselves about this in the thread, it's not for me to say their names. But i'm one of them. I don't think the voice acting in Derelict is that great. It's a combination of too young voices, One of the main characters basically whispering all the time, and not very good technical settings / too low etc.
As far as "hordes of complaints" that's your terminology, not mine.
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I enjoyed the VA'd Derelict immensely, and I can't see a good reason to hash all that out again. It was a fan-made campaign, and it was well done. Yes, WCSaga Prologue has raised the bar a bit for voice acting and sound quality, but I wouldn't spend more time polishing stuff that has already been released (and frequently praised) when there are so many new projects out there that still need work. We don't have that many good voice actors, and any time they spend on re-voicing Derelict (again) is time they can't spend on campaigns no one has played before.
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nuclear, if it's just a matter of compression, it probably wouldn't be necessary to have anyone re-record lines. I know that I saved all of my original WAV recordings, and I'd be willing to bet that most other people did as well.
True, and if that could be done, it would be great.
Of course, that would result in a download even larger than the one we had with the original. BR was smart in that regard to not make it such an impossible download.
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Ogg. Nuff Said. Those who aren't using SCP can suffer the WAV download for being hold outs.
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Um...the voice files are in OGG already. The file extension by itself doesn't tell you anything about the bitrate of its encoding, or any filters that may have been applied to the original audio. For all we know, increasing the quality of these files could double or triple the final VP size.
As for "very young voices," surprise surprise, but a lot of people who play this game are on the younger side. We have a very limited pool of potential VAs here; it's basically whoever feels that they can make a decent recording and has the will to sit there and say/re-say dozens of lines. It's not like we can go out and ask Crispin Freeman or Steve Blum (and if you don't know those names, you need to watch more good anime dubs) to record some lines for us. It's an entirely volunteer effort, and I have a great deal of respect for the skills of quite a few people in our community. Let me make this challenge to you: if you think that you'd be able to do a better job than the people who submitted lines, then why don't you let us hear how you'd have done it?
As for all of these people you've supposedly talked to, by all means, get them in here to post their feelings. Come up with some specific parts (or even specific lines) that you feel aren't up to snuff. If you're suggesting doing something as massive (and ultimately time-wasting) as re-dubbing an entire campaign, you'd better have some damn good evidence to suggest it. As a pre-emptory rebuttal, I spent some time going back through the voice VPs, and there were several parts in particular where I thought the VAs did outstanding work (and no, I'm not taking myself into consideration in the least either way). So...let's hear it, then.
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Um...the voice files are in OGG already.
Yeah, no **** ! But I was referring to the previous post about having to have huge massive new wave files, not the existing download size.
If you're suggesting doing something as massive (and ultimately time-wasting) as re-dubbing an entire campaign, you'd better have some damn good evidence to suggest it.
I'm having a poll to see if people would even be interested in doing it. Since they don't seem to be, then i'm not going to make any such effort. I would make an effort if people feel the same way and (and obviously I'm in the minority here). You don't have to take it personally that I think Derelict's VA sucks; it's just my opinion. But it does suck. It's like in counterstrike when a bunch of nerdy kids come on with their lame mic - overs and ruin the whole mood. Well maybe not that bad. But it's bad when one cast member is whispering all his lines in a barely audible whisper, one cast member sounds like 11+ etc.
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I propose a poll to gauge enthusiasm for a project to re-voice act, either in whole or in part, Derelict to improve its feel.
Agreed, if they redo it, they need to get ADULTS to voice act not teenagers!!!!
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Yeah, God forbid teh ebil teenagerz be allowed to do voice parts!!!!1!1
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If you care to bring me fourteen-or-so professional adult voice actors, I would be more than happy to revoice Derelict.
In the meantime, I'll see what I can do about modifying the voice volume. Really, I think it's all because I kept the amplitude low to avoid crackling (something that the FS2 voices don't do).
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I'm not sure if I've said this before, but god damn it neoterran and hunter, if you don't like the voices, don't freaking play with them. Stop *****ing about how bad they are if you don't like them. Just delete it and be on your way.
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I'm not sure if I've said this before, but god damn it neoterran and hunter, if you don't like the voices, don't freaking play with them. Stop *****ing about how bad they are if you don't like them. Just delete it and be on your way.
Why should i do that ? because you don't happen to agree with me ? So what you're trying to say is that if I don't have an opinion that matches yours i should "stop *****ing" ? I thought this was a "discussion" board. You're free to disagree with me all you want, but don't tell me not to present my feelings on the matter.
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You're free to have your opinions, but dammit this is the second or third thread I've seen complaining about "unprofessional voice acting" in Derelict.
Most of us (including myself) would have sounded better if the damn microphones didn't make our voices sound 3 times higher. :doubt:
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you guys would have sounded better if you were in your mid 20's instead of teens.
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you guys would have sounded better if you were in your mid 20's instead of teens.
Just FYI, most of the members here on HLP are teens. :P
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you guys would have sounded better if you were in your mid 20's instead of teens.
True, but as Blaise said, we're not professional voiceactors, nor are many of us in our (late) 20s-30s. Given what we have, and the technology available to us (read: Goldwave, crappy microphones, etc.), we did pretty damn well (especially Cobra, Ransom, Mongoose, and Nix; I particularly enjoyed their parts).
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I've just started playing Derelict and I wouldn't change the voices now, if for no other reason than I feel attached to the characterizations that go along with the voice action that has been done so far. It would be like... changing who these characters are. I don't see that there is anything wrong with them.
Now, what I WOULD like to see done would be for someone (and sure, I'll volunteer) to go in and maximize the volume without clipping and apply a full dynamic range filter. I've got a fair bit of sound editing skills, as some friends and I are making a Star Wars Fan Audio production. So, if people are interested in the sounds staying the same, but becoming fuller and louder... just say the word.
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Yes. Also, I would love to know how.
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maybe use the compression thingy that I don't fully understand to make the voices louder.
All I did was turn music and efx down, and voices all the way up, then played with my computer's overall volume control. That made it so I could hear them. But it did somewhat destroy the higher frequencies of the voices, I.E. they all sounded muffled. The voices themselves aren't superb by a professional standpoint, but they're nothing terrible, and they're just fine for a fan-based mod. One guy was kinda whispery, but it's not like they all spoke in monotone or anything. I think it's better than some of you are giving it credit for, all things considered.
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Anyone try Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)? (Open Source) That, plus remember even with a decent mic, a bad sound card will ruin it.
I use Audacity and Compress my files... it does pretty good. IIRC, you can even export to .OGG .
BTW, I think the original crew did a good job... but I think they should redo it with better mics, progs, sound cards, or whatever the problem was...
Of course, that would cost $$$, wouldn't it? Shoot.
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Most of the voices were well done but only two I think need some improvement:
- Lt. Tom Faulkner: The main beef is that his briefing voices are unfiltered with a lot of noise and as a result sound very sloppy. I have no objections to having him reprise the voice, but if he could redo these with a better mic then it would be ok. Better yet to have someone clean up his voice files and repackage them.
- Terran Command (not to be confused with Tau Sigma command): This voice is definitely that of a kid. Anyone doing Terran Command needs to have a voice of authority. Mongoose did a good job with Tau Sigma command, just find someone like him.
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I could get a noise print and remove some of the BG noise on Faulkner. I downloaded VPVIEW... do I need anything else in order to be able to get at the voice files? I'll re-master a few of these and upload them to Filefront for your approval. If we like them... how hard would it be to create a patch for the original? I don't want to screw up the missions for people. Are there any specific sound formats I need to use in order for use in-game? I know some of the old games I used to mod, you had to use a very specific sampling rate and all that. Let me know.
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Nope, all you need is VPView. Just select all the voice files in "special", right click and click extract. :)
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The voice files are separate from the missions. The Mission briefings are located in the second Derelict VP while debriefing files are in the fourth.
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OK, I will try a few samples and have a link for you, probably by tomorrow night or Thursday afternoon.