[mainline] Voice acting ?

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Heindal
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by Heindal »

Thanks max_torch ^^. I already tried to imitate the voice of the characters in the narration. I can understand that this is somehow misguiding, as we now have speakers for each character. On the other hand I never believed we would find enough people and I always believed that the voice_over would never work and it would be the same as with the narration - that they would repeat itself after a while. This is still a problem with spoken narration for story elements.

We will see, what comes next. Every story begin with the first step and we already reached the first milestone, by finishing this campaign. We showed it's possible. Maybe this will even be added to the mainline campaign. That would be an enormous success. However we all can be proud of what we achieved here. We created an idea and pulled it off.
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Heindal
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by Heindal »

Ugh, I forgot something. As I recorded a lot as free-time radio-moderator I know some recording software. A very good software for creating audios as well as cutting / editing is Audacity. I highly recommend this. There are also a lot of filters in there to get out background noise and much more. If you need help with Audacity I can help you, but I personally believe that a good YouTube video is more helpful than me, at least in special cases.

This is where you can get it: https://www.audacityteam.org/
It's the official website. It's free. Have fun with this wonderful software.

A good software for equalizing sound outputs is MP3Gain. It allows to set a db value and everything that is dragged into the program will be changed to this db value. It's necessary for radio stations to equalize their songs, so that your listeners are not killed by db interference.
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theuncertainman
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by theuncertainman »

max_torch wrote: May 29th, 2018, 6:58 pm
  • Can anyone teach us how to avoid or edit out the breathing sound when recording voiceover? And any other fancy computer editing of the voice? I don't even know what good software to use for recording and editing the voice
  • I'm pretty sure a lot of the lines have to be rerecorded or edited or voiced by someone better in order to reach mainline quality
  • So far, it doesn't seem buggy and worked flawlessly
Hey mate,

As Heindal has mentioned, Audacity can be used to remove the breathing sounds in the voiceover. By using Noise Reduction you can grab a sample of a highlighted sound and then remove it. It can also be used to remove the sounds of PC fans and other things that you may spot in recordings. Very handy! :)
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The_Gnat
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by The_Gnat »

max_torch wrote: May 29th, 2018, 6:58 pm Just finished playing AToTB+voice in order to experience the voice over. Here are my thoughts:
  • In the "diaries" of the characters it would sound better if it's voiced by the characters themselves. Do I have the greenlight to record the lines for this?
I agree about that. So if you are happy to do so definitely! :D
max_torch wrote: May 29th, 2018, 6:58 pm
  • During the start of scenario narrations I think it's better to just have the voiceover play once instead of repeating and just let the player use the arrow buttons to go back and forth if he wants to hear the voice over again
Okay, I will implement it!
max_torch wrote: May 29th, 2018, 6:58 pm
  • I'm pretty sure a lot of the lines have to be rerecorded or edited or voiced by someone better in order to reach mainline quality
  • The volumes of all the voiceovers need to be adjusted to have consistent loudness level
;) Yes definitely quality can be improved. Overall I think it is decent but if you see any in particular errors please point them out! And if there are any that are the wrong volume please tell me and I will be happy to modify them (I can do that easily enough with Audacity which is the program I use as well :) ).
max_torch wrote: May 29th, 2018, 6:58 pm
  • So far, it doesn't seem buggy and worked flawlessly
Now that we've had a small taste, I definitely would love to see all campaigns get good voice acting!
Let's focus on improving this campaign so that it can become the model for the quality we want with fanning out to other campaigns.
More volunteers will always be appreciated so that we have more variety of character voices.
Yes definitely!!! :D It would be awesome to start on another campaign 8) but I think it would be good to have everyone test this a few times and improve it more before we move on!
Heindal wrote: May 29th, 2018, 8:21 pm We will see, what comes next. Every story begin with the first step and we already reached the first milestone, by finishing this campaign. We showed it's possible. Maybe this will even be added to the mainline campaign. That would be an enormous success. However we all can be proud of what we achieved here. We created an idea and pulled it off.
Absolutely this is a great milestone! I think it is awesome we have been able to do this!
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by The_Gnat »

theuncertainman wrote: May 25th, 2018, 9:28 pm Let me know if you need anything else. :)
Would you be interested in helping re-record the enemy leader Mordak in scenario 1's.

As max_torch mentioned it would be good to have a greater voice differentiation, especially between the enemies and player units.
Mordak lines
speaker=Mordak
message= _ "Worried about him, are you? E-he-he... hergh... gaargh..."
speaker=Mordak
message= _ "Your brother’s plan to ambush me has failed. He is our prisoner now."
Thank you!!
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by theuncertainman »

The_Gnat wrote: June 1st, 2018, 8:52 am
theuncertainman wrote: May 25th, 2018, 9:28 pm Let me know if you need anything else. :)
Would you be interested in helping re-record the enemy leader Mordak in scenario 1's.

As max_torch mentioned it would be good to have a greater voice differentiation, especially between the enemies and player units.
Mordak lines
speaker=Mordak
message= _ "Worried about him, are you? E-he-he... hergh... gaargh..."
speaker=Mordak
message= _ "Your brother’s plan to ambush me has failed. He is our prisoner now."
Thank you!!
It would be my pleasure. What kind of voice does he need?
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max_torch
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by max_torch »

theuncertainman wrote:It would be my pleasure. What kind of voice does he need?
I'd say smug and evil
Just finished playing AToTB+voice in order to experience the voice over. Here are my thoughts:

In the "diaries" of the characters it would sound better if it's voiced by the characters themselves. Do I have the greenlight to record the lines for this?
I agree about that. So if you are happy to do so definitely! :D
Expect it shortly
The_Gnat wrote:;) Yes definitely quality can be improved. Overall I think it is decent but if you see any in particular errors please point them out! And if there are any that are the wrong volume please tell me and I will be happy to modify them (I can do that easily enough with Audacity which is the program I use as well :) ).
The whole thing needs a volume level overhaul.. The_Gnat, can you import all of the audio files into Audacity at the same time and then normalize the volume? Then once normalized, make shouting dialog a bit louder and whispering/dying dialog a bit softer.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how- ... n-audacity
The_Gnat wrote:Yes definitely!!! :D It would be awesome to start on another campaign 8) but I think it would be good to have everyone test this a few times and improve it more before we move on!
It seems this project is gaining traction.. I suppose it's about time to make a github branch for this where all the project files can be accessed can be worked on open-source style. @Wesnothadmin, can we make a [voiceover project] branch in the Wesnoth repository?

Edit1:
Practically all of my recordings have breathing sounds that need to be edited down...

Edit2:
I just noticed another problem:
The volume of the scenario introduction voicovers is controlled by the "music" volume while the volume of the in-scenario dialog voiceovers is controlled by the "Sound effects" volume. We should either make the scenario introduction go in the same group as "sound effects" or make a serparate new volume slider just for "voiceovers".

Edit3: Here are the recordings of the diary entries
Attachments
AToTBepilogue.zip
(1.1 MiB) Downloaded 949 times
AToTB4intro.zip
(2.15 MiB) Downloaded 1017 times
AToTB3intro.zip
(2.06 MiB) Downloaded 681 times
AToTB2Intro.zip
(1.71 MiB) Downloaded 724 times
AToTB1Intro.zip
(714.22 KiB) Downloaded 676 times
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max_torch
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by max_torch »

Making a double post because of 5 file attachment limit...
I rerecorded the lines of Reeve Hoban in Scenario 4
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Reeve Hoban.zip
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The_Gnat
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by The_Gnat »

max_torch wrote: June 1st, 2018, 2:59 pm Making a double post because of 5 file attachment limit...
I rerecorded the lines of Reeve Hoban in Scenario 4
Excellent! 8) Thank you for doing that!
max_torch wrote: June 1st, 2018, 11:57 am The whole thing needs a volume level overhaul.. The_Gnat, can you import all of the audio files into Audacity at the same time and then normalize the volume? Then once normalized, make shouting dialog a bit louder and whispering/dying dialog a bit softer.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how- ... n-audacity
Okay I will see what I can do! :D
max_torch wrote: June 1st, 2018, 11:57 am It seems this project is gaining traction.. I suppose it's about time to make a github branch for this where all the project files can be accessed can be worked on open-source style. @Wesnothadmin, can we make a [voiceover project] branch in the Wesnoth repository?
Perhaps in time we can be included in mainline but for now I have made here a new git-hub link for the Two Brothers voice acting campaign! PM me if you want me to add you as a contributor!
Practically all of my recordings have breathing sounds that need to be edited down...
Would you like me to do that in audacity? Or do you want to remake them?
max_torch wrote: June 1st, 2018, 11:57 am I just noticed another problem:
The volume of the scenario introduction voicovers is controlled by the "music" volume while the volume of the in-scenario dialog voiceovers is controlled by the "Sound effects" volume. We should either make the scenario introduction go in the same group as "sound effects" or make a serparate new volume slider just for "voiceovers".
Already fixed! :) I solved it by using the voice tag in the story rather than the music tag.


Thank you very much for all of the new recordings ! I have added them in! :D :D
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

In fact voiceovers are currently played as a sound effect anchored on the unit's location, so yes, they will be controlled by the sound effects volume slider. This is an implementation detail which could change in a later release, so don't rely on it. Adding a separate volume slider for dialogue sounds like a good idea but would feel really redundant considering that none of the mainline scenarios other than this one have voiceovers.

I don't even remember making voice work in the story? Are you sure that works?
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max_torch
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by max_torch »

The_Gnat wrote:Perhaps in time we can be included in mainline but for now I have made here a new git-hub link for the Two Brothers voice acting campaign! PM me if you want me to add you as a contributor!
Okay thank you
The_Gnat wrote:Would you like me to do that in audacity? Or do you want to remake them?
I remade some lines that have a lot of breathing in the first scenario. Check them out.

@theuncertainman
Could you do the following lines in the first scenario:
"That was not so hard!" This dialog is spoken when a unit kills an enemy
"Sir, our scouts report that Baran was seen captured and carried away further north!"
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AToTB1redonelines.zip
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The_Gnat
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by The_Gnat »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: June 2nd, 2018, 12:12 am In fact voiceovers are currently played as a sound effect anchored on the unit's location, so yes, they will be controlled by the sound effects volume slider. This is an implementation detail which could change in a later release, so don't rely on it. Adding a separate volume slider for dialogue sounds like a good idea but would feel really redundant considering that none of the mainline scenarios other than this one have voiceovers.
Yes I agree, as it is now I don't think it would be worthwhile to add another volume slider for voice-overs but in future hopefully we will be able to make more campaigns and then we can do so! :D I would aim next for another shorter campaign. Perhaps An Orcish Incursion because it is short but also features very different characters.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: June 2nd, 2018, 12:12 am I don't even remember making voice work in the story? Are you sure that works?
Yeah it does work! :)
max_torch wrote: June 2nd, 2018, 1:44 am I remade some lines that have a lot of breathing in the first scenario. Check them out.
Okay thank you!

EDIT: After listening to them all I noticed a few have a lot of ambient background noise. For example Arvith2b, Baran3. I will remove the background noise in Audacity (it shouldn't be too hard) but I thought to mention it because I don't think your old recordings had as much static noise in them.
max_torch wrote: June 2nd, 2018, 1:44 am @theuncertainman
Could you do the following lines in the first scenario:
"That was not so hard!" This dialog is spoken when a unit kills an enemy
"Sir, our scouts report that Baran was seen captured and carried away further north!"
theuncertainman wrote: June 1st, 2018, 9:55 am Let me know if you need anything
@theuncertainman - Yeah if you have time it would be great if you could record voices for these two characters also! :D
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by theuncertainman »

Hey guys,

First post of the day. Here's those quick lines for you @max_torch
I've compressed them and also left in a Wav file with all my takes of "That was not so hard". Just in case you want to use something else.
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NPC lines by TheUncertainMan.7z
(4.23 MiB) Downloaded 992 times
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by theuncertainman »

And here's my first attempt at Mordak. I was going for an Eliphas the Inheritor kind of voice. ( You get points for trying right? :D

Let me know if you want it done a different way.
Attachments
Mordak - Your brothers plan to ambush me.ogg
(329.92 KiB) Downloaded 628 times
Mordak - Your brothers plan to ambush me 2.ogg
(391.26 KiB) Downloaded 508 times
Mordak - Worried about him are you.ogg
(416.62 KiB) Downloaded 533 times
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The_Gnat
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Re: [mainline] Voice acting ?

Post by The_Gnat »

Awesome! Thank you all the lines sound really great! I think I will use the 3rd version of the "scout report..." :D

I will update the git-hub repository! :)

Do you think it is justified to release a new version now?
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