M4-78 VoiceOver ideas

[darklord42 0]

Greetings all,  I absolutely appreciate everyone's hard work into making this a reality.
 
But it has been said over and over again.  Suddenly coming from the main game and into this section is incredibly jarring and takes one out of the incredible immersion that is TSL + TSLRCM. It's - unfortunately-  a detriment to the experience.  Now what can we do about this with the communities limited resources?
 
The droid planet is filled with Droids!  Excellent, there is hope!
 
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Now the first idea is to use the stock droid beeps and whirs as much as you can for voices.  People don't mind reading as long as they aren't being distracted.  I can't read the text with the current VO's nor do I really enjoy listening to it, so I'm missing out on a lot of crucial data.
 
Now you done a great job putting this in already.  But take it one step further!  Go out into the internet find more stock sounds you can use. There is freesound.org (Be very careful as it's a mixed bag and you have sounds of all sorts of quality.)  I remember some actual R2 beeps from the movies.  Good idea. If someone has a proper mic, record your own mechanical sounds.   Anything.
 
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My next idea is to use text-to-speech (TTS) programs for voices as variety and the dialog heavy characters.  Now I know it may sound cliche, but it will give you the monotone you need for a base, plus newer ones can be manipulated with their inflections with the right punctuation.  None of the voiced droids really sound human in game,  nor do you want your voice actors to sound human.   If you have good software, you can add all sorts of effects, ring modulators, distortions, pitch effects to change it up and still make it understandable.   As for software to use, some effects can be done in Audacity. It doesn't have to be Avid Pro Tools.  If someone has a mac and the money, Apple's Logic is pretty decent at 200$.  I highly recommend MetaSynth 5.  You can do a heck of a lot with that program.  It's perfect for manipulating sound with a great visual interface. But it's extremely expensive, and unless one of you is a real audio nut, you probably shouldn't bother. (I got it cheaply though a professor as part of a class.)
 
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You can put out a call for proper voice actors.  Do a search.  There are proper places to go and ask, without breaking any bank.
In the end, I would still add effects to make it sound less human, and make it sound like it's coming out of a tin can.
 
Perhaps a simple lower of sound quality to land-line phone quality will do you wonders, then up-convert and add reverb.
 
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When you are all done, try to get everything to sound like the rest of the game, with the right reverb and levels. 
 
 
There are a lot of options.  Just have fun with it.

[Boilpoint 11]

It's a sensitive subject I think.  I remember talking about your first idea a little, and was told that people associate VO with polish, and that it would cheapen the mod to do it without VO.  That might be true, but I still would like to try a game with it patched this way just to see.

 

The other thing about that is the VOs are such a mixed bag.  Some of them really are good, so it seems like a shame to lose those.

[MrPhil 58]

Heh, with VO's, people either like-it or don't. It's much the same as real life: sometimes, people will speak in a voice that will just annoy the hell out of you but won't bother other people...

[darklord42 0]

That may be the case, but there is still a lot of creativity that can be done with it.  I'm afraid I'll be blunt. Can you honestly tell me it is up to the standard of the rest of the game?  Because that is ultimately your goal for evreything to pay off.  Even the voices that are currently good, can be molded to fit into the game even better.  I absolutly agree, not evreything has to be started from square one.   In fact, it's likely that what you have is a good base.  Just needs some heavy editing. I strongly belive each and evrey avenu should be explored for this project.  Just please don't call it a day yet.

[Malkior 469]

I agree it could perhaps be better, but the only droid that stuck out to me was the combat droid that escorts you through fast travel. The voice actor sounds fine, but he has a gravely tone, and the filter doesn't make him seem robotic enough.

 

Would I fix it? I don't know how much of a hassle there is in converting voiceover files, so I can't tell if the work would be worth the reward of changing something so minor. If it's a matter of time, I have audacity, and with a knowledge of what process you used, can convert the two or three lines for you.

[darklord42 0]

My point is it isn't minor.  Nor is it just the combat droids, evreything needs tweaking one way or another.  Anything that comes out as amature sticks out like a sore thumb, when put up against a comercial game.  Is it easy? no. Is it worth it? yes. 

[zbyl2 810]

Hey, thanks for your feedback.

 

I'll agree voice over quality on the droid's planet is... varied, and it's probably not the highest quality part of a mod.

 

It's really not that easy to get high quality VO for zero-budget mod for a Star Wars RPG. I've used various voice acting forums to find people willing to do voice over. I was contacted by some really talented people (as well as some not-so-much), but as it's all recorded in actor's home, and everyone uses different set up, different microphone and so on, keeping a constant quality would still be difficult.

 

Unfortunately, KOTOR II is a fully voiced game so we couldn't keep dialog silent (although I'd certainly prefer it - it's arguable whether people actually enjoy reading dialogs, but personally, I'd have no problems with that. Also, I really hope I don't have to go through hassle of finding voice actors again, as it's just too time consuming, stressful and limiting). Using droid beeps and such sounds like a good alternative, but in practice, constant beeping would drive you insane even faster than mediocre voice acting (trust me, we had an early beta that used droid sound sets for all dialogs - it was impossible to listen to... and that version had maybe half as much content as a finished mod).

 

Text-to-speech programs would not sound better. They'd be boring to listen to which would cause the same level of frustration that you seem to be feeling with robotised human VOs. Pretty much all of them had some sort of robotic effect on them by the way, so not sure why you go on about adding sound effects for so long?

 

 

 

Just please don't call it a day yet.

 

But I already called it a day. Over a year ago, when M4-78EP was released. All I do now is add Hassat's minor changes to the installer. Redoing all the VOs would be a massive undertaking, and I no longer have a will to work on this game (hey, I modded it for many years), nor do I have as much time nowadays as I had when we were starting out with TSLRCM/M4-78EP. I feel like I've done enough for the game by now, anyway.

 

By the way, did you like any of the VOs on M4-78EP, and if so, could you point out which characters you particularly enjoyed? I'm just curious.

 

Thanks for interest and writing such a long post, by the way. It's always nice to see people interested in helping us improve our mods, even years after they came out.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

And here I was thinking the Combat Droid/Escort Droid was one of the best, and I was glad he was willing to record a few more lines for 1.1...

 

And akin to Zbyl's question, which VO's did you really hate then?

[darklord42 0]

But I already called it a day. Over a year ago, when M4-78EP was released.

 

That's a shame, then there really isn't much to be done.

 

After thinking about it the problem with the voice actors isn't that they are amateurs, It's clear many weren't given the direction to keep all inflection out of their voice. So it sounds really off, and uncharacteristic of all other droids In-game.  That and most of them sound young, which isn't what you wanted.  If you could have gotten a few 30-40 year old actors, you would have been better off...  When searching for voices, you have to know what you want not except anything less.  If you had a mic that was decent or at least a ZOOM handheld, then it would have been better if you went out did the recording yourself. So you know it's all the same.

 

CS-28 is decent, And Combat/Escort Droid is serviceable. I can see that many effects were used on the voices, so I misspoke.  The main thing is I don't believe the existing droids in game with voices e.g. B1-D4 of Telos, were used as a model when mastering the voice recordings.  More could have been done there.  I would experiment with dropping the sound quality to say 8000Htz and up-convert it to 44.1k or whatever is used in game.  To try to get that far off, "tin can" sound and play with it some more.

 

I guess what it comes down to is, am I willing to take on such a project myself, and right now I just don't have the time.  Or I would have just done it...so for now it's a shame.