PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Talad on December 01, 2010, 01:21:26 am
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Hi, please read this page (http://planeshift.ezpcusa.com/pswiki/index.php?title=PS_Voiceovers) about tutorial voiceovers, and apply for it in this thread. We need 6 voices to re-record the tutorial text, please donate yours! It will be fun.
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I would, but i dont have the accent for the male npcs, and i cant sound like a chick..
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Accents can be faked. Consider the ladies in tutorial were made by the same person, just with different faked accents (like naeve and abelia!).
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Random question after looking at that page: so all the races have different accents?
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dermorians sound french? EW! :o :'(
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None of them are British English...
Anyway, I might try my hand at a dermorian or two.
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No wonder my saxonian Remant was rejected... ;D -- Or was it? Did anyone ever listen to my contribution? I never got any reply. And I really tried my best for Trasok's smoked lungs.
I have no idea what kind of accent I would be able to fake; hopefully I learned a rather good British English. German is not on the list (despite the high number of german users) ... but might be useful for Kran.
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But I still have the opinion that submitting 32 bit 96 kHz is a waste of space. Hardly any microphone or soundcard will be able to even record that. Fake resolutions are useless. Just like upscaling SD video to HD: It doesn't gain information, it gets even more blurry instead.
Ogg Vorbis QUality 5 or LAME MP3 preset extreme is really all it needs for audibly transparent quality. Most microphones will provide bad quality anyway, and who has a studio with absorbing walls?
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But I still have the opinion that submitting 32 bit 96 kHz is a waste of space. Hardly any microphone or soundcard will be able to even record that. Fake resolutions are useless. Just like upscaling SD video to HD: It doesn't gain information, it gets even more blurry instead.
Ogg Vorbis QUality 5 or LAME MP3 preset extreme is really all it needs for audibly transparent quality. Most microphones will provide bad quality anyway, and who has a studio with absorbing walls?
the problem is if the source is already compressed a lot, it already lost a lot which will just get worse upon re-compression to speex ;)
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I did LigH, I have your voice samples and I'm planning to use them!
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@ RlyDontKnow:
Therefore define "a lot"...
"Audibly transparent quality" means that a majority of listeners could not tell apart the original from the source in an "ABX listening test".
The transparency threshold was tested by members of the HydrogenAudio forum (namely Roberto Amorim), where technically educated people meet to optimize codecs. They know audio compression algorithms in detail.
Of course, all psychoacoustic algorithms decrease objective quality. There is only a decision how much decrease is noticable or acceptable. For LAME, the averagely noticable threshold is near the result of the VBR preset "standard", so the preset "extreme" has a lot of headroom even for audiophile listeners. For Ogg Vorbis, the averagely noticable threshold may be around VBR quality level 4..6 (to achieve comparable results to LAME MP3 presets standard..extreme). If you feel a bit paranoid, you can as well ask for Ogg Vorbis quality level 10, which is objectively (measurably) even better than the MP3 algorithm is even able to store at constant 320 kbps (which would be a complete waste on human speech anyway). And if you demand lossless quality, then allow at least lossless compressors like WavPack, Monkey's Audio, FLAC etc.
But 96 kHz? Did you ever take a look at the frequency response curves of average consumer microphones sold in music stores, or even worse, built-in in headsets? I don't know if there are consumer microphones with a guaranteed frequency range above 22 kHz. Furthermore: The whole-spectrum frequency loss during the recording of your speech is by magnitudes worse than the frequency loss of tuned psycho-acoustic algorithms in quality levels mentioned above. Don't be afraid of multiplying loss ... I would agree for CBR 128 kbps MP3 created by any average encoder, but not for LAME VBR preset extreme or any encoder better than MP3 with at least "HydrogenAudio certified" transparent quality level.
But 32 bit? Do you know any PC soundcard which is technically, physically able to sample in a finer resolution than 16 bit from the microphone input? You won't find those on-board. You won't find those among "gamer" soundcards. I am not even certain if any musician sampling soundcard would provide 24-bit sampling via microphone input - if at all, then via line-in, so you would need a mixer in front of it.
And then we shall upload uncompressed samples ... even 7-zip compressed (which is highly inefficient anyway due to half of the sample resolution being rather random junk than exact information) it is a waste of bandwidth. As uncompressed samples with 32 bit and 96 kHz (which is interpolated in the majority, not recorded) there are 5.76 Megabytes per recorded minute, multiplied by up to 5 takes per sentence so you can later chose the best take), multiplied by the number of sencentes. You will easily collect hundreds of Megabytes. And uploading those may take several hours, depending on your upload bandwidth (which is a tenth your download bandwidth for most ADSL connections).
You want more than 400% of the quality your hardware is even technically able to record. And people wouldn't notice any loss if I sent you just 40% of that level.
My file is bigger. Fapp. Who is Claude Shannon? What is Entropy in a context of Information? Never heard of. ;) (No offense. Just sense.)
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@ Talad:
:o ... So I may need a new sound card to record more. (Leaving the cable in the plug for months must have destroyed my current one, possibly electrostatically.)
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flac makes sense. for the rest i don't see the reason why not. This is exactly why we have crap textures in game "who would need a 4096x4096 texture" => so we can keep crappy 512x512 textures . "who would think a better codec comes out"... "who would think better audio cards come out" it's a standard which is better to state and keep to be future ready.
lossy codecs are banned period. we have enough load screen in jpeg to not even end up with such things in audio.
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Not all Enkidukai were born in Ojaveda, and not all Dermorians were born in the Fourth Level ;) And some of them could have a different accent: Pinayet Ullavin has been living in Ojaveda for a good while: I think he has a soft Ojavedan accent.
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Then maybe FLAC. But 16 bit 48 kHz is enough -- because the hardware can't support more.
Upsampling audio to 32 bit 96 kHz is like upscaling an original 1024² texture to 4096²: It doesn't get more detailed, not even with a sharpening filter, not even with detail noise overlay.
If any sampling tool pretends to support it, it will record interpolated results. Just like "software zoom" cameras -- no comparison to real optical zoom.
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I think diabolis should have italian accent.
I'm not good with accents though. Unless you need Portuguese accent. It's a bit different from Spanish :P
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There was a technical issue with the voice upload and it was telling you the upload was ok even if it was not! If you uploaded any files, please re-upload those now. Thanks!
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That is related to a period since announcing this thread (today = 1. December 2010)?
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Hm. I find that whole accent thing really weird, but oh well. Too bad you need no German accent. Though nevermind, I'm neither a good actor nor have proper recording equipment anyway.
[Edited post because it had an inside joke that approximately 1 person on the world might get and all the others would think I'm talking prejudices here.]
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I would give it a go but you need a fermale Scottish/Irish voice and not a male yet. I don't think i can do a convincing female voice ;)
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So I’ve been sitting on this post for a few days, trying to decide if I wanted to risk opening a can of worms by making it. (I think I was sort of hoping someone else would raise these objections first, TBH :whistling:) But I’d feel like crap if I didn’t speak up, so… I think I kind of have some problems with this project. Bear with me for this super long post, please.
First, the technical difficulties. Voice acting isn't the easiest thing in the world, and voice acting with a fake accent is actually very challenging. Bad accents can add some awesome unintentional humor to media (see: Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins) but I'm not sure so-bad-it's-good is PS’s intended motif. Also, I'm a little worried about the quality of the sound, since I doubt most PS users have access to professional sound recording tools. Also also, since players come and go, there's no assurance that a player who records a particular NPC's voice will be here next year… and what if a new quest is implemented using that NPC? Does the character's whole dialogue have to be rerecorded with someone new for consistency? Bad voice acting is infinitely worse than none at all.
Secondly, the settings problems. Why do all the races have their own accents – and such an array from different linguistic groups, at that? Don't many of the races intermarry frequently? Don't they regularly live in mixed communities? (And why on earth would Ynwwn have a completely different accent from their elven parents?) I wouldn't have an issue with having a specific accent for Nolthrir from the Lake region, or Enkidukai from Ojaveda – that's plausible enough, those are areas with racial majorities where ancestral accents would linger – but that's pretty different from saying “Nolthrir sound Spanish” and “Enkidukai sound Arab”.
Thirdly… okay, let me preface this by saying this third qualm is the reason I've been debating back and forth about whether I wanted to speak up at all, because I genuinely don’t think anyone on the Dev team had any malicious intent here, and I'm afraid someone might take what I'm about to say that way. I'm dead certain the accents chosen were chosen because they had the right sound, not for their RL associations, but...
Players don't come into PS as blank slates. All those accents have various stereotypes associated with them, and if a new player is talking to Neave in the tutorial and hearing her Scottish accent, that'll influence their interpretation of what dwarves are supposed to be like. I’m… not sure that's such a great thing.
To be honest the one that bothers me most (because it's personal, not because I think it's inherently the worst) is the use of the Arabic accent for Enkidukai, even though I'm guessing it was picked for the perfectly innocuous reason that Arabic speakers use some very Enki-appropriate sounds. I'm probably a little sensitized to this because I'm Arab-American, but it's awkward to think of my mother’s accent being associated with the game's resident Proud Warrior Race Cat People. I hope that makes sense? I guess I'm kinda wary, based on prior experience with how Arabs are portrayed in Western media, that using an Arab accent for Enkis will influence players to draw on cartoonish ideas about Arab culture while playing their characters.
If we have to have voice acting in the game (personally I think it's a bad idea, but that’s not my call) I think it would be better to assign accents to specific areas of Yliakum, not races, and be VERY selective when a voice acting clip features someone imitating an accent not their own. I also think it would be better to have them be accents without a lot of prominent stereotypes attached, although I acknowledge that might be hard to pull off. I guess in general I feel like this plan needs to be thought out a little more before it’s put into action, especially re: the settings implications.
Edited for: a few grammatical glitches.
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I did not know that accent relation when I recorded my voiceovers. I just recorded them. Either they match the character or they don't.
Accents raise predjudice. It was no surprise to hear the "Trade Federation" in Star Wars: Episode 1 with a french accent. So I would agree that we should possibly not enforce them too much. But that's my own, personal opinion.
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Oi,
I would like to take part.. but I've got two questions:
- Why the atomic blue license? (I understand the arguments for the other art stuff (I don't like them), but I don't see why not using cc-by-nc-sa, or similar)
- Why don't you make the decision public? A wikipage with all submissions and a poll or something. As this is a thing that concerns us all and that is contribution by us. That's called democracy, voting and published results. Works quite well.
o/ thob
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Perhaps one approach could be to make quest voice overs very easy to be changed in the user's client. If it was made very easy for players to use the voice overs that they care to use/create then those clips could be uploaded to the forum. Then via forum voting the creators of the chosen clips could sign the Atomic Blue Contract to have them made the clips that go out with new package releases.
In that way a consensus could be more easily reached and the Dev Team does not have to take flack about clips that may be somehow offensive to any players. The wiki could contain all the other entries for downloading. Then everyone can hear what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. The possibility would be in place for translation packages, as well. It would not bother me, for example, if an Italian did their quests in their own language.
- Nova
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Is it too late to apply for this? I live in the American South, but have been doing voices for years, and this sounds like it could be fun.
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Not all Enkidukai were born in Ojaveda, and not all Dermorians were born in the Fourth Level ;) And some of them could have a different accent: Pinayet Ullavin has been living in Ojaveda for a good while: I think he has a soft Ojavedan accent.
Good point, but the majority of Enkidukais were born in Ojaveda so really I find that being the majority is more IC than being a little bit different.
But other than that I wouldn't mind doing a voice over with my awesome Kiwi accent :D But then I am under 18 and so it cant be copy righted sorry :(
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howdy y'all, i kin speak purfect texan!
lol, not rly, i've lived here for ages and can still do a better british than southern accent ;D
but, if you ever need a little girl's voice X-/
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@ Tessra:
If you are faster than "soon™", then you are not too late yet.
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We three dwarves of caverns deep, singing of brotherhood and standing tall. ( As dwarvernly possible )
Just a lil' poem I thought to inspire some dwarven accent ideas.
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All,
I need your help in finding the voices or we cannot publish the improved tutorial!
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I really wish i could help, but im NE Coast of the US, i am however a redneck..but no, i cant do fake voices.. :(
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Oh, nice to see many answers in here. Let me address those.
@Ruya : We don't require super-professional audio. PlaneShift is a game made to have fun, and I think it will be fun to have more voices in game, even more if made by players. About the association of language and race, we tried to have more artistocratic languages like british be on xacha, more musical/gentle ones like french be on elves, etc... I don't think the accents bring prejudice, they bring fun. Do you have prejudice when you go and visit Paris, or New York or Rome or Bangalore? I personally don't, and I think it's great to embrace the differences instead of having just plain english and it will bring color to the game. One thing we could do is to develop unique accents for the PlaneShift races, but i don't think that's very easy. For the setting problem, most races came from different places, and still like to live in their tribe/group/cities, so they surely have an heritage and they can have a special language. In Italy we travel a lot, but still a person from Milan has a different accent than one from Turin, and that's very easy to recognize even if those people watch TV in "perfect" italian all the time. So I think the accent can stick, and surely can stick in a medieval world.
@Tessra great! I sent you a PM on this, with instructions on how to start.
@thob I don't think will be good to change the license just for the voices, those are like any other piece of art we package. I'm happy you want to participate, which voices you can cover in the tutorial (faked or real) ? About making the decision public I'm not sure of what you mean. You want to vote on the best "abelia voice" for example? I think it can be cool, but at this moment we struggle to get one voice for each char, so I don't think there will be any voting possible. We can consider that for the future.
@Tuathanach cool, I can sign you up for greetings and other voices in game. Can you take one NPC which is a stonebreaker/hammerwielder male in game, and tell him "hi" few times, and record the text he tells you? (apart from "I don't understand what you said :) )
At all, feel free to make some tests and upload your samples in the voiceover page on ps wiki.
Thanks!
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from my experience with french people, it does not make for a very good accent translated to english. sounds nothing like what's portrayed in movies either. it would just sound odd in a video game.
more artistocratic languages like british
(http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/lol.jpg)
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we tried to have more artistocratic languages like british be on xacha,
Would love to submit my candidacy for the Xacha voice!
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Thanks Talad!
I just wanted to add one little thing here. With so many voices needing to be done now, and any in the future, it is quite likely that more than one person will be responsible for doing voices of different same-gender, same-race characters. In order for the different voice actors to keep them sounding even remotely similar, the actors need some type of OOC unity. Using known, easily recognizable accents is a great way for them to be able to do this. Just my thoughts. :)
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Roled would also like to try his larynx at this task, if he could just figure out how to download audacity so that it runs...
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Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but the wiki pointed me here. I see the tutorial voices were all done, but are other NPCs getting done, over time?
Is this still a thing? If you still want voices, I've actually got a decent 16 track studio with some good mics. I'm Canadian, but I can do many accents.
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We already had voices outside the tutorial. The mage in the forest is notorious for blathering...
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How have I not noticed this beofre now!? I will check this out in the morning!! What fun. This must have been done while I was away.... but still I've not heard theme speak!
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So, since this first idea for adding voices was started we have actually removed the vast majority of them from the game. I think only 1 or 2 quests currently have any voices. The reason for this is that I've edited, added/removed/adjusted bits, for every quest in the game a number of times, then there are Mordaan's edits on top of mine. As this happens the recorded voices and npc dialogue no longer match, so once that happens we just remove all the voices for that quest.
So the tutorial, this was totally re-written from the version which was voiced, so is no longer voiced.
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Nevertheless, it was fun trying to participate. Even though I guess my submissions were rejected.
But requesting them in high-res PCM format (even higher than recordable) was nonsensical, and will always be. Uploading took ages.