Voiced Main Character

[LordKinoda]

With THIS VIDEO in existance I'd say it's almost obvious this mod ["Voiced Main Character" a.k.a The Warden, PC] could now be done by somebody with comparable skills.

 

I by no means have any skill with the toolset, I merely wanted to ask if somebody is working on this presently, or plans to.

 

From what I've read, the lip sync for the characters is automatically generated with the text you put in to the toolset mechanic ? Don't know if I'm remembering what I read correctly or not. So the hardest part would be the camera angles no ? Working out when is the best time to turn the camera on the warden, and from how far away, etc. Don't know if facial animations are part of the auto generator thing. Doubtful, so I guess that'd have to be done too. But you wouldn't really have to create a bunch of new ones would you ? Just use the vanilla ones somehow ? I don't know.

 

The people who made that video have sort of done it no ? Wouldn't the warden's dialog scenes be easier to do though ? When you are playing the game you are mostly just standing still and talking to one npc. So it might take a little longer to do it all, but easier by comparison to the animations in that video right ?

 

The voice actors shouldn't be too hard, because it should be left open for your own sound files if you so choose to insert them. Again, I don't if it's as easy as just dropping your files into the toolset or whatnot. Be great if it is. I know I for one would love to voice the dialog for my own character. This would also be great for the rest of the nexus modding community. Maybe they don't have a microphone to record their dialog and would love to choose from one, of probably many (if the mod was made), of voices. Or if they play a female and they're male, and don't know of anybody to record the dialog for them, or vice versa. Maybe they're not great actors either. Any number of reasons.

 

Is somebody currently working on this, or planning to ? And spare me any flamming or insults about my inadequate knowledge of the toolset and how it works (I did mention I know next to nothing about it right at the top; got some flamming on BW site, not looking for more).

 

Please take into account I am NOT talking about the voices for now. Only the technical apsects. The camera angles, lip syncing, facial animations, etc. Pretty much anything that would be in this mod to make it work that doesen't include actual voices for the moment. The voices can be added after the fact. Even me, who's not even a noob in the toolset, can extrapolate that the voices should be able to be added after everything else is done. How incredibly silly would it be if not ?

 

With a team of knowledgable modders, what kind of timetable could this mod be done in ? Surely BioWare could crank it out in what ? 1 week or so ? Remember no voice actors until all the other stuff is done. So no more than a month for "civillian modders" ? Just ballparking here.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

 

[RustyBlade]

I would love to see it but I think the sheer volume of dialogue that a voice actor would have to perform to cover all the options and side paths of even one of the PC races would be overwhelming for an amateur voice actor with or without access to a sound booth. The PC has no less than 100 times (rough estimate) the amount of dialogue of any other voiced character. I would imagine that the sheer cost involved in hiring a pro is why they (Bioware/EA) elected not to have the PC voiced.

[LordKinoda]

I would imagine that the sheer cost involved in hiring a pro is why they (Bioware/EA) elected not to have the PC voiced.

 

It wouldn't of been nothing for them to hire 1 male, 1 female, but this is besides the point for now.

 

Surely the other parts can't be too difficult right ?

 

Don't know why people seem to gravitate on arguing over how hard voicing the mod is. That's obvious. Only focus on the other parts. Because I think that if they're completed, enough people would make the time to get the voices done.

[marbatico]

perhaps its more doable if you use a computer generated voice?

[LordKinoda]

perhaps its more doable if you use a computer generated voice?

 

Irrelevant at this time. Voices can be done LATER. Completing the other parts of the mod would more or less be bait for people to record thier voices for the character.

[danscott84]

It is doable, and the mechanics are there, but it needs a voice to make the lip sinc work. In the toolset object viewer when you add speak line it asks for VO content. If there is no voice in the database, then it reverts to using text for the voice which appears at the top of the screen. It would be a daunting task to undertake as every dailogue scene would have to be remade since the default camera angle comes from behind the main character, not the face when talking. But to answer your question, the mechanics are there. If you want to see it in action, watch your player during combat when he/she uses the soundset you choose when creating your character. As for a timetable, I'll forgo Bioware's abilities since they have teams of people working on it as their only focus, for modders using spare time I would says several months at the very least. This would require remaking, as a guess, about 60% of the game. And I think this is a generous estimate for time, and conservative for amount of the game needing redone.

[LordKinoda]

It is doable, and the mechanics are there, but it needs a voice to make the lip sinc work. In the toolset object viewer when you add speak line it asks for VO content.

 

Isn't that what the "robo voice" is for ? A placeholder ? I don't know, as I've said, I'm no genius or even novice on the toolset.

 

As for a timetable, I'll forgo Bioware's abilities since they have teams of people working on it as their only focus, for modders using spare time I would says several months at the very least. This would require remaking, as a guess, about 60% of the game. And I think this is a generous estimate for time, and conservative for amount of the game needing redone.

 

Wow. Well maybe it's only a pipe dream for now. Least it is possible. That's something.

 

 

[danscott84]

It is doable, and the mechanics are there, but it needs a voice to make the lip sinc work. In the toolset object viewer when you add speak line it asks for VO content.

 

Isn't that what the "robo voice" is for ? A placeholder ? I don't know, as I've said, I'm no genius or even novice on the toolset.

 

As for a timetable, I'll forgo Bioware's abilities since they have teams of people working on it as their only focus, for modders using spare time I would says several months at the very least. This would require remaking, as a guess, about 60% of the game. And I think this is a generous estimate for time, and conservative for amount of the game needing redone.

 

Wow. Well maybe it's only a pipe dream for now. Least it is possible. That's something.

 

On my work with cutscenes, it does not place a robo voice in the scene, just text. Even when I try to animate the face, it does nothing with the speak line track. So that is where I came from with the needing a VO to make the face animate. If you look through the sound set options throughout the toolset, the options included are those spoken by the other NPC's, but I have not recognized any lines spoken by the player other than the lines associated with the voice chosen during the character creation.

 

As for the estimates, those were going on the assumption you were looking for conversational cinematics similar to the Mass Effect games where the camera switches from one character to another depending on who is talking at the time. It would, of course, be less if you just wanted to hear the warden and not also see him/her during conversations. Then it would be a matter of a voice actor making the files for all of the possible lines for the character. (It's very large)

[danscott84]

I just thought of a better way to explain the voice thing as well. I made a non adult cutscene for Bella's kiss in the Redcliffe tavern. In that scene I wanted to add commentary from all of the possible companions. To do this, I placed two Redcliffe soldiers off camera, then assigned the different party lines to them to speak. Now, if I moved the camera to show them, you see them speaking and talking like normally in the game. However, because I assigned specific lines to them, you see them speak, but hear a different voice for each line they spoke. IE: one speaking a line from Morrigan looks like the soldier, but sounds like Morrigan when he talks. This way I could get all of the companions involved in the scene without actually placing them in the scene visually.

[LordKinoda]

But it would completely impractical to NEED the voices to animate the faces would it not ? Way more than likely that BW was working simulataneously on voice work and animation. Maybe they were using something not included in the toolset. I don't know.

 

It's the same thing for all those pixar movies. CGI cartoon things, or any CGI character for that matter. No way they recorded all the dialog first thing. They made the characters talk and move their mouth around then added the sound files in later.

 

Actually now that I'm thinking about it, I remember watching the special features for one of those movies. The actor was sitting there watching the finished product of the movie, and just matching their lines to the character's mouth. Don't see why it couldn't be the same for DAO.