Voice Acting in mods

[LotM]

It seems to me that there are a good number of quest mods that have added excellent new stories, characters, and game play opportunities to Oblivion. However, I've noticed that many of these mods don't have (good) voice acting. This severely reduces immersion and the general enjoyability of these mods. For example, I installed Kragenir's Death Quest recently, and I've tried very hard to give it a chance, but the fact remains that talking to npc's without voices drives me up the wall. I haven't deactivated it yet, but it's probably just a matter of time.

 

Obviously I can't expect too much, can I? Most mods are not made for profit, and so I shouldn't expect them to invest in professional voice acting talent. Hopefully I can solve this problem. I'm making this thread to introduce one internet community to another.

 

I give you the Voice Acting Club and the Voice Acting Alliance. Two forums for amateur voice actors. Now when I say "amateur", I mean in the sense that voice acting is not their profession, meaning they don't get paid for it, meaning they offer services for free, in the same sense that almost everyone who make mods is an amateur of their craft. Many of the better members are amateur in name only (meaning they are superb performers). These are forums of people that like to act, are usually good at it (skill level varies per user), and do it just to have fun.

 

These two forums are places that people on youtube, newgrounds, and many other sites look to when they are looking for free voice talent. People come here looking for voice actors for original projects, flash animation, machinima, fandubs, and radioplays.

So how does it work? It's a forums. It's pretty casual. If you are looking for voice actors, you simply post an audition thread (please read the forum rules before doing so). Explain your project, give some character bios and provide lines for auditioners to read. Voice actors who are interested will record for you and email audition mp3's to you. If you find some voice actors you like, cast them! If you don't, then you keep the thread open or do some scouting. The VAC offers an index of members with their Demo Reels, so you can use this to scout and request if you don't want to hold an audition. (A demo reel is a short compilation of lines read in different voices and with different emotions in order to show people what they're capable of)

 

I really hope I can get this message out to the serious modders out there. You can find good actors at no cost who are willing to voice for you using these sites. It's been brought to my attention that the process is difficult, but I'd really like to see voice acting more prevalent in future mods. I myself also work as an amateur voice actor, so you might even see me around. = )

 

I would advise you to be professional when you make requests and hold auditions. It attracts better voice actors instead of the noobs.

 

Finally, I'll be sure to answer any questions posted in this thread, so ask.

[BFG99]

One challenge will still remain - adding new dialogue to Vanilla characters who are already voiced. Otherwise this seems like a stupendous opportunity!

[ub3rman123]

My excuse is that it's too bloody complicated to make .lip files and organize everything together in a coherent manner in the dialogue section.

[Deleted1848331User]

My excuse is that it's too bloody complicated to make .lip files and organize everything together in a coherent manner in the dialogue section.

Agreed.

[LotM]

Well I won't pretend to know anything about how that works, but my hope is that with a significant barrier crossed, more and more mod-makers will feel as though learning to navigate the dialogue system is a worthwhile endeavor. After all, voice acting drastically improves mod quality, and I've brought to light that it is achievable at no cost, so to those modders out there who are willing to go that extra mile it should be more possible.

[Vindekarr]

Thanks for the tipoff, it's always nice to meet new labourers who I only have to pay in limes :laugh:

 

No really, I too hope this will lead to more mods having voice acting-we've certainly got some incredibly talented modders who could no doubt put it to good use.

[ub3rman123]

Voice acting increases quality, but it also increases time taken to work on it, delaying it a ton, and increases file size, doubling or even quadrupling because of all the different sounds needed. Ever see the size of the Oblivion Voices.bsa?

[LotM]

Voice acting increases quality, but it also increases time taken to work on it, delaying it a ton, and increases file size, doubling or even quadrupling because of all the different sounds needed. Ever see the size of the Oblivion Voices.bsa?

 

 

Well you seem pretty vehemently opposed to voice acting for reasons I can't really understand. Not to make myself sound ignorant, but there's always a trade-off between quality and the amount of work you have to put in. That's a principle that remains constant in any field.

 

When I said there was no excuse for silent-voices in your mods anymore, perhaps I should have said besides not wanting to work hard enough to put it in. If that's you, then carry on without voice acting, my judgment doesn't affect you at all. I'm just here trying to make it easier. If you still think it's too difficult and complicated, that's your prerogative, but hopefully there are some other people out there who will consider it if they actually have some voice actors.

 

Obviously it's not impossible, because mods with voice acting already exist. That means that there are some modders out there who are willing to do it. Those people are the targeted audience of this announcement. No disrespect. = )

[ub3rman123]

Voice acting increases quality, but it also increases time taken to work on it, delaying it a ton, and increases file size, doubling or even quadrupling because of all the different sounds needed. Ever see the size of the Oblivion Voices.bsa?

 

 

Well you seem pretty vehemently opposed to voice acting for reasons I can't really understand. Not to make myself sound ignorant, but there's always a trade-off between quality and the amount of work you have to put in. That's a principle that remains constant in any field.

 

When I said there was no excuse for silent-voices in your mods anymore, perhaps I should have said besides not wanting to work hard enough to put it in. If that's you, then carry on without voice acting, my judgment doesn't affect you at all. I'm just here trying to make it easier. If you still think it's too difficult and complicated, that's your prerogative, but hopefully there are some other people out there who will consider it if they actually have some voice actors.

 

Obviously it's not impossible, because mods with voice acting already exist. That means that there are some modders out there who are willing to do it. Those people are the targeted audience of this announcement. No disrespect. = )

 

Not opposed to voice acting myself, but I think the cons can outweigh the pros.

 

I will have to look into those sites, though, since I intent to start adding voices to my mods and I'd hate to have to get my mom to do all the female voices.

 

My humble apologies if I came off as rude.

[Nimboss]

Well it's nice to get sources of willing people to voice act. great!

 

The problem is that when having a mod that might have fifty or hundred voiced lines this is not fun anymore. The technical issues and work pipe lines is not smooth to handle this amount and the needed efforts for details to get it work nice.

 

I just throw up some bullet points needed for a successful voiced mod:

 

There is only one vanilla TES CS .exe that still handle the possibility to create .LIP files at all.

The voiced file must be in a specific format to at all be .LIPified. Converting is needed before translation.

Still a process of .LIP creation might fail if the recording or the voice actor is not clear enough for the tool to make use of it. I have read threads were people have needed to make a voice over to get the .LIP creation process to work.

Currently this is all MANUAL work. Now this was for the technical part and there are loads detail works to be done in CS to create just this part.

 

The other part is how to practically let your voice actor know the mood and set and archetype and emotions in the voiced act to be believable? A moder have the lines that is supposed to be voice lined, but he need to transfer a .txt file with what and how he needs the actor to actually voice the lines (emotional descriptions).

 

I throwed out a FO3 mod to automate the TES CS .LIP file creation and this was a test to see the interest into this business at all. The second stage would have been to make a tool kit to let the voice actor to have a work file and tool with emotions details and so on to ease the work process to just let him/her make the voice acting as easy as possible.

 

Well, the result is I got downloads but not any response how to it worked or improvements needed. My decision to release this on FO3 might have been a failure.

 

I just like voiced encounters in OB or FO3 as anyone else but this is NOT easy accomplished! And that's why so few have it. However I like to create tool chains to ease this problem, just tell me what is needed to ease this obstacle.