Author Topic: [In Development] FF8 Voiceover Project (Read 123084 times)

Shard · « **Reply #50 on:** 2014-08-14 00:53:45 »

Me, some of the actors, and some of my friends will be testing it a lot, looking for dialogue that doesn't sound right or isn't timed properly (especially volume wise. Some of Rinoa's lines are a little loud in the demo, especially after the music fades).

LeonhartGR · « **Reply #51 on:** 2014-08-14 03:37:00 »

I'd be glad to express some opinion if you are willing to accept any.

Already did anyway.

Shard · « **Reply #52 on:** 2014-08-14 05:47:12 »

Sure, go for it.

dkma841 · « **Reply #53 on:** 2014-08-14 17:00:02 »

SilverSpades · « **Reply #54 on:** 2014-08-14 17:43:59 »

It was nice work! I liked what I heard!

Few suggestions...
I feel like this fandub of the ending really nailed the characters, especially Irvine (which I never realized would fit with a southern accent), who really made me laugh the whole time. Just hope you can capture that same feeling.

Also, I noticed the first few lines in the opening (Squall and Rinoa's promise) always sounded bad to me on every dub until one of them used an echo for their voices, which really fit the feel of the opening somehow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqDhjDJ0SfE though this one's echo felt too strong like a commenter below pointed out (also that Squall kinda sounded flat in his lines but I digress)

I hope I'm not ruffling feathers. I'm just a big fan of the game, though I don't have astronomical expectations. Just shooting out thoughts in hopes of making this project closer to a dream dub.

Shard · « **Reply #55 on:** 2014-08-14 21:07:31 »

The actors' names are in the first post, along with most of their auditions.
The gentleman voicing Zell is a member of BTVA, he auditioned for Zell, Laguna, Seifer and I believe Irvine. It's actually his first time voice acting if you can believe that (I didn't).

I'm as eager to get this out as you guys are to play it. All the actors have done phenomenally well so far during our recording sessions. I'm waiting for Christian (Squall) to get back from his hip hop tour to get some of his lines so I can make an actual trailer.

LeonhartGR · « **Reply #56 on:** 2014-08-15 02:12:05 »

An early note before this project progresses further more... Will this be possible to be implemented in mine or any translation projects? Or will this replace the files? Likewise, if it's not, will we be able to insert our dialogue files? Thanks!

Shard · « **Reply #57 on:** 2014-08-15 03:46:42 »

You can use this with translations, but the sounds that play may not always match the dialogue that pops up. I have combined and split many dialogue boxes in the game (especially the multi-page ones), which changes a few of their IDs and the orders in which they show up. The sounds that play aren't linked to dialogue boxes, they're hard coded into the cutscenes, so changing one will not change the other.

That being said, most of the game's dialogue boxes have the same IDs as in the vanilla game. If you just put your text over my mod, you'll only get the wrong sound from maybe 1 out of every 200 dialogue boxes. All you'd have to do is find the ones that don't match up to the sounds (by playing through the game) and change them yourself, but you'll have to wait until the mod releases before you can do that.

Thanks to Myst6re's newest updates for Deling (some of which I requested), it's possible to import only parts of each field (like dialogue only), so you can have your mod replace my dialogue without affecting the cutscene scripts. My mod will have to be installed first, then yours on top of it. You'll understand how when I release the mod and give people installation instructions.

Takigan · « **Reply #58 on:** 2014-08-21 00:31:33 »

Started lurking about a month ago when I realized I missed the deadline for the central cast auditions by about 3 weeks.....though after hearing audition samples from the incredible people who were ultimately picked, I realize my chances were a bit slim to begin with

. Now I've finally created an account and would like to use my first post to say that I'm really excited for this project, and hope that I can become involved at some level or another!

Which brings me to my point. Are you planning on doing another BTVA Casting Call for many of the "minor story roles"?:

IE. Ward, Kiros, Zone, Watts, Xu, Nida, Biggs, Wedge, Garden Faculty, General Caraway, President Deling, Headmaster Martine, Ma Dincht, Raine, Julia, Forest Fox Leader, Mayor Dobe, White SeeD Leader, Piet (Lunar Station), Young Squall (and everyone else from the orphanage).....

......Wow! It's only after mulling over the script do I realize how many minor roles there actually are just in the main story dialogue...there are more than a dozen other roles that I didn't even name that have at least 5 lines of dialogue. A lot of people are going to have something to do, I'm optimistic!

But yeah.....any idea on when that might be? Weeks, months? Should I maybe send in a demo reel now?

Shard · « **Reply #59 on:** 2014-08-21 01:40:53 »

I have like 15 recording sessions backed up that I need to edit and process so I know what I still need from the current actors. This will probably will take close to a month. I've been casting minor roles from some of the current actors, but there are still a TON to do. If I can't find a voice for a set of characters, I will open auditions for them.

You can record a demo if you like and send it to [email protected] . You won't hear anything back until I actually start looking for people to do minor characters.

LeonhartGR · « **Reply #60 on:** 2014-08-21 10:49:21 »

I mailed you an audition. Do whatever you feel like with my voice and weird accent lol

Shard · « **Reply #61 on:** 2015-02-18 10:35:41 »

Well, progress is coming along, and 1/6 of the planned sounds are working in the game right now, while about 50% is recorded but not edited yet. Eventually, I will need a small group of people to help test the mod before it's released, to make sure sounds don't play in the wrong place, aren't too loud/soft, etc. If you're interested, please PM me with the subject "FF8 Voiceover Testing" and give me your email address. I will not reply to these PMs, I'll just be collecting them and checking them all later in the year when the project is close to complete.

Shard · « **Reply #62 on:** 2015-04-01 19:37:57 »

New video! Squall's Speech during the Garden Battle

Mcindus · « **Reply #63 on:** 2015-04-02 00:37:28 »

Quote from: Shard on 2015-04-01 19:37:57

New video! Squall's Speech during the Garden Battle

Great work!

I had a question about the voiceover project: Is there a general director, or are the actors given free reign? I really like the voice of Squall, but there really seems to only be one or two parts that sound very emotive, and at this point in the game, it's supposed to be our first real glimpse into how inspirational a leader Squall can be. The only reason I bring it up is because this part is so essential and it kind of felt a little 'dry'.

Shard · « **Reply #64 on:** 2015-04-02 01:25:48 »

I direct most of the actors live. I wanted Squall to be less emotive than the other characters for the first part of the game. He gets more emotive and emotional after disc 2 when Rinoa goes comatose. I did something similar for Rinoa's character. She takes a personality 180 over the course of the story.

Mcindus · « **Reply #65 on:** 2015-04-02 03:36:59 »

Quote from: Shard on 2015-04-02 01:25:48

I direct most of the actors live. I wanted Squall to be less emotive than the other characters for the first part of the game. He gets more emotive and emotional after disc 2 when Rinoa goes comatose. I did something similar for Rinoa's character. She takes a personality 180 over the course of the story.

Ahh, well then I apologize and just need to play it in context!

Thanks for the reply.

insidious611 · « **Reply #66 on:** 2015-04-18 00:37:17 »

I realize this is going to amount to a pretty silly request, but given what happened to the earlier FF7Voice project, I want to make it: Please, please don't let this (or the companion FF7 project) die before you've gotten something out. There's so much potential here.

Shard · « **Reply #67 on:** 2015-04-18 00:52:31 »

1/3 of the dialogue is done, and 99% of the backend work is done. It would be pretty silly of me to NOT finish this. I'm glad you're excited, but these things take time.

insidious611 · « **Reply #68 on:** 2015-04-24 08:15:36 »

Oh, I certainly didn't mean to sound impatient, it's more... Stuff like this has been attempted before and then abandoned.

So I wanted to express my sincere wishes that this be completed.

Glad to see you're already so far along though, that's... extremely impressive.

Rufus · « **Reply #69 on:** 2015-05-03 00:21:02 »

would it be possible to release a public beta of the 33% of the voice work that is done, what would be nice if it was disc 1 only, then that whole disc can be fully voiced and anyone can install it and give it ago.

don't be worried of people running into issues, that is fine as it would be a public beta.

Shard · « **Reply #70 on:** 2015-05-03 01:00:20 »

Quote from: Rufus on 2015-05-03 00:21:02

would it be possible to release a public beta ... don't be worried of people running into issues, that is fine as it would be a public beta.

Despite what the younger generation has been misled to think by garbage game developers like Blizzard 2.0, the point of a public beta is not to give people your unfinished, buggy work for the fun of it.

I don't do public betas for the same reason I don't walk outside with half my clothes missing.

And just to update while I'm here, I recently got a new job and moved, so I haven't actually done anything for this project (except a few recordings) in the last month or so. Once I'm settled into my new place, things will speed up again.

Rufus · « **Reply #71 on:** 2015-05-03 01:13:25 »

haha okay fair enough, on a semi related note I played through cmt's halo SPv2 beta and it was pretty buggy, but they seem to release it anyway and peolpe play through it on forums, but you have your rights as the creator of sorts.

I still think it would be a good idea to release the mod by disc number, so in that case you could say release disc 1 voiced for november 2015, disc 2 for february 2016 etc, I think this would be better than releasing the whole thing in late 2016.

Obviously those dates are just examples.

Rufus · « **Reply #72 on:** 2015-05-03 01:14:03 »

I also think it would look much better to have a character portrait in the dialogue box instead of text if there is voice over work, this would resemble the game 'silver'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i6TfrwThYU

when FFX has a static camera scene there are no portraits or dialogue boxes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4mpPKpfeMk

but in ffx the person talking is very animated where as that wont be the case in ff8, so I think a character portrait for who is talking would be better.

this off course would be an option for the game, they can choose the character portrait only or subtitles instead.

Shard · « **Reply #73 on:** 2015-05-03 02:25:16 »

Quote from: Rufus on 2015-05-03 01:13:25

I still think it would be a good idea to release the mod by disc number, so in that case you could say release disc 1 voiced for november 2015, disc 2 for february 2016 etc, I think this would be better than releasing the whole thing in late 2016.

The thing is, I don't work on things in chronological order. 1/3 of the voices are done, but that doesn't mean it's all on disc 1. A lot of it is on disc 2. They're all over the place. I couldn't release a disc-1-only mod even if I wanted to (I entertained that idea but I have little control over when each disc gets finished).

Your portraits idea is really sweet. Unfortunately that will never happen because the game can't and never will be able to do that.

Rufus · « **Reply #74 on:** 2015-05-03 03:09:45 »

ah right I assumed as much as by this time there would have been a mod for that, even the FF7 fan de-make on the NES had character portraits.

anyway my other suggestion is just to have the names come up but with no words, just so you know who's talking, overall if there's voice, i wouldn't want text that matches the voice, i generally don't subtitle games and in the case of ff8 with voices it will look like a very strange way to subtitle a game.

on the music volume side of things, I was thinking it would be like kingdom hearts, where when the voice acting happens the music drops in volume, and when there is no voice acting it will return to its original volume, but it seems after seeing your Squall's Speech during the Garden Battle video that the music will always be at a lower than normal volume.

it's quite a tough thing to decide as the games were originally designed with mute characters and loud music that drew a lot of attention to itself, it certainly wasn't designed as background music to voiced characters like the ffx was most of the time.

But to me the two videos I have seen sound great, just hearing voices dramatically changes the game, even if you had to sacrifice the music by having it at a low volume at all times, that would be an acceptable loss.