Does anyone want to work on a translation?

[SamIAm]

I talked with a long time friend of mine today (he does video production and editing) and he wants to do the dub for SM2. We'll see how that goes (he was looking for a side project to do). We have some pro grade mics and stuff and know some actors that have done voice acting, just need to make a little portable sound room for recording.

That would be cool, definitely. Just to offer some advice based on my own experience, though: it's not easy to find deep, strong, grizzled-warrior voices, and especially ones that can act. Some of the characters in this game sound like normal guys, yes, but you'd still need to get yourself 3 or 4 different actors capable of the deep-voice to make things convincing. That much could prove to be your greatest challenge in a dub project for Spriggan mk2.

Anyway, for a general update, I finished a first draft of the opening, pre-stage-1 and pre-stage-2 cinemas. There are already over 100 lines of dialog just from that much alone, but the going is easier in a way because the context is always totally clear. I've got real softsubs appearing over a long-play video of the game, so in a way, I can thoroughly test my translation already.

My goal is to do one cinema a day for the next week or so, then edit them over a few more days. After that, it's mostly up to Bonknuts.

[esteban]

I talked with a long time friend of mine today (he does video production and editing) and he wants to do the dub for SM2. We'll see how that goes (he was looking for a side project to do). We have some pro grade mics and stuff and know some actors that have done voice acting, just need to make a little portable sound room for recording.

That would be cool, definitely. Just to offer some advice based on my own experience, though: it's not easy to find deep, strong, grizzled-warrior voices, and especially ones that can act. Some of the characters in this game sound like normal guys, yes, but you'd still need to get yourself 3 or 4 different actors capable of the deep-voice to make things convincing. That much could prove to be your greatest challenge in a dub project for Spriggan mk2.

Anyway, for a general update, I finished a first draft of the opening, pre-stage-1 and pre-stage-2 cinemas. There are already over 100 lines of dialog just from that much alone, but the going is easier in a way because the context is always totally clear. I've got real softsubs appearing over a long-play video of the game, so in a way, I can thoroughly test my translation already.

My goal is to do one cinema a day for the next week or so, then edit them over a few more days. After that, it's mostly up to Bonknuts.

Outrageously wonderful developments! We are lucky to have so many folks working actively on this (and other) projects.

[spenoza]

I disagree that you need a lot of deep voiced, grizzled men. There really aren't that many of them in real life, and I don't think they are necessary to make certain characters convincing. Sure, you don't want everyone to sound like Mike Tyson, but deep voices are a bit overrated.

[Arjak]

For some reason, this talk of characters that should have deep voices reminded me of this:

[Keranu]

I disagree that you need a lot of deep voiced, grizzled men. There really aren't that many of them in real life, and I don't think they are necessary to make certain characters convincing. Sure, you don't want everyone to sound like Mike Tyson, but deep voices are a bit overrated.

I agree. The Japanese love to overdo the grizzly voice, there's always at least one in every anime/game. Not to mention the high-pitched squeeky girl and the nerd.

[SamIAm]

It's not just about pitch, it's also about young vs. mature, soft vs. rough, nasal vs. bellowing etc. The fact is, a lot of the younger guys who jump at the chance to volunteer voice-act in something like this are on the wrong side of some of these things.

The entire cast of the game is military personnel, and including small parts, we're talking about quite a few male characters with voice parts. Let me see what I can remember:

Greg (main character)
Conlod (sidekick)
Caningam (Greg's squad leader)
Marvy (main villain)
Jarvis (Marvy's flunkie)
Espilon (good guy commander)
Carse (true villain)
Narrator

Greg, Conlod and Marvy are all young and have typical medium range voices, and typical young guys can do the parts just fine. After all, sounding normal makes them possible to identify with, right? Jarvis, Epsilon and Carse, however, all sound pretty damn tough in their own ways, and the latter two are inescapably older. Caningam is also halfway there, sounding distinctly like a late 30's/early 40's squad leader who has been in the military all his adult life.

Do you HAVE to make these guys sound mature and manly? Well, I guess not. Suffice to say, though, you want something unique, and getting masculine voices for these guys would give a dub its spice. Coming up with an a good alternative would likely be even harder.

[spenoza]

We have a number of folks on this board in their 30s and early 40s. I'm in my mid 30s. I think it's fine to have an expectation that certain characters should maybe have deeper voices because they did in the original Japanese, but I think you should be open to different interpretations, as long as they work.

[ParanoiaDragon]

We have a number of folks on this board in their 30s and early 40s. I'm in my mid 30s. I think it's fine to have an expectation that certain characters should maybe have deeper voices because they did in the original Japanese, but I think you should be open to different interpretations, as long as they work.

*points to Son Goku* 0:21

[SamIAm]

Yeah, the fact that this forum has a few more middle-aged gents could be a big advantage. The point is that however it happens, it's going to be tough to get actors for Jarvis, Epsilon, Carse and Caningam that are convincing one way or another.  If Bonknuts wants to record all of this in one location, he better have a wide network of acquaintances who can act.

True story: for the LoX2 dub, which is still going to be included when we finish the project BTW, I wanted some tough sounding guys for a few parts, but nobody who submitted anything had the kind of menace I was hoping for. I went with a kind of over-the-top guy for one part, a guy who could do a kind of smooth mysterious voice for another part, and myself for the third part.

I chose myself because I had by far the lowest voice of anyone who submitted, but it was a sobering experience. I think all men fancy themselves as having a certain amount of bad-assness in their voices, but I also think most people overestimate it. I myself sound fairly soft and nasal in spite of the low pitch, and I also sound squarely like I'm in my mid-20's (in fact, I'm 27). My plan for that is to eventually either recruit someone who has the real grizzled quality to their voice that I'm looking for, or else smoke a cigar, scream into a pillow for a few hours and re-record all my lines the next morning.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Hmmm, sounds like I should've auditioned, I can go fairly low & threatening sounding.

[soop]

One thing I was thinking; with the dub, you might also have to change things around with an eye to length, padding out certain phrases and clipping others, so that it follows who's speaking on-screen.

Then, if you don't have all the actors in one place and accept recordings, you'll have to get them to time the phrases somehow.

And the last thing, if Bonknuts has all that professional gear, I'd imagine he can probably pitch-shift a recording and keep it convincing.

[SamIAm]

Trust me, I did all of that and more for my LoX2 dub. I made a script with time-measurements written in that were accurate to the 10th of a second of the original, I tested every line I wrote for readability, and I made the actors re-do any lines they didn't time properly.

The problem with pitch-shifting (which I have also experimented with) is that for most people and most situations, it gets really obvious if you do it more than just a half-step or a whole-step, which isn't much. They need to be most of the way there already. Well, unless you're talking about Daffy Duck or Zophar the god of destruction, that is, in which case, you can stretch it a bit more.

[SamIAm]

Hey hey, got two short cinemas done tonight. Pre-stage-3 and pre-stage-4. They're coming right along.

Now it's time to check the latest work on text insertion in Zeroigar. I think it's pretty cool that soon the English speaking world can enjoy two story-heavy and content-rich Japanese shooters.

[spenoza]

I don't have good recording equipment, but if you can provide me with a couple lines and what they originally sounded like, I could try my hand at a couple and see if I can sound grizzled or tough enough for you.

Then again, very few people can truly sound like Elias Toufexis.

[Bonknuts]

I'm almost finished with writing the inserter (PC side util). I lost the source code to my old inserter, but that's ok. It didn't handle the embedded pointer system for the ADPCM strings anyway. Rewriting it isn't too bad, it's only about 600 lines of code in C++.

 Been reading the script drafts and cinema subtitle drafts and damn... this game is just so much more awesome now that the story is coming through. This would have been a prime candidate for TTi to have brought over to the US for localization.

 As for the dubbing, ... heh. I'm so used to the japanese voices that it's gonna sound weird dubbed. Once we get a more finalized script for the whole thing, work should begin on the dubbing side. I might do some test voices meantime though. I'm a little anxious as to how it'll come out.