[Video] Sword of Sorrow Series and other stuff I do

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Two weeks? No problem. The episode they'll show up in will take a good four months to finish. There's no rush.

Also, for Gestahl, he's a king trying to take over the world. No idea how that kind of king would sound.

Chris can just be your regular voice, but yet he dose die quite quickly. Hell, probably all my charaters die quickly. The main charater (Locke) might only last for six or seven episodes.

Anyways, I'll send the lines for those charaters once I'm 100% sure the script is finished.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Alright, waiting on Basilisk2150 and Tezkat. Basilisk2150 actually probably was the first one I gave lines to, but I still never recived anything from him.

Golbez, Kefka, and Kaiser drag show up in episode six. Lines for episode seven can be put off for later.

But yet, as I said before, the episode can hold, but getting the lines now would be much appreciated. There's only four days left in summer break, after all.

[Lisky]

sorry about not responding, i keep getting a noise in the background i can't trace... for now though, is there a preferred format you want me to send in... or... just go with MP3 and you'll work with what you get?

[Castle Pokemetroid]

With the whole buzz thing, it seems that music actually has a good chance to drown it out. Only if the buzz is very loud and strong dose it seem very noticable.

Also, school starts the day after tommorow, and tomorrow is a day were I'll have no time to work on the project. With school now going to be in, I'll have less time to work on my project, which maybe indeed better for you, as you get more time for those voices.

As another note, part two of episode six is completely finished and part one of episode seven is near completion. Episode seven is rolling along more smoothly as expected. I just may release Ep 6 and 7 at the same time.

Also, I wish to know, should I make episode eight entirely of voice and less of animation? If I did, it would take only a short while to finish it, but there will be no words to follow. My episodes are mostly text, anyways. Not much animation to begin with.

Eh, the words don't matter so much, anyways. As long as you know what they're saying, right?

[Tezkat]

Yeah, sorry for the delay. I recorded all the episode six lines you sent me. Just need to sort through them... should be up sometime in the next few days.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Yeah, sorry for the delay. I recorded all the episode six lines you sent me. Just need to sort through them... should be up sometime in the next few days.

Alright. Fine by me. School starts tomorrow, so I'll be going a bit more slowly on the project, anyways.

Amazingly, episode seven is half way done.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I decided to record some of the episode to cut down production time, and boy did it ever.

I predicted four months of work, but that's been cut to only a fourth of the time.

I expect now that episode seven will be done perhaps a week from now.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I really want to let this topic die.

I wish there was no need to revive it, but I have still not recieved the voices from Tezkat, Basilisk, and ChaosMage.

All the others who have helped with the voices had givin me them only days after I gave them their scripts. And for that, I thank those few.

Tezkat had not been true to his word, it has been more than a few days, Basilisk should stop worring about the buzz, and I don't know what the hell happened to ChaosMage.

Even so much as an update would be nice, guys. Don't leave me hanging, a waiting the day you would return with that I had requested, now.

[Tezkat]

My word? I don't recall agreeing on a delivery date. There's no news to report since my last update. I recorded all four characters for episode six, and now I need a free hour or so to put it all together (assuming that there were no problems with the recording--I haven't actually had the time to listen to it yet).

It turned out that I didn't have a free hour last week. I just got back from a 5-day convention... which is another way of saying that I haven't really slept since Wednesday. I had hoped to have my stuff finished before leaving, but I'm afraid it was not to be.

Honestly, I have only a few sessions per month to dedicate to freebie voiceover work. When I sign up for an amateur project, it means that you go into the queue with my other commitments, and you get some quality voice acting from me every month or two. Since I had asked explicitly about this subject when signing up, I'd assumed you were cool with that. If circumstances have changed, and you now require more timely delivery, I'll have to bow out of the project. I can't meet tighter deadlines working for free.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Sorry about that last message, I wasn't feeling so well. I didn't mean to type out the message on how it sounded.

School is in session, and is taking up quite a bit of time. I wouldn't be able to add the voices unless I have quite a bit of free time.

If you're able to get it within a month from now, it wouldn't kill me.

I might even take a bit of a break from the project in that time as well. School's more important, anyways.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Damn straight, episode finished.

Now I finally can take that one month break in peace.

Time to do a little catching up on Crono Trigger.

Lines are also indeed expected by that time as well, or I will have excuse to blow up.

Priortise episode six over episode seven. I don't like releasing an episode after another in less than a month's time, so you have TWO months for episode seven.

But episode six lines is indeed demanded within a month's time. I'll give you til the 30th of next month.

If you can't do it in that amount of time, you'll be breaking an arm, Tezkat. As stated before, my project can be delayed as long as nessesary, but that dosen't mean it won't hurt. Another month after five weeks seems like a bit much, and I hope you'll be able to finish in those five weeks time.

Episode six as a whole will be relying on voice acting. Without it, the episode will be nothing but terible animation and poor script. Something like some of the latest DS games coming out.

[ChaosMageX]

(I hope I don't get in trouble for posting in a topic older than 14 days, since this is the art forum.  If this is still a violation of the rules, I will delete this post (if it is within my power to do so) as soon as possible.)
The main reason I am making this post is that I am never sure if my PMs get through, since my Outbox remains empty no matter how many I send, and I am not familiar with SMF.

I have done my part and made recordings for the characters I was assigned to.  My brother, Gosnotsky (as he is known in Battlefield 2142), even contributed his voice.

The reason it took me so long was because life got in the way in one form or another, from my intense college studies to the inverter on my laptop's screen breaking and requiring me to buy a new one online, along with several other component upgrades.

Still, I managed to get it done before your deadline of the end of this month, so here is a link to a file containing all my raw, unedited voice recordings:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/61658/Chapter07_ChaosMageX.rar

Also, here are some notes on the recordings:
--The recordings were made using Audacity 1.3.9, and you can just google it to get it yourself if you don't have it already.

--The recordings are raw and unedited, as I'm leaving that up to you to do.  You'll have to dice up the sound files anyway to mix them with your other actors' recordings, so I might as well just send you the Audacity project file and data.

--All the recording data has been compressed into a .RAR archive file, which can be opened with WinRAR (just google it if you don't have it, as it's also a free program).

--The recordings were done with a Logitech USB microphone, except for my brother's recordings, which were done with his own Plantronics USB microphone.

--The recordings were done within a walk-in closet in my house with the computer in a separate room.  The clothes and door did an excellent job of eliminating almost all echo and blocking all sounds from the outside world.  Hopefully that will help with your project.

--I included an initial test recording of all the voices I could think of doing at the moment to see how distinct they were from each other when recorded, which helped in choosing the voice for each character.

--I tried recording all the voices at once in the order that they appeared in the lines you gave me, but it proved too difficult to avoid taking long pauses or tripping over my own tongue when switching between characters.

--The rest of the recordings are of each character done seperately, in the order in which they first appear in the lines you gave me.  All of their lines are repeated several times for cover-up, some slightly different from others, so you can pick the ones that you think sound best and splice them together with your other recordings.  There is at a one second pause between each line, so hopefully it will be easy enough to splice up the lines however you see fit.

About the characters' voices:

It was a little difficult for me to really 'get into' the characters, since I have no idea what they look like or what's going on around them when they're talking, or what the other characters you didn't give me are saying to them.
Don't be surprised if the recordings don't sound exactly the way you want them to sound, as all I had to go by was the vague descriptions of their motivations that you gave me.

Gestahl: I'm going to be frank.  I don't think I can provide the voice that you're looking for this character.  I couldn't create anything that sounded much different from my regular voice.
Instead, I had my brother, Gosnotsky do the recording instead.  If his voice does not sound right to you, then I can try my best to do the recording myself, but I won't make any promises about the quality.
Also, my brother used his own, separate microphone to do the recording of his voice, and this is his regular voice.

Red Wing Soldier: This was done in my drawling red-neck voice, as it seemed to suit him and it sounded distinct from my other voices.

Cid: Like I said before, I can't really do creaky old man voices.  With Cid, I was going for something along the lines of the fat high eunuch from Code Geass.  If he doesn't sound the way you want him to, then I don't know what to tell you.  I tried to give him a distinct laugh and added some para-language at the end of the last line for when he's getting knocked out by Baigan.  You can always cut that out if it wasn't necessary.

Christopher: As promised, I did this one in my normal, regular voice, which left me free to try a little harder to get into his character instead of concentrating on making a distinct voice that sounded like it was coming from the same person for each line.  I added some evil laughs at the end of the last line, but you can cut those out if you choose.

Airship Mechanic: I tried to do a nasily voice here, but it was a bit hard to do both the stuttering and make sure that it didn't just sound like Christopher with a cold.  I tried my best to mimic the stuttering you put into the lines, but I also did a lot of improvising as well, adding whimpering and extra lines, and some gagging noises for when he's being killed (even though I have no idea how Bastian is killing him).  All his lines by themselves with no improve can be found somewhere within the long recording, and if not, please let me know and I will try to re-record them exactly as you typed them.

If any of the voices are not to your liking, please let me know what I did wrong and give me suggestions of what you want them to sound like, and I will try to re-record them according to those suggestions.

I now wait to receive feedback from you on how I did.  I want to know if the voices I chose for each character really do sound distinct from one another.

--ChaosMageX

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

(I hope I don't get in trouble for posting in a topic older than 14 days, since this is the art forum.  If this is still a violation of the rules, I will delete this post (if it is within my power to do so) as soon as possible.)
The main reason I am making this post is that I am never sure if my PMs get through, since my Outbox remains empty no matter how many I send, and I am not familiar with SMF.

1) Normally, yes, you would get growled at. However, since you were so polite as to explain why, we'll explain our side, and that way it won't happen again. ;-]
2) Under the Tower of Art rules, if it's your thread, you can post in it after the usual month. This is a bit of an oddball thread, though, so we'll give you a bye and let it go.
3) No, you can't delete your posts. We can, but the Administration decided there was too much risk of morons posting, trolling, getting a massive response, then deleting their post out of the thread and pointing the finger at the other person/people, claiming innocence. Whilst this sort of person is in the minority, it was felt that the risk was easy enough to contain, and hence... It's worked for us, so far. Note that I'm not saying _you_ are such a person, here. I'm merely explaining why we don't let users delete their posts.
4) Your PM will always get through. Instantly. the forum manages that. What it doesn't do is ensure that the other person has actually read the PM. You can check when they've logged in, though, and they might have PMs set to email them, in which case they'll get the content of the PM via email as well. Pretty much, if they've logged into the forum since you sent your PM, they've probably read it. No guarantees, though.

Any other questions? ;-]

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Uh, yeah. I have a question. Is the topic creator able to have a reservation, so that the topic can be updated by anyone who is involved in the project?

I can't recall if the rules say anothing about it, but even so, even during the absence of updates, this project and thread will still be of use, until episodes six and seven are finished and posted.

When that dose happen, this thread will be of no use, as the project will continue through PMs.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

You could always ask. We're reasonably reasonable people.

[ChaosMageX]

Okay, I have saved the separate tracks of the Audacity project file into separate WAV files, which you have stated that you are able to open and modify.

It turns out that Gmail does have a 25 MB attachment limit, so I turned back to the file hosting website that I used the last time.  Here is the link to the RAR file containing the WAV files of my voice recordings and my brother's voice recordings:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/61891/Episode07_CMX_and_Gos_Voices.rar

I hope that you are able to extract the WAV files and successfully listen to them this time.  If any of the recordings don't sound right to you, please let me know with suggestions on how they're supposed to sound and I will try to re-record them as soon as I am able to do so.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I still don't have any girls who are willing to help with this project. Those who I have asked were unable to help me.

I have everything except for those few voices.

[Tapewolf]

I still don't have any girls who are willing to help with this project. Those who I have asked were unable to help me.

I know the feeling.  I ended up having to have a lot of VAs do double-duty for that reason.
Have you tried asking Lena or Wuffnpuff if they're interested?

[Gabi]

I'd do it if I could record sound properly. I don't know what's wrong with my computer.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I'd do it if I could record sound properly. I don't know what's wrong with my computer.

Don't worry, Gabi. It's not your fault.

And I guess I will ask those two if they can help. Thanks for the tip, Tapewolf.

[Sprocketsdance]

Oh howdy thar ^^; I could lend my voice and hopefully do a good job of it. Just let me know what you need.

[Lena]

Hey there - just got your PM, if you still need females I could help out too. Just send me what you want voiced. If you want to know what I sound like, listen to Kria in the Radio Project - that's my normal speaking voice. 

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Ah, most exalent.

Lines will be now sent.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Episode six is finished. It will be uploaded soon.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Part one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ajw3YwxQDE

Part two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5OqMLMnSU

Comment, and what not.

I do know that a few songs don't really have good quality. I don't have anything else than that, though.

[Tezkat]

Heh... is it just me, or did my Kefka wind up sounding a bit more like an evil Jyrras than the Heath Ledger style Joker I was going for?

It's cool to see projects like this finally come together.

One criticism, if I may... A lot of the dialogue is nearly unintelligible and drowned out by the music. It would have helped to soften the BGMs a bit and maybe run the vocals through compression to make them stand out more.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Heh... is it just me, or did my Kefka wind up sounding a bit more like an evil Jyrras than the Heath Ledger style Joker I was going for?

It's cool to see projects like this finally come together.

One criticism, if I may... A lot of the dialogue is nearly unintelligible and drowned out by the music. It would have helped to soften the BGMs a bit and maybe run the vocals through compression to make them stand out more.

I did edit the volume of the music. Perhaps not enough?

For King Baron, I killed the music completely. NOTHING I did could make you easily understand that one part, so I just cut the music from that part. I still can't tell what he's saying.

I also don't know very much in the arts of editing vocals. Is there a special program for it?

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I see. It was probably too much to hope that this project would get anymore attention than the last one.

Months, and hundreds of hours invested into something so worthless as this. Why dose it seem I waste my life so? I reedit the series to gain plot, to gain something of value, but yet it's for naught.

Paint is worthless, it seems. In a realm of sprite animation, fast pact movement and characters beating the hell out of each other is deemed king it seems.

The first few days should be the days with the more attention, but yet for my series, it seems to be quite the inverse.

After the Castlevania Swords of Sorrow seies has gotton it's last episode, and has died, that will be it. No more videos. I should move on to a media that I can actually use.

A year from now, I'll stop wasting hundreds of hours of my life on animation. If I were to make regular sprite comics, I could finish entire story arcs in that time.

Five more episode. Only five, until no more.

[WhiteFox]

Good gravy... pull yourself together.

I can appreciate that what you're doing is time intensive. I can appreciate that what you're doing is a lot of work. You need to do better work, not more work, and you need to ask yourself how to make it better, not rely on other people.

You've recycled art and plot from existing games. Your animation, voice acting, and writing are mediocre at best. You're complaining that nobody's saying anything. There's not much to say.

If you want comments, you'll need to do something original or do it well (or both... but that's really really hard). Beat-em'-up sprite animations are pretty damn unoriginal, but the popular ones are only popular because at least they're well animated. Conversely, even an original, or at least clever, idea will be interesting even if it's poorly animated or whatnot.

You might want to do smaller and more regular updates. That way, you can get feedback more frequently. Plus, you might not get so overwhelmed at the scale of the project. Either break the story into shorter chapters, or do shorter stories. Regular updates get more comments too. Most importantly, focus on the quality. Give them something to talk about, and they will.

[Tezkat]

Oh boy...

The key to surviving as an artist: Do it for yourself. If other people happen to like it too, then that's just a bonus.

I did edit the volume of the music. Perhaps not enough?

For King Baron, I killed the music completely. NOTHING I did could make you easily understand that one part, so I just cut the music from that part. I still can't tell what he's saying.

I also don't know very much in the arts of editing vocals. Is there a special program for it?

What have you been using so far?

The most popular free multitrack sound editor is Audacity. The beta release (1.3.x) is quite functional. It also supports VST plugins, which gives you access to an enormous effects library, much of which is free on the web.

I also use Adobe Audition (albeit an older version). It's significantly more powerful in several respects (realtime effects rack, much better syncing to live recordings, better plugins--especially for noise reduction, etc.). It's also a lot more expensive. And no longer bundled with Adobe's production suites. 


Sound engineering is a skill like any other. It takes some practice to master.

Start by learning the tools. For instance, you want Kaiser Dragon to have a towering presence. So, you might start by compressing the dynamic range of the vocals. That increases perceptual loudness, so they'll stand out more over the background. You could optionally fiddle with the EQ a bit to, say, emphasize the rumbley base tones. Next, you could add reverb sized for a large hall or cavern to give the impression of space--a big guy in a big lair. Finally, soften the music a little until it supports the monologue without overpowering it.

I can appreciate that what you're doing is time intensive. I can appreciate that what you're doing is a lot of work. You need to do better work, not more work, and you need to ask yourself how to make it better, not rely on other people.

You've recycled art and plot from existing games. Your animation, voice acting, and writing are mediocre at best. You're complaining that nobody's saying anything. There's not much to say.

Er... other people contributed to this work too, you know. And everyone can use constructive criticism...