16/06 Sound Team Update - Speech In OFP: DR

[Helios]

Once again, many thanks to the OFP Sound Team for another superb update



As some of you may have noticed, the speech for the OFP E3 demo wasn’t the best ever. As with many things it was still not final quality. You’ll also be pleased to know that there is no hint of Russian, Mexican or any other wildly guessed at accent apparent. Please find attached sample for your approval. ;o)

Hidalgo Voice Sample

Tom Hill-Clarke is our final actor for the part of the Spec Ops team leader. The more Flashpoint Trivia savvy of you may note that he is also the only actor to have appeared in all iterations of Flashpoint to date. Though admittedly as much through serendipity as actual planning.


Tom Hill-Clarke in action!

So what goes in to speech? Firstly, naturally it’s the script. In games this is always a notoriously difficult thing to do as mission design and other factors can change the dialogue on an almost daily basis. This is the main reason we try and leave the final dialogue as much to the last minute as possible. That said there are large sections of script we know will remain fairly constant, such as the command and report section. That’s all the elements that deal with things like. ‘Tank, 200 meters’ and ‘Requesting Fire Mission’ and so on.

So the next step for us is making sure it’s as accurate as possible. For this we rely on the USMC Public Affairs Office who kindly looked over our script and checked that the correct terminology and military grammar is used. As much as possible we try and be accurate down to the smallest detail. Turns out Marines are very specific about how they pronounce Papa and Quebec, let alone things like CAS and FARP. We also rely on ex marines and currently serving personnel to give us a less sanitised ‘how it’s said in the field’ take on things.


Ben (left) and John (right) hard at work!

After that it’s just a case of casting the actors and getting them recorded. Sounds simple? Well, let’s just say that after 3 weeks in LA I still didn’t have a tan and the airport tried to charge me a luggage excess for the bags under my eyes. In the end though I hope you will find the results authentic and believable and naturally we’d love to hear your feedback on how the speech could sound more immersive in the game.

We have Marines, Mission specific character voices and a team of Mandarin speaking PLA troops and localised versions for France, Germany, Italy Spain Japan and Russia.

<<edit added video>>

[Zensuji]

Nice ....

Sample sounds great

[VictoryBlitz]

looks great my only suggestion for speech in this game is make the voices less robotic and disjointed sounding also when telling your men where to move leave out the part where the team leader says the grid numbers from the topographical map as this sounds so very robotic and in the middle of action would not be said.

correct me if im wrong though

[Tiger_Btn]

Originally Posted by VictoryBlitz

looks great my only suggestion for speech in this game is make the voices less robotic and disjointed sounding also when telling your men where to move leave out the part where the team leader says the grid numbers from the topographical map as this sounds so very robotic and in the middle of action would not be said.

correct me if im wrong though

It sounds like that because they use the same segments of recorded audio to make up multiple sentances

I.E. "enemy" would be used for say "two enemy soldiers 50m's" as well as for "Enemy down"

They are just slotted in as needed

Soldiers do quote grid references for arty/air support, extractions, sit reps, they are used all the time.

BTW...I liked the E3 voiceover...it was cool.

[lozz08]

" You’ll also be pleased to know that there is no hint of Russian, Mexican or any other wildly guessed at accent apparent."

Racist much?

[viiiper]

Smooth & sweet, even better than the first one.......

Thanks Helios for the info & Sound Dev team for all the work !!

[Carbine5324]

Awesome. I hope that the voices are 100% not robotic now

[1Mystic-G]

Originally Posted by VictoryBlitz

looks great my only suggestion for speech in this game is make the voices less robotic and disjointed sounding also when telling your men where to move leave out the part where the team leader says the grid numbers from the topographical map as this sounds so very robotic and in the middle of action would not be said.

correct me if im wrong though

I'm sure you're referring to the distance call out of the order given. Well it would be nice to make it smooth but you can't have the actor saying rifleman 1 meter, rifleman 2 meters, rifleman 3 meters, rifleman 4 meters, rifleman 5 meters, and so on till however distance and whatever enemy. That would take absolutely forever and would build up a MASSIVE wav file directory.

You just have to let it slide or you'll find yourself or your SL giving the orders without so much as ever saying a word which is slightly less realistic than someone sounding robotic. They can and do give orders in real life with hand signals but that's pretty uncalled for to do it 100% of the time.

[viiiper]

Originally Posted by 1Mystic-G

I'm sure you're referring to the distance call out of the order given. Well it would be nice to make it smooth but you can't have the actor saying rifleman 1 meter, rifleman 2 meters, rifleman 3 meters, rifleman 4 meters, rifleman 5 meters, and so on till however distance and whatever enemy. That would take absolutely forever and would build up a MASSIVE wav file directory.

You just have to let it slide or you'll find yourself or your SL giving the orders without so much as ever saying a word which is slightly less realistic than someone sounding robotic. They can and do give orders in real life with hand signals but that's pretty uncalled for 100% of the time.

I pray not, I hate the Arma styled voice it's one of the poorest comm voices. I don't need "rifleman @ 52m","rifleman @ 96m",..... I liked the WIP OFP2 much more.

[Hir3ling]

Nice...I likes a lot. Very strong sounding voice of a leader in charge. It definately sounds like he has the voice for the part. It sounds fluid and realistic.

Just remember to add the proper effect for Sabre's dialog so that it simulates what peoples voices sound like over comms, and yall have a winner. Cause if the guy on the other end sounds that clear and crisp, it's not gonna create the right atmosphere.

But it sounds great. Another bang-up job from the sound team.