Cutscenes: Improving lip-sync for english version

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Comment 19 by norbert.pellny, (2012-05-02)

Ok. I did 2 more. I thnk I can really improve the messages and bar videos. 
Enough for now.

One thing I wanna know: You said the hungarian cutscenes had better quality. I 
know this is true for the messages and you are right. It's nicer having them in 
that quality. And I think I can succesfully improve dubbing to a point its 
actually ok.

What troubles me are those interlude videos, like Thorinescort. Those video 
have CGI scenes in the international and actors in the hungarian and sometimes 
it completly sucks. I can't even do pauses or remove soething because they have 
music most of the time. So just an idea:

Messages stay for all languages the same. Only some big cutsenes where human 
actors were replaced with CGI characters and only in instances where it's 
really bad (like throinescort) could be language specific. Id would only affect 
a few cutscnenes. The german version is synced to the english ones so they 
would share their cutscenes.

Think about it (if you have the time someday). There is no hurry.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by akarn...@gmail.com on 3 May 2012 at 8:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have done a dozen messages and bar cutscenes now and they come along nicely.

Sadly I just realised that exporting them in 8bit adds additional noise.

16bit is just perfect but doubles the size (I wouldn't care because we are 
talking about kilobytes but I know you do)

So my question is: 

Do you have a better audio editor which does not add noise when exporting to 8 
bit files

or

am I allowed to use 16bit?

Either way I have to redo them :(

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 10:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I usually write a small program which does binary editing on a single wav file. 
This way, no conversion is taking place. If you create a list of files and time 
codes where silence or cut is needed, I can use that.

I usually try to avoid using 16bit when the original 8bit modifications are 
enough.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 10:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Interesting approach. Though that would include a lot of extra load. I don't 
think i want to log all my actions. Until now there is SOME fun besides the 
work. That would remove the fun part :)

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 10:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Well, I guess I'm doing it just for myself for now in 16bit. Maybe we'll find a 
solution later on.

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 11:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Can I double certain parts of an audio file with your program? 

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 12:39

[GoogleCodeExporter]

My program is based on in-memory byte array manipulation operations, which are 
custom built and rewritten for each case, therefore, I can put in there many 
things; cut, silence, insert from another file, copy, etc. I.e., unless you are 
a Java developer, you won't be able to use it since it's not something like 
Audacity.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 12:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I still own copy of sonic studio. I'l give it a try. 

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 1:02

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Ok...next try.

What about OGG support for the cutscenes:

In the attached file there are 3 version of an audio file.

1. original 8 bit file
2. 16bit file (just imagine this would be my edited version)
3. 16bit file converted to ogg

Guess what, it's even smaler that the first one with no hearable quality loss.

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 4 May 2012 at 11:35

Attachments:

• sizes.rar

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The unfortunate thing is that noise is still common in these recordings. I'm 
automatically upscaling to 16 bit in the game so the volume adjustment doesn't 
introduce artifacts. If possible, I'd like to keep audio in the original 8 bit 
if the editing only affects silence or cuts. In case more is needed (e.g., 
fade-in, effects), we can go for 16 bit (we have already some files of such, 
e.g., the laser sounds).

Playing the audio and video requires tricky synchronization and I'm not 
familiar with the internals of the OGG library to do such changes. Playing raw 
WAV is much simpler.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 5 May 2012 at 8:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

After testing several audio editing software, including Adobe Audition, I'm 
pretty sure that exporting to 8bit will always introduce noise. I can't supply 
you with specific times regarding the editing process so oyu can edit them on a 
binary level  because I'm doing those kind of thing the intuitive way without 
protocolling my every action.

I will therefore export to 16bit files. I estimate an increase in filesize of 
maybe 10MB. I can live with that. You are, of ocurse, free not to use the 
edited files. But I can assure you: They are making a difference :)

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 20 May 2012 at 3:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Okay, we will use 16 bit, but try not to upsample them to 44k.

Original comment by akarn...@gmail.com on 20 May 2012 at 3:46

• Added labels: Sound

[GoogleCodeExporter]

GREAT! No need to. I can (and will) leave them at 22050 Hz.

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 20 May 2012 at 3:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 20 May 2012 at 4:07

• Changed title: Cutscenes: Improving lip-sync for english version

[GoogleCodeExporter]

First release of improved lip-sync for the english version:

This package includes 22 files. They really make a difference. I will do more 
in the future and / or improve the ones already done. 

Two curiosities worth mentioning:

Sometimes the player acuatally TALKS to the colonel, but in many cases the 
players english voiceover is missing. I just realized that after listening to 
the hungarian version.

In two cases the colonel talks at least one more sentence than the english 
version. So sad I don't speak hungarian. In those cases  I could not really do 
something. The video remains longer than the audio.

https://rapidshare.com/files/1343494887/ImprovedSync0.1.rar

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 1 Jun 2012 at 10:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I knew I overlooked some videos. Here are two additional files:

https://rapidshare.com/files/3777615342/ImprovedSyncII.rar

Original comment by norbert....@gmail.com on 10 Jun 2012 at 5:11