Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Jory Prum has been
recording and editing
voice-over many
years, and has recently
worked on the
Walking
Dead
series. Let's hear
what he has to say
about the process of
working with voice in
games.
Dialogue Production for
Video Games
“
Since the mid-1990s, it has become commonplace to have actors
perform dialogue for all sorts of games. Some games make use of
dialogue in limited fashion, such as occasional words of encouragement
or simple tutorial information, while other titles rely heavily on
performances in order to engage the player and plunge them into
an immersive experience. If you have worked in video games for any
length of time, you have probably noticed how much developers rely
on spreadsheets as a method of organizing and managing projects. In
fact, I cannot think of a time that a client has delivered scripts to me
in any other form. As a general rule, though, it is advisable to migrate
client-provided data into a structure that serves voice production more
completely and allows better asset tracking and reporting. Developer's
spreadsheets have a tendency to be continually updated and emailed
around, making it dii cult to ensure the latest versions are always in
use. As a result, inaccuracies are quite common.
I have long advocated the use of databases in managing voice
production, instead of spreadsheets. Databases provide tremendous
advantages over spreadsheets, as they can be set up with reporting
capabilities, are fully customizable, and can even allow advanced
abilities such as incorporating audio playback of already-recorded dialog.
I mastered a project several years ago where the developer provided
me with recorded and named voice i les and a spreadsheet to reference the
i le set. I created a database record for each line of dialogue and added a
checkbox for each of the i ve languages in that record. Next, I 'checked in'
the dialogue in each language by ticking the checkbox if the i le existed
in the set I was provided. When I i nished I could see that I was actually
