Tiberian Sun & Firestorm - Ukrainian Translation

[Lilly Blanche]

Hi everyone!

There's something I'd like to share with y'all hoping some might find this at least somewhat curious. We're in the process of translating Tiberian Sun (and Firestorm) into Ukrainian. So far, all the text in the game has been successfully translated and everything's working out just great. We've also recorded all of the CABAL's in-game audio in Ukrainian and are now working on dubbing everything else, which, according to my humble estimation, would probably take quite awhile, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. Not that I'm comparing whatever it is we're doing with something as grand as the city of Rome, mind you, but still. 

So, here are some pictures for your enjoyment (click the spoiler!): 

Spoiler

For those who might be curious, the Tiberian Dawn translation is ready and has been met with quite a lot of enthusiasm from the Ukrainian fans. If someone here wants it, I'll gladly share. 

And here's something kinda off-topic, but still... I'm having an interesting issue with the TS audio using the singleplayer version of the game provided on this site. Basically, sometimes the audio "clicks" when the sound file starts or ends, usually only if something is being said while the harverster is unloading or when other money sound effects play (going up or down). It's a subtle "click" or "pop"-like sound, it's not extremely annoying, nor does it make the game unplayable, but I'd rather not have it. Any idea what might be causing it? For clarity - I'm talking about the clear English version, no changes made. 

Anyhow, hope this was somewhat entertaining for you guys. 
Cheers! ^_^

[v2elite]

Why not using the russian version? Ukranian is like russian with no grammar.

[Lilly Blanche]

32 minutes ago, v2elite said:

Why not using the russian version? Ukranian is like russian with no grammar.

Yeah, just like Portuguese is Spanish with no grammar, Spanish is Italian with no grammar, French is Italian with no grammar, Polish is Czech with no grammar and English is a mixture of German, French and Latin, with no grammar. Please, go ahead and showcase your ignorance somewhere else, thank you very much. 

[TaxOwlbear]

Well done.

23 hours ago, Lilly Blanche said:

And here's something kinda off-topic, but still... I'm having an interesting issue with the TS audio using the singleplayer version of the game provided on this site. Basically, sometimes the audio "clicks" when the sound file starts or ends, usually only if something is being said while the harverster is unloading or when other money sound effects play (going up or down). It's a subtle "click" or "pop"-like sound, it's not extremely annoying, nor does it make the game unplayable, but I'd rather not have it. Any idea what might be causing it? For clarity - I'm talking about the clear English version, no changes made. 

I haven't noticed this with the TFD version. Can you reproduce this in other versions of the game?

[Lilly Blanche]

2 hours ago, TaxOwlbear said:

Well done.

I haven't noticed this with the TFD version. Can you reproduce this in other versions of the game?

Thanks!

Yessir. I've just installed my old Spanish CD copy which came out waaaay before the TFD version of the game (it even lacks Firestorm), applied the Tspatch (because otherwise I can't see the menu), and voila - the audio still clicks when, let's say, EVA or CABAL say something while a construction is in progress, when a unit is in production, or generally when the money amount either goes up or down. "¡Construyendo! CLICK", "CLICK Unidad lista CLICK", "Entrenando... CLICK". Same weird thing. 

Edited October 6, 2017 by Lilly Blanche

[Plokite_Wolf]

Lookin' good, keep it up!

[Lilly Blanche]

1 minute ago, Plokite_Wolf said:

Lookin' good, keep it up!

Thank you so much! Today, we've finished recording all of CABAL's lines, including the briefing ones. Our actor isn't the one and only Milton James, of course, but he's trying hard!  

[Lilly Blanche]

So, here's a small update: even though we've used subtitles to translate the cutscenes back in Tiberian Dawn, this time around we'll be using our actual actors to provide voice overs instead. It's gonna be a bit more work (in fact, A LOT more work), but it's worth it. No, it's not going to end up like hunderds of unofficial Russian translations with kids badly trying to talk over James Earl Jones, everyone involved is a professional voice actor working for one of the Kyiv-based dubbing studios. In fact, if we had the audio sources, we'd do a full dub, but as it is, removing vocals is pretty much impossible, so voice over it is.

[Pigeon]

On 6.10.2017 at 7:05 PM, Lilly Blanche said:

Thank you so much! Today, we've finished recording all of CABAL's lines, including the briefing ones. Our actor isn't the one and only Milton James, of course, but he's trying hard!  

Oh, just fool around with pitch and bass in Audacity and You should achieve a similar effect to CABAL's voice. Also, good to see other gamers localizing old goodies

[Lilly Blanche]

Just now, Pigeon said:

Oh, just fool around with pitch and bass in Audacity and You should achieve a similar effect to CABAL's voice. Also, good to see other gamers localizing old goodies

Thank you!  

Our audio engineer's got this down. He managed to re-create CABAL's voice effect, NOD Cyborgs, Cyborg Reapers and Cyborg Commando, EVA, walkie-talkie effect, etc. The guy sure knows what he's doing, and I'm glad he's on our side. The only downside is that the game only accepts 22khz mono files for EVA / CABAL / units, so even though everything sounds crystal clear prior to import, the game downgrades the quality automatically, and it's quite unfortunate. But hey, there's no way to avoid it, I suppose. 

We're currently in the process of recording the units. It may seem like there's not much work to do there, but then you look at it and you realize that hey, wait, hold on a second, even though, let's say, Light Infantry has about 15-20 lines total as far as the unit itself is concerned, the same voice actor ALSO does a bunch of story stuff in game and well, you've gotta get the same guy to voice all that in the Ukrainian version too, to keep it more or less consistent.

The most demanding roles are those of EVA and CABAL, though. Aside from the fact that they've got a lot of very important gameplay lines to go through, they also comment on mission-specific objectives, read briefings aloud and are ALSO present in the cutscenes, not to mention that they're heavily featured in Firestorm. We're done working on CABAL, and his lines alone are easily somewhere within the 400+ sentences. EVA's life is somewhat easier - she's calm and more or less emotionless, all you really need to voice her is a pleasant voice and good pronunciation, but CABAL's got this low, deep, characteristic voice, and despite the fact that he's an AI, he's quite sarcastic and even emotional at times, all of which requires quite the effort on the actor's part. To quote our guy, "The amount of warm tea I had to drink just to get through one session without dying was probably enough to fill in a couple of water tanks." I should probably buy him a chocolate bar or something.

All of this is a pure voluntary effort, by the way. No one is getting paid!  
Why bother, you might ask? 

Well, we love this game, we love this series, and we want to do something cool and useful. Bringing this game to our countrymen in their native language is useful, and, if I may say so myself, pretty cool. 

[Lilly Blanche]

UPDATE:

The Ukrainian translation for both Tiberian Sun and Firestorm expansion has been completed. It features full text translation, full dubbing for the in-game stuff and a voice over translation for the cutscenes, read by multiple actors, with all the necessary effects applied wherever needed (so that, for instance, CABAL sounds the same both in the cinematics and in the game itself). 

It will soon be released, this thread will be updated when that happens with additional screenshots, videos and other interesting things. 
Peace