Welcome back! I’m tentatively lifting the redirect after rebuilding the site from scratch, clicking on links for two days without trouble and installing some new security measures. These measures include a malware scan, login tracking to ensure someone isn’t using my admin account, and a system to check that core files aren’t altered. Hopefully it won’t slow the site too much, it’s expensive enough as it is.
During the hiatus I also tried a number of new themes, and while some of them were cool from a novelty standpoint, they didn’t function as well without the duel sidebars and widescreen post section.
Others just didn’t look anything like the advertised theme. Granted, it might’ve worked with some tweaking, but I couldn’t figure out how. Above is the MH Cicero theme in theory…
And this is the result. Gosh Darn Diddly Doo indeed.
In any case, I’m burying the lede here, which is another new Fallout companion for the three-part Vault 101 questline. She’s voiced by Natalie Proudlock and named after a Hepburn, but in reality she’s more Katharine than Audrey.
I decided to go against the traditional ghoul voice on this one, not just for the sake of Natalie’s throat but to better get the right accent and emotion. Hope you like it.
All be honest, Kris, I get more of a Joan Crawford vibe from this NPC rather then Hephurn. Which isn’t bad, but I worry considering just how crazy Crawford was. xD
Also, the audio seems rather low on some of these teaser trailers. That could be just on my end though, since no one else has mentioned anything yet.
Ha, yeah, I didn’t try to imitate any particular personality tbh, given she’s her own woman. Just tried to make it witty and old timey. Then you factor in Natalie’s interpretation, and it helps keep her original. The less “X imitation” the better. Like, you can write a character with Morgan Freeman in mind, but if that’s the end product, you’ve made a huge mistake.
Yeah, I usually talk to a vanilla NPC and talk to a mod NPC to calibrate, but the problem of course, is that vanilla doesn’t have any particular standard. Listen to difference in these vanilla tracks:
Here, I think the guy is too loud and the old woman is too soft. I kind of shoot for in between, so I usually use Nova as a guide.
But yeah, if it’s too soft it’ll be easy enough to raise, both for myself and users since Fallout uses OGG files and not FUZ or xwm files like Skyrim.
Ah so you were going more for an “old money” sort of character rather then a similar actress? I can dig that. Though I still feel that touch of Crawford crazy. I can totally see Audrey saying something like “I love playing bitches. There’s a lot of bitch in every woman – a lot in every man,” or “I need sex for a clear complexion, but I’d rather do it for love.” These are actual Joan Crawford quotes.
I think I’m more worried that it’s just the teaser videos themselves that are quiet rather then in-game audio for the dialogue. I haven’t tried the mod yet so I can’t give you any in-game feed back.
Oh, she’s fabulous! I’m glad there is someone out there who can manage to do the ghoul voice without choking on anything. Glad to see the site back up and running, too. :)