Skywind Filecutting Guide

Audacity, a free audio-editing program.
LibreOffice, a spreadsheet software. We recommend LibreOffice in particular (even if you have Excel) because of the toolkit linked below. This will make filecutting much easier!
7-Zip, a program capable of handling .zip files.

Accounts

Additionally, you will need:

A ClickUp account. This is completely free. An invite to the Skywind VA board will be sent once you've completed training. Miscellaneous ClickUp information can be found here.
A Discord account. Make sure you have joined the Skywind server: https://discord.gg/skywind

Toolkit for LibreOffice and Audacity

The wonderful Krisscracka, Slaynot, and bradyjam have developed a toolset to make filecutting easier.

The latest release can be found here: https://gitlab.com/Slaynot/filecutter-toolkit/-/releases/1.4

Information on installing and using the toolkits can be found here: https://gitlab.com/Slaynot/filecutter-toolkit/-/wikis/home

What is filecutting?

When voice actors submit their recorded lines, the lines are all in one big file. The job of the filecutter is to take this big audio file and create a "label track" that assigns a filename to each segment of the audio submission. You won't actually be creating the individual files yourself. That will be done automatically using your label track after our SFX department has mastered the track. In addition to assigning filenames, you will check for pronunciation and script accuracy and decide what line to use if a VA submits two takes of the same line.

So, your task will be to download a VA's submission and script, create this label track, and then create a document of any lines that were missing or need a retake.

The only requirement is that you try to get your assignments done within a reasonable timeframe. Try to make consistent progress, even if it's slow. If you can't finish your assignment, tell us what progress you made, and upload your documents so someone else can complete it. 10-20 lines per day will finish a small or medium card at a good pace, and 30-50 lines per day is a good pace for longer cards. Be careful not to burn yourself out. If you find yourself making slower progress than you hoped, especially on a longer card, ask for a second filecutter to divide the work with.

What do scripts look like?

Below is an example of a Skywind script. The first row contains information about the character(s) being voiced. Things like names, race, etc. The second row contains some useful links. Then we have the script itself, where the third row contains the headers, and the following rows are the VA's lines.

Column 1: The filename for this segment. This is what you will label the segments as.

Column 2: The speaking NPC.

Column 3: What the player asks about or does to get this NPC response. This may be blank for things related to combat, detection, or idle NPC behavior.

Column 4: The line the Voice Actor reads.

Column 5: The facial expression the NPC will have in game. Please ignore this column for filecutting purposes.

Column 6: Any acting notes for this segment. This includes pronunciation guidelines for certain common words. The rest can be found in the Pronunciation Help (also linked in the script file!)

Column 7: Where you will leave your notes!

Instructions

Once you have been assigned a card a ClickUp, you can begin filecutting. These instructions assume you have the filecutter's toolkit installed and configured according to Lacuna's tutorial video found at the top of this page or here.

Setting Up

Download the script (XLSX file) and the audio files (Two WAV files, one spoken, the other combat) from the ClickUp card. The process for spoken lines and combat lines are generally the same. Follow these steps for both, generally starting with the spoken lines first.
Open the spoken WAV file in Audacity. If you have an Audacity shortcut on your desktop, you can do this by dragging the WAV file unto your shortcut.
Before we begin labeling the file, we need to check a few things. VAs are supposed to have 20 seconds of room tone at the beginning of each file. Room tone is the ambient noise of the recording space that was used when the VA is not speaking or making any noise. There should also be room tone in-between lines. We can check for room tone by changing our view in Audacity to view the Spectrogram rather than the Waveform. We can change this by left-clicking the track title and selecting Spectrogram.

<image>

Any portion in Spectrogram view that is totally black is not room tone. Room tone will look slightly different each time, but there is some level of background noise that will show up. If you do find that the space at the beginning or between lines is totally black, ask the VA if they have a version of their lines saved that still has the room tone. If they don't, that's okay, the mastering team can still work with that, but it's better to have the room tone.

<image>

We will create our first label for the room tone. Select the room tone at the beginning of the track, or any 20s+ period of room tone, and press CTRL+B to create a label. Type "_ambient", then press ENTER.
We will not be working in Spectrograph view, so we can switch back to Waveform by left-clicking the track title and selecting Waveform. We can also switch from a linear (amplitude) view of the waveform to a logarithmic (dB) view. This makes the waveform a lot "bigger" and easier to see. This also makes quieter noises that wouldn't show up in linear view visible. Even in logarithmic view, you can't see everything, but it makes it a lot less likely that you'll miss really quiet sounds. To change to logarithmic, right-click the scale to the left of the track and select Logarithmic (dB).

<image> Show comparison between Linear and Log

Open the script file you downloaded from ClickUp.
Save the script, renaming it with "Filecutter" at the beginning. (i.e. If the script file is "Training Script.xlsx", save it as "Filecutter_Training_Script.xlsx").

Filecutting

Do your job.
Done!

Combat

It's loud and proud.

Finish up

Turn it in.

Exporting Audio Clips

Tips/Reminders

Do NOT delete or edit any audio, only label segments using Audacity's labeling tool.
Please leave friendly and helpful acting notes for our voice talent. You are their acting coach! A good sensible judgement of acting value and skill is needed for this. Use your best judgement and feel free to ask other filecutters for a second opinion. Quality is very important to us here at Skywind!
Trouble with shouting lines? Don't worry, you are not alone! Be sure to look to the label name itself and the mood of the character in the script for hints! For example, the line for "MorroDefau_MDQPowerAttack_0004A0F7_1" has no prompt, but the filename tells you that it is for when the NPC is power attacking.
Don't be afraid to tell things as they are. You are the last bastion of quality after all! If a VA is not convincing enough, report it! This is especially important for combat lines.
If you are unsure about a pronunciation and don't see it on the guide, feel free to ask on Discord! You can also search the Discord to see if it has been brought up previously.
If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask on Discord!

What Next?

After you've cut a few cards, you should be ready for "Second-Pass Filecutting". Basically, this is doing a second pass on cards to review the work of another filecutter. If you are interested, you can check out the guide for this here: Second-Pass Guide. Once you've reviewed the guide, get in touch with a lead to get a second-pass assignment.