Spitballing ideas for custom spotter packs

[RacingAC]

Hey, all. I'm putting together some spotter packs using Mystical's excellent index resource.

I have a few goals. One is a dedicated trucks spotter pack. Another will obviously be a Cup car spotter pack. I do have a proof of concept here. (Excuse any profanity and vulgarity) -- It's taken some trial and error, but I have the audio quality about where I want it (after I merge onto the track in that video); just have to fix the popping P's and the muddy S's a little bit more, hence me stressing those sounds in the test.

My friend and I have actually already made one from the ground up recently using Mystical's guide. It takes about 2 hours or so to record with bloopers and edits on-the-fly, and honestly only about 4 hours or so to chop the recording up into the 500+ individual WAV files. But the audio quality was garbage (see the pit-road speed limit callout at the beginning of the video I linked), so I experimented with Audacity and found a pretty good setup to get crisp, clear callouts. Once I have the workflow down pat, I'm going to put together a YouTube spotter-pack tutorial of some kind, as well.

I guess I'm just asking for any unique ideas you all have for spotter packs. It's just impossible for one person alone to come up with 500+ unique callouts and/or ideas, and I've hit a wall creatively. Any good resources you know of in terms of NASCAR slang, spotter transcripts, anything will be helpful. As it stands, the spotter packs will have some profanity with a piss here and a shit there scattered, but no F-bombs and by no means are they profanity-laden. Also, the one thing I've learned with making even ONE spotter pack from scratch is that jokes/clever one-liners that are funny at first...get old FAST.

And I promise you, this isn't something that "Hey, I'm working on..." and then it just disappears. In a few weeks at most, the community's spotter pack database will practically double overnight with everything I'm putting together, and I just want some input from everyone and possibly anyone interested in really putting the packs through their paces to find any errors/weak spots. Thanks.

 

[Lastlap]

A word for word pack for 'Trucks' would be awesome!

 

[RacingAC]

A word for word pack for 'Trucks' would be awesome!

Multiple dedicated trucks and cars packs coming first week of February! Guaranteed!

 

[Lastlap]

After all these years, it still bothers me when my spotter says 'Car' when running a Truck mod.

 

[Mystical]

These are the ideas I had for spotter packs for years but never got around to (yet) making:
- High Tier Crew chief/spotter. All the the callouts and relevant lines that have to do with finishing, wrecking, etc would be in the mindset of a team that is used to winning and being a champion. It would be a more professional and 'clean' pack as a result.

- Mid Tier Crew chief/spotter. All the the callouts and relevant lines that have to do with finishing, wrecking, etc would be in the mindset of a team that is used to running mid-pack. Unlike the default spotter pack or even other well known ones like the JJ spotter pack getting a finish outside Top 10 they sound disappointed. This pack could be more positive for all the lines outside of just outright wrecking.

- Low Tier Crew chief/spotter. Least experienced and from a team that used to being a backmarker. All the lines would being the mindset of a team being multiple laps down and just trying to finish. Anything above that would be astounding for them. This pack would be more loose and easy going dialogue from the team of the 3 tiers.

- Female Spotter and/or crew chief (both or one). Would add a new dynamic with some more diverse voices. Especially if you aren't running your typical 'Nascar' series stuff in NR but maybe more local. Or if not the voices the dialogue to the player would be her/she instead of he/him etc etc for a female driver.

- Dynamic Spotter pack for large vs small tracks. Essentially on larger tracks like Talladega and Daytona the pace laps or when a race is ended you could have much longer dialogue lines. On short ones the lines can't be as long as the pace laps or race finish after passing the line is so short. Could take advantage of the larger tracks to have more random talk between crew/driver/spotter. If not this, could make the lines for when you wreck out of the race long or have multiple variations the player can choose from to switch it up every now and then,

- General dialogue diversity. Essentially one spotter might say '1st place' while another could say 'P1'. Or another example car on the 'high/low' side vs another could talk like "right/left". "pit now vs "box now" etc etc.

- Voice changer: One quick way using the same lines (throw in a few different line recordings even for some of the key lines) to make a totally different spotter pack is using a voice changer plugin in an audio editor to convert lines spoken one way to sound like a different person/team.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other ideas I had but thats a start.

 

[RacingAC]

- General dialogue diversity. Essentially one spotter might say '1st place' while another could say 'P1'. Or another example car on the 'high/low' side vs another could talk like "right/left". "pit now vs "box now" etc etc.

This is basically what I'm looking for -- just varying ways of saying the usual callouts. I've been watching a bunch of spotter-audio YouTubes since starting this thread and have jotted down plenty of things. I have to step away for a bit from working on the packs, but I'm planning on uploading them here on Fri. Feb 10.

 

[DodgeMan4345]

I kind of like the idea of the different tiers.

 

[Rollo75]

I would like to find BRIAN BLESSED'S Tom Tom files. They could be wrangled into a spotter pack that would fart thunder.

I just want a spotter who is bombastic and the destroyer of worlds... (or maybe Android from Dark Matter).

 

[jacobc62]

Would love to see the Thunder 2004 spotter/crew chief combo adapted to NR2003. It would also fit since they're from the same year/season.

 

[mjqt]

Fantastic to read all these ideas. Can't wait to see what comes of it in the future. So neat to see fresh new things still coming to NR2003. Sounds like I'll finally have a reason to move beyond the old trusty JJ pack! Thanks for your work @RacingAC

The thing that's always kept me with the JJ pack is the authentic "feel" of the audio, since it's taken from races. The default spotter is great, but stands out like a sore thumb for me as something that sounds like it was made for a video game. Some of the lines are delivered in a way that's a little too enthusiastic, and the audio is too clean -- for my taste, anyway. I'm sure you can achieve the same effects as real in-car radio by being careful with your vocal intonation and messing with filters/processing on the recordings.

 

[Mystical]

The thing that's always kept me with the JJ pack is the authentic "feel" of the audio, since it's taken from races. The default spotter is great, but stands out like a sore thumb for me as something that sounds like it was made for a video game. Some of the lines are delivered in a way that's a little too enthusiastic, and the audio is too clean -- for my taste, anyway.

Definitely possible, when you voice the lines as the crew chief or spotter you say the lines like its your day to day 'job' instead of thinking about the lines literally in 'video game' format.

 

[wech]

These are the ideas I had for spotter packs for years but never got around to (yet) making:
- High Tier Crew chief/spotter. All the the callouts and relevant lines that have to do with finishing, wrecking, etc would be in the mindset of a team that is used to winning and being a champion. It would be a more professional and 'clean' pack as a result.

- Mid Tier Crew chief/spotter. All the the callouts and relevant lines that have to do with finishing, wrecking, etc would be in the mindset of a team that is used to running mid-pack. Unlike the default spotter pack or even other well known ones like the JJ spotter pack getting a finish outside Top 10 they sound disappointed. This pack could be more positive for all the lines outside of just outright wrecking.

- Low Tier Crew chief/spotter. Least experienced and from a team that used to being a backmarker. All the lines would being the mindset of a team being multiple laps down and just trying to finish. Anything above that would be astounding for them. This pack would be more loose and easy going dialogue from the team of the 3 tiers.

- Female Spotter and/or crew chief (both or one). Would add a new dynamic with some more diverse voices. Especially if you aren't running your typical 'Nascar' series stuff in NR but maybe more local. Or if not the voices the dialogue to the player would be her/she instead of he/him etc etc for a female driver.

- Dynamic Spotter pack for large vs small tracks. Essentially on larger tracks like Talladega and Daytona the pace laps or when a race is ended you could have much longer dialogue lines. On short ones the lines can't be as long as the pace laps or race finish after passing the line is so short. Could take advantage of the larger tracks to have more random talk between crew/driver/spotter. If not this, could make the lines for when you wreck out of the race long or have multiple variations the player can choose from to switch it up every now and then,

- General dialogue diversity. Essentially one spotter might say '1st place' while another could say 'P1'. Or another example car on the 'high/low' side vs another could talk like "right/left". "pit now vs "box now" etc etc.

- Voice changer: One quick way using the same lines (throw in a few different line recordings even for some of the key lines) to make a totally different spotter pack is using a voice changer plugin in an audio editor to convert lines spoken one way to sound like a different person/team.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few other ideas I had but thats a start.

That sound absolutely amazing. Holy cow if this could be pulled off it would be incredible!

 

[RacingAC]

Just an update here. Looks like the finished spotter packs (trucks and cars) will be ready on Monday, February 13th. I've put them through their paces and found some things that needed tweaking. I also want to put out a tutorial at the same time, and I'm putting that together, as well. Cheers!

 

[Lastlap]

Did N3/N99e have spotter sound files for the Trucks?

 

[RacingAC]

I can't remember. Been meaning to dig into those games.

 

[Lastlap]

I know N4/N2k2/N2k3 was mostly the same? I can't remember what N3 had.

I never got the CTS expansion for N3 and while I found a NR1999E disc, I've never tried to install it. I remember driving Raine's #19 in the demo, lol.

 

[mjarviejr]

After listening to TJ Majors in last night's xfinity race, I just want a TJ Majors spotter pack. I need as much information as possible and TJ gives that. I don't know if anyone has created a TJ pack yet, but it might help me if they have.

 

[Cynon]

- Female Spotter and/or crew chief (both or one). Would add a new dynamic with some more diverse voices. Especially if you aren't running your typical 'Nascar' series stuff in NR but maybe more local. Or if not the voices the dialogue to the player would be her/she instead of he/him etc etc for a female driver.

They/them is the easiest to work with, and I say that not because of, erm, well, obvious reasons. The Codemasters F1 games go that route as much as possible for not just the commentator lines, but your race engineer lines.

"You lost the position, try to pressure them into a mistake and get it back."
"Levasseur is in front of you, they're on old softs."
"[Your Driver Name] has extended their lead in the drivers championship!"
"They'll be starting further back due to an earlier grid penalty"
etc.

 

[jacobc62]

After listening to TJ Majors in last night's xfinity race, I just want a TJ Majors spotter pack. I need as much information as possible and TJ gives that. I don't know if anyone has created a TJ pack yet, but it might help me if they have.

Dale Jr spotter pack already exists with TJ, Tony Jr. and Rick Hendrick featured on it: https://gpdesigns.ucoz.com/load/utilities/the_junebug_spotter_pack_v1_1/10-1-0-70

 

[mjarviejr]

Dale Jr spotter pack already exists with TJ, Tony Jr. and Rick Hendrick featured on it: https://gpdesigns.ucoz.com/load/utilities/the_junebug_spotter_pack_v1_1/10-1-0-70

Thanks. I may try that out. I totally did not put one and one together with the Junior pack. I'm getting old. lol