How to Organize a Voiceover Project

In abcVoiceover, a project is one production, a script is one episode, chapter, scene or module inside it, and the cast of voices is shared by every script in the project. Create scripts in the order you want them exported, name voices the way your script names characters, and use colours to tell scripts apart at a glance.

What goes in a project

Think of a project as everything that shares a cast: a podcast season, a game, a course, a book. Everything in it can use the same voices, it's shared with people as one unit, and it downloads as one zip. Good boundaries:

One project per series or season for audio drama and podcasts.
One project per game, or per large area of a game if its cast is separate.
One project per course for e-learning.
A separate project for experiments and test voices, so they don't clutter real work.

Each project has a name, an optional description and a colour, so it's easy to spot in your list of projects.

Scripts

One script per episode, chapter, scene or module, or per character's set of game barks.
Create them in order. In the download, each script is a folder numbered in the order the scripts were made: 01 Episode one, 02 Episode two.
Name them so the order is obvious anyway: Ep 03 The Harbour reads better in a list than The Harbour.
Give scripts colours to group them: one colour per act, per route, or per draft stage.
Pick each script's main voice. On a voice, "This script: Reads its lines" makes it the voice for lines that haven't picked another.

The cast

Name voices exactly as your script names characters, so pasted Name: line lines go to the right voice. Capitals don't matter; spelling does.
No two voices in a project share a name, and names can't contain a colon.
Extra voices for extra moods, such as Mara shouting, are fine. Any line can pick any voice.
Voices for other languages: language is a setting on the voice, so a character who speaks two languages is two voices, like Mara and Mara ES.

Lines

Lines are numbered in script order, and so are the files in the download. Moving a line up or down, or adding one in the middle, renumbers everything after it. If you've already placed files in an editor or engine, add new lines at the end of the script, or re-download and re-import after reordering.

A worked example: a podcast season

Project:  The Lighthouse (season one)        colour: teal
Cast:     Narrator, Mara, Joss, Harbourmaster, Mara shouting
Scripts:  01 Ep 1 Arrival          colour: blue
          02 Ep 2 The Logbook      colour: blue
          03 Ep 3 Storm            colour: purple
          04 Trailer               colour: orange
Shared:   co-writer (Can edit), sound designer (Can view)

Keeping it tidy over time

Delete scripts you've abandoned. Voices stay, because other scripts may use them.
Keep a short pronunciation and style list in the project's comments.
Download a copy at milestones. The Account page's Download everything button gets all your projects in one zip.

How to organize a voiceover project