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VOCALOID New gynoid VOCALOIDs - MEIKA Hime & Mikoto

xuu

long suffering synth fan
Apr 8, 2018
671
23
UK
Gynoid Talk is shrouded in mystery for the sake of another company:
It would be cool if other companies like Crypton were also working on a proper talk bank for their characters. I'm not sure if this sounds like another company has also been working on a talk voice currently, or if one in the past did.
I believe this is referring to VOICEROID2 LOL
It's nice that they have so much freedom in character. Looking forward to their release now.
 

Mika

crying over Rune Factory 6
Jul 5, 2018
278
25
Germany
Something that I think is interesting:


There is going to be an article by mqdl in the newest CGWORLD magazine (vol.248) about how they made Mikoto and Hime's models. (As far as I understand.)
Now I'm really sad that I can't read japanese, I'd love to learn how they do specific things, their models just always look so good!
I think I'm still gonna buy it though, pictures tell a lot of things already.
 
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Kona

Avanna's #1 Fan
Apr 8, 2018
813
USA
I’m getting more excited about these two! Their voices are really nice, though they don’t stand out too much to me personally so I don’t think I’d buy them, but I’d love to see what will be made with them.

I also really like a real completely blank slate gender/relationship wise, and especially how they’re being sold essentially Bruno/Clara style. I almost wish all pairs were sold like that...there are many time I don’t want both characters but you have to buy them together.
 

Pup-p

Aspiring Fan
Apr 8, 2018
91
There's been drama going around on VA about their reference sheet, people saying it's wrong they're in their underwear. Heres some examples:
 

Mika

crying over Rune Factory 6
Jul 5, 2018
278
25
Germany
I kinda get where they are coming from but it's really not that deep? These sheets were mainly made for mqdl to make the 3d models correctly. Hime just wears a skirt, so depending on how she moves or the camera angle you will see the panties. Or would they prefer her to not wear any, lol? So yeah, there was a need to draw that. And because of that it's also interesting to know for cosplayers, if they want to 100% correctly cosplay them. It's not like that ref exists without reason lmao.
 

Chuchu

Luka enthusiast
Jul 18, 2018
59
I kinda get where they are coming from but it's really not that deep? These sheets were mainly made for mqdl to make the 3d models correctly. Hime just wears a skirt, so depending on how she moves or the camera angle you will see the panties. Or would they prefer her to not wear any, lol? So yeah, there was a need to draw that. And because of that it's also interesting to know for cosplayers, if they want to 100% correctly cosplay them. It's not like that ref exists without reason lmao.
I think the biggest issue was that some questionable facial expression were included, which rilled a few people on VA up. And a portion of the japanese Voiceroid fandom is somewhat known to lewd minor characters. At least, that's what I could get from some of the post.

On another note, I like that Mikoto sounds like a less harsh Flower. Flower is really nice in fast paced songs, but she's a nighmare in most slow songs...
Hopefully, gynoid's future voicebanks won't sound like another version of Flower.
 

Mika

crying over Rune Factory 6
Jul 5, 2018
278
25
Germany
I think the biggest issue was that some questionable facial expression were included, which rilled a few people on VA up. And a portion of the japanese Voiceroid fandom is somewhat known to lewd minor characters. At least, that's what I could get from some of the post.

On another note, I like that Mikoto sounds like a less harsh Flower. Flower is really nice in fast paced songs, but she's a nighmare in most slow songs...
Hopefully, gynoid's future voicebanks won't sound like another version of Flower.
Questionable facial expression? I really don't see any? Hime has a typical happy face and Mikoto has a typical annoyed face. Same goes for the extra drawn heads to show their facial features. I didn't know that the Voiceroid fandom has those.. not so nice sides but I really don't think that gynoid or miwashiba intended anything like that. Those really look like absolutely normal ref sheets to me.

I think they made that duo like that to have an equal amount of cute and tomboyish sounding vocals. Maybe they go in a completely different direction next time, who knows.
 

Leon

AKA missy20201 (Elliot)
Apr 8, 2018
979
Seriously, @ the Amino stuff? They're genderless spirit-world beings, who's to say they're "about twelve" (unless gynoid said somewhere and I missed it?). Besides, a lot of character ref sheets show characters almost-naked, showing undergarments or body art etc is quite the norm. They're making pretty standard faces too, unless the users are angry about Mikoto's face that's not even connected to a body in their first image...

Drama over nothing. They both sound good, and I like Mikoto more. Looking forward to usage of them :)
 

Chuchu

Luka enthusiast
Jul 18, 2018
59
Questionable facial expression? I really don't see any? Hime has a typical happy face and Mikoto has a typical annoyed face. Same goes for the extra drawn heads to show their facial features. I didn't know that the Voiceroid fandom has those.. not so nice sides but I really don't think that gynoid or miwashiba intended anything like that. Those really look like absolutely normal ref sheets to me.

I think they made that duo like that to have an equal amount of cute and tomboyish sounding vocals. Maybe they go in a completely different direction next time, who knows.
That's just what I read on VA. I think most of them had good intention, but were too emotional and quick to judge something that wasn't there to begin with.
Yeah, maybe they will totally bamboozle us and create a male voicebank xD (even if their company name doesn't suggest it)
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
About their ages:
I haven't read all of the Gynoid tweets yet (I did skim them), but I will keep posting translations over the next couple of days for everyone else. I do not recall their ages ever being stated or an age catching my eye, but I assume that if it's anything like their genders and relationship to each other, they probably don't have official ages.

About their undies:
I hope you people are happy, making me look up about loincloths on Wikipedia and in the dictionary...
On Hime's character sheet, it has a bullet point dedicated to her undies. It says:
パンツはふんどしパンツと呼ばれるものですがただの趣味設定なのでスパッツとかに置き換えたほうが良さそうです
The underwear is a thing called fundoshi (loincloth) underwear, but it is okay to change the things like the leggings to your preferences.
Fundoshi are men's traditional loincloths. They are pretty much only worn for traditional occasions like the Naked Festival (Hadaka Matsuri) (imagine hundreds of dudes running around the street in loincloths) or swimming. The sumo wrestler version is called mawashi. (Note: There ARE female sumos, they are called 女相撲, they wear mawashi but it is over the top of a bodysuit covering their skin.) It seems like women in fiction who are things like ninjas or martial arts masters or pretending to be male have an underwear design like this and real women don't normally wear them, but an irl shop called WACOAL (ワコール) sells female Fundoshi. The Japanese version of the fundoshi page said that in the 80s, gravure models wore fundoshi and it was shocking to see their rumps, basically (fundoshi lack elastic like normal undies and show more of the rump). So, uh, I dunno. I guess if you want to be offended, think of these as undies and that gravure idols wear them. If you don't want to be offended, think of them as swimwear or traditional garb a man would wear. After all, we don't know if they're wearing the men's undies to seem Neo-Japanese or if it's because of their ambiguous gender. What if they are male? Wouldn't it be okay to see them if you can see Japanese men (including the prince when he was young, apparently), wearing them in public? This might have to be marked up as an "only in Japan" kind of thing...

I agree that the MMD modeler would want to know this information. I mean, we get to see Miku's undies all the time depending on the pose. Doesn't mean I don't want to rinse mine eyes in the holy water eyewash station after seeing them. Just sayin' what I found out. Don't send the popo after me for researching this.

About their expressions:
As for questionable facial expressions maybe they are talking about the materials for Voiceroid users that will be released on the 30th?

Admittedly, I can't really tell what some of these expressions are supposed to be conveying. 😅
 

Mei-Saime

JP and CHN UTAU girl
Apr 8, 2018
78
About their ages:
I haven't read all of the Gynoid tweets yet (I did skim them), but I will keep posting translations over the next couple of days for everyone else. I do not recall their ages ever being stated or an age catching my eye, but I assume that if it's anything like their genders and relationship to each other, they probably don't have official ages.

About their undies:
I hope you people are happy, making me look up about loincloths on Wikipedia and in the dictionary...
On Hime's character sheet, it has a bullet point dedicated to her undies. It says:


Fundoshi are men's traditional loincloths. They are pretty much only worn for traditional occasions like the Naked Festival (Hadaka Matsuri) (imagine hundreds of dudes running around the street in loincloths) or swimming. The sumo wrestler version is called mawashi. (Note: There ARE female sumos, they are called 女相撲, they wear mawashi but it is over the top of a bodysuit covering their skin.) It seems like women in fiction who are things like ninjas or martial arts masters or pretending to be male have an underwear design like this and real women don't normally wear them, but an irl shop called WACOAL (ワコール) sells female Fundoshi. The Japanese version of the fundoshi page said that in the 80s, gravure models wore fundoshi and it was shocking to see their rumps, basically (fundoshi lack elastic like normal undies and show more of the rump). So, uh, I dunno. I guess if you want to be offended, think of these as undies and that gravure idols wear them. If you don't want to be offended, think of them as swimwear or traditional garb a man would wear. After all, we don't know if they're wearing the men's undies to seem Neo-Japanese or if it's because of their ambiguous gender. What if they are male? Wouldn't it be okay to see them if you can see Japanese men (including the prince when he was young, apparently), wearing them in public? This might have to be marked up as an "only in Japan" kind of thing...

I agree that the MMD modeler would want to know this information. I mean, we get to see Miku's undies all the time depending on the pose. Doesn't mean I don't want to rinse mine eyes in the holy water eyewash station after seeing them. Just sayin' what I found out. Don't send the popo after me for researching this.

About their expressions:
As for questionable facial expressions maybe they are talking about the materials for Voiceroid users that will be released on the 30th?

Admittedly, I can't really tell what some of these expressions are supposed to be conveying. 😅
This Amino "drama" is really stupid. This is a ref for 3D modelers and artist and they said the underwear is for anyone else to do, so you can draw them however you like. Also ALL of Voiceroid related sprites for game narration have expressions that people can customize via with the PSD files. So The "drama" is pretty pointless to argue about reference sheets. ( Just throwing my cents in )
 
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xuu

long suffering synth fan
Apr 8, 2018
671
23
UK
That would be really cool! I remember gynoid stating that Flowers voicer now actually sounds like Flower. Not having to voiceact the talkbank would probably make her sound quite natural.
Part of me hopes this was actually them hinting at it! It would be really cool to see. I'd say I want a Xin Hua talk VB too but I don't think her VP speaks Japanese very well, and Chinese talk voices are uhm... maybe it could work?
 

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,982
I hope you people are happy, making me look up about loincloths on Wikipedia and in the dictionary...
I really don't want to derail the fact that the conversation has moved on from this point, but this line made me laugh really hard. :)

They're androgynous demon shrine maidens. They probably have a grey area of thematically-appropriate-seeming underwear choice a mile wide. I suspect their designers picked fundoshi to preserve that ambiguity, and (maybe?) to somehow fit in with their traditional/old-Japan/mythological background. Maybe, as demons, they somehow fit in the martial arts master crowd, too?

Having said that, I agree with pretty much everyone here--when they were designing the characters, they had to pick something. Since they were publishing the info for the benefit of whomever might need it (i.e., 3D modelers), that info naturally got included, too. It's no different from the blueprints for a house/airplane/etc.

Edit: Regarding the faces...personally, I don't see anything weird in the faces I've seen. But maybe more importantly, the terms for character use for the synths I can remember (Miku, SynthV, Ruby, almost certainly Gumi too) all have something in there about not creating art/etc. that is excessively detrimental to the character (paraphrased since I don't have the terms in front of me). So, while an artist could have gone rogue when creating the ref sheet, I doubt that Gynoid as a company would provide a facial expression that facilitates the creation of such things.
 
Last edited:

Exemplar

Veteran
May 17, 2018
1,028
The vocaloid voicebanks and talk banks will be on sale through their webstore and Amazon page, vocaloid voicebanks only on yamaha's vocaloid store
 
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Rylitah

kiyoteru enthusiast
Staff member
Moderator
Apr 8, 2018
575
It's them showing off their voice files (the ones similar to exVOICE) while also using their Talk banks (which sound really, really good; there's still some of that robotic twang that gives away that they're not an actual human speaking, but they sound super natural) to narrate.
 

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