builds a cutter and a corsair, both in 1/1200 scale.
As I mentioned previously, it turns out TMP has a strong following in the German community. We started providing German captions to our videos recently, and now we thought to try our first German-language music video.
I asked Gemini to translate Secrets of the Ocean Keep to German:
Geheimnisse der Ozeane bewahrt!
Strophe 1
Die Flut steigt hoch, das Glas ist voll,
Kein Landratten-Garn, kein leeres Groll.
Die Flotte bereit, die Segel gespannt,
Plastikmodelle direkt zur Hand!
Kanonen geladen, die Würfel bereit,
Ein alter Seebär sucht seine Zeit!Refrain
Yo ho ho, ein Riesenspaß!
Auf dem Papiermeer, vom Wind umgefasst!
Wir hissen den Jolly Roger hoch hinaus,
Im dichten Qualm in diesem Haus!
Hört die Pfeifen, die Trommeln so tief,
Geheimnisse der Ozeane, die man rief!Strophe 2
Die Boote gewässert, die Regeln bekannt,
Keine Angst vor der Schlacht – verbannt!
Wir planen den Kurs mit sicherer Hand,
Quer durch das Meer im Tabletop-Land.
Eine Breitseite abgefeuert, ein kluger Zug,
Ein weiterer Sieg im Jagdflug!Refrain
Yo ho ho, ein Riesenspaß!
Auf dem Papiermeer, vom Wind umgefasst!
Wir hissen den Jolly Roger hoch hinaus,
Im dichten Qualm in diesem Haus!
Hört die Pfeifen, die Trommeln so tief,
Geheimnisse der Ozeane, die man rief!
An odd problem I'm experiencing with Gemini is that when I ask it to translate something, it switches entirely to that other language – in this case, giving me the translation and all its comments in German! So I told it not to do that (again!), and somehow this prompted it to give me this breakdown of the translation:
- "Tabletop ocean"
- I translated this as "Tabletop-Land" or "Meer im Tabletop-Land" to keep the rhythm. In German gaming circles, "Tabletop" is the standard term used.
- "Pint"
- While "Pint" can be used, "Glas" or "Krug" (mug/stein) feels more natural for a German tavern setting.
- "Secrets of the ocean keep"
- I translated this as "Geheimnisse der Ozeane, die man rief" (Secrets of the oceans that were called/invoked) in the chorus to make the rhyme work with "tief" (deep), while keeping the introductory line literal.
Note that "Jolly Roger" is apparently a known term in German.
Making the Music
Instead of giving Sonauto a musical prompt as I usually do (which lets the AI determine which music tags to use), I gave it these specific tags:
concertina, 2020s, fiddle, stomp and holler, folk rock, sea shanty
Sonauto easily came up with a suitable tune!
Making the Video
I thought our previous pirate art was getting over-used, so I went back to basics and gave Klein Flux the original photo and instructions. I had to argue with it to try to get the model ships roughly the same size, and I asked it to add a parrot. It finally came up with:
I then had SeeDance animate the art to make the parrot flap its wings. It got a little excessive with animating the 'smoky tavern' (it was even worse in the original animation, the final version is after I told the AI not to animate the smoke!).
Caption files were made in German, as well as English, French, Spanish and Tagalog.
The final step was to combine the new music and new animation with titles, using ClipChamp:
I've posted the video as a reel on the TMP Facebook page, where it has done quite well. Most viewers were from outside the wargaming community, and in the 45+ age bracket.