On August 24 2012 20:24 Stratos wrote: Don't ever mention first supply depot and first overlord unless you're pointing out something interesting (like positioning, overlord pathway etc.). Always try to explain what the build/ingame situation means => fast cc = econ oriented build, how can enemy counter it etc. - instead of simply describing what's happening. You're doing a decent job of this already but there's still room for improvement imo. Since you're doing analysis of your casts I don't think this will be a problem. good luck
Hah! Yeah, supply depot was a bit silly, I even kind of interrupted myself to mention it. I think I felt as if I was talking too much about other shit, but it's early game, nothing was going on!
As far as the scouting overlord goes, I don't think that's too bad to mention. I guess the scouting drone/SCV, or the positioning of the overlord, would be more appropriate (i.e. the overlord placement scouting for drops/a third/outside opponent's base).
There are things you can and can't change, and game knowledge is definitely one that you CAN.
Keep working hard at it and it will come, fast or slow.
There's also a lot of competition for getting into the casting scene so if that's your aim it's gonna take a lot of time and effort (though it seems you're off to a great start judging by the amount of replies in these blogs//views count etc!)
I totally agree, anything can happen, and nothing is a lost cause. The only thing that matters is to work hard, and that's what I plan on doing!
That's why I put myself out there and show you guys my thought process and progress, to get feedback and try to improve upon things as quickly as possible. Peer review is an awesome thing! ^^
On August 24 2012 08:34 FullNatural wrote: It's not stupid to avoid a weakness. Shaq didn't try to play point guard. He dunked the ball like he was supposed to. Stick to your strengths. Your pretty, outgoing etc etc. Focus on those things among others and make them shine. Make people forget that your game insight is below par. Most casters have a select few key things going for them. Your game analysis is never going to be like day9. Don't try to be a jack of all trades.
Hahaha you're gonna go faaaaaar in life thinking like that! Do you think Day9 was born with his game analysis? Ofc she can get to his level, sure, it might take 2 years of hard practise but anyone can for sure.
Are you telling me Shaq should have tried to be something he's not? Shaq had a better chance of winning the mega millions lottery than becoming a profesional point guard. He got to where he was by focusing on the skills sets that he had the best chance of succeeding with. ie size, powert, strenth etc. It's like asking Shaq to focus on dribbling.
If you cannot understand what myself and others where trying to say, when we said stick to your strengths then you are beyond hope.
Tara has several things going for her already. If she wants a chance to succeed with this she should focus on these things and other areas that are easier to improve upon. With some minimal practice she could easliy make us forget about her lack of game knowledge during a cast and create something enjoyable to watch. But focus.
RAGEMOAR said it best, listening to a D-/keyboard player analyze a game is painful. If you cut this time and used it on anything else in the world, it would be more enjoyable to watch. I rather listen to you talk about the bathroom products you use during the cast, than trying to analzye the game in any kind of depth. I'm being serious. Keep in depth game analysis to a minimum and fill that time with something creative to keep your viewer entertained. Most people watch a cast for that reason. And there are different ways to achieve this. If they want to improve their SC2 game, they are not going to watch you. They will watch Day9 or any other caster. If you want vierwers please understand this.
It's unrealistic to think Tara is going to become a high end SC2 player or even come close to going over a game like Day9. This reminds me about that "koll" thread years ago. Koll was the exception. Tara is not koll.
I understand she wants to be the best at all aspects of casting, bless her heart. But this won't happen. Focus on the areas that your good at and are easier to improve upon. You can't take the dozens of suggestions in this thread and be the best at all of them.
On August 24 2012 05:40 RAGEMOAR The Pope wrote: I only made it about 10 minutes into the cast, skipped to a bit of lategame.
Your game analysis is very, very poor and in some instances wrong. I would avoid doing it as much as possible.
You speak in short bursts of words without much excitement and long pauses during and in between sentences. Your stats sound like you're reading off of liquipedia.
At the beginning of the game, after player introductions, you should pan around the map a bit and explain the features of each map, to give "newb" viewers a chance to see the entire map.
I would watch the entire game beforehand since you're casting from replays; you miss a lot of the action going on because you don't watch the minimap. Maybe write down what happens so you can adequately cover drops or have a partner move the screen for you.
That is INCREDIBLY stupid to avoid analysis. I only learn from trying, and if I don't commit without being afraid of being wrong, I will never improve.
I also disagree on my lack of emotion. Perhaps I need more, but I improved vastly from cast #1 and I think it's pretty decent burst in the right spots.
I do watch the game beforehand, but not too much. A real casting job would not have this possible, so I want to practice the hard stuff. Game knowledge and player knowledge (especially on Vortix) is lacking, but I'm working on it and it will come with time. To avoid it would put me in a rut and be idiotic...
Good call on the beginning of the game advice, though.
If you want to do analysis, please play a lot more games, watch a lot more tournaments, read forums, and improve your game knowledge. Right now, it's like listening to a third grader lecturing on thermodynamics; you're way out of your league.
I can barely tell the difference from your "exciting" voice to "explanatory" voice. It's flat and boring.
I only recommend watching the game beforehand and taking notes because you're highly inexperienced. You miss a lot of important things. Think of it as going into a game with a general gameplan and your build order on a piece of paper next to you. Right now you aren't good enough to "wing it" like major tournament casters.
This post is actually really good advice.
You could cast a game you KNOW someone good has casted, then watch the videos side by side and understand what the differences are, and importantly how they're doing it so much better. And then practice, practice, practice. Even if that means casting the same game 10x in a row, just so you can get comfortable doing everything 'perfect' in terms of what people enjoy in a cast, then slowly being able to do that consistently to fresh games.
But you really have to target one weakness at a time until it's improved substantially to improve as rapidly as possible (at least this is what i've noticed). Even people we disagree with often have very valid points underneath the stuff we dont like in their words
keep on keeping on
ps: see this comment by kennigit @ 5 minutes
What I find really funny about this video, is that the comment by kennigit @ 2:53 - 3:00 minutes is actually much more poignant to this thread.
On August 24 2012 23:44 Kaeru wrote: Nice improvements! I like how you analyse your own casting a lot, you're gonna become great if you keep it up!
On August 24 2012 08:34 FullNatural wrote: It's not stupid to avoid a weakness. Shaq didn't try to play point guard. He dunked the ball like he was supposed to. Stick to your strengths. Your pretty, outgoing etc etc. Focus on those things among others and make them shine. Make people forget that your game insight is below par. Most casters have a select few key things going for them. Your game analysis is never going to be like day9. Don't try to be a jack of all trades.
Hahaha you're gonna go faaaaaar in life thinking like that! Do you think Day9 was born with his game analysis? Ofc she can get to his level, sure, it might take 2 years of hard practise but anyone can for sure.
Are you telling me Shaq should have tried to be something he's not? Shaq had a better chance of winning the mega millions lottery than becoming a profesional point guard. He got to where he was by focusing on the skills sets that he had the best chance of succeeding with. ie size, powert, strenth etc. It's like asking Shaq to focus on dribbling.
If you cannot understand what myself and others where trying to say, when we said stick to your strengths then you are beyond hope.
Tara has several things going for her already. If she wants a chance to succeed with this she should focus on these things and other areas that are easier to improve upon. With some minimal practice she could easliy make us forget about her lack of game knowledge during a cast and create something enjoyable to watch. But focus.
RAGEMOAR said it best, listening to a D-/keyboard player analyze a game is painful. If you cut this time and used it on anything else in the world, it would be more enjoyable to watch. I rather listen to you talk about the bathroom products you use during the cast, than trying to analzye the game in any kind of depth. I'm being serious. Keep in depth game analysis to a minimum and fill that time with something creative to keep your viewer entertained. Most people watch a cast for that reason. And there are different ways to achieve this. If they want to improve their SC2 game, they are not going to watch you. They will watch Day9 or any other caster. If you want vierwers please understand this.
It's unrealistic to think Tara is going to become a high end SC2 player or even come close to going over a game like Day9. This reminds me about that "koll" thread years ago. Koll was the exception. Tara is not koll.
I understand she wants to be the best at all aspects of casting, bless her heart. But this won't happen. Focus on the areas that your good at and are easier to improve upon. You can't take the dozens of suggestions in this thread and be the best at all of them.
Tara, since you singled out my comment from the last casting practice about your laugh at the end of the video, I thought I ought to add a comment to this thread as well.
You have people like in the post I quoted above who are going to tell you that you should focus on your strengths. To this, and other advice (like mine about the laugh XD) your response seems to be "but that's not the way I want to do it". In all honesty, that's fine -- you can cast however you'd like to cast or improve whatever aspects about your casting that you'd like to improve.
But I think that there are maybe two points you are missing when you make such a response.
First of all, the psychology of this website, in general is that of the RTS gamer -- that is: do it as efficiently as possible. You need you buildings down at the right time, you need your scouting in the right place at the right time, you need to learn when, where, why, and how as efficiently as possible to be the best you can and beat your opponent, no matter who it is. So when you ask about your casting practice you have to expect that people are going to look at the level you are at and say "macro better" -- whether that is regarding your game play or your casting. With that in mind, you should go back to some of the comments that you might have disagreed with or found harsh and look at them in that light, in the light of people trying to help you improve "your game" as efficiently as possible. You may find that there is less offensive to them than you first thought.
The second point that I think you are missing is that I think you can "do it the way you want to" and still start your casting career from the standpoint of "sticking to your strengths". What I mean by this is that if start out "sticking to your strengths" you can slowly work your way into becoming a more analytical caster. As an example of this I present to you my favorite caster: NukeTheStars. Nuke, I think, decidedly improved over his career as a Broodwar caster from the standpoint of game analysis. But the main reason I liked to watch Nuke's casts was his personality. You got the feeling of just chilling with a friend talking about the game. There would still be times he would miss a tech building and make a wrong call, even toward the end, but it didn't matter as much by then since most the analysis was pretty good and you weren't necessarily there for the "spot on analysis" anyway.
I think that if you want to be a dedicated analytical caster, you are going to have to put in a lot of work, and eschew some of your "strengths" as it were. This includes things like having a production laugh -- not a fake laugh -- a production laugh. (Have you ever done any acting? Or mimic others, like doing accents? While these things are necessarily "the real you" it's still you putting these things on. It's like when you get all dressed up and make-up'ed for a photo shoot. You still get the credit for it "being you" even if that is not the clothes you would wear -- or laugh you would have -- at your family Thanksgiving dinner.) This also includes things like doing Day[9] does where you watch a game a few times really slowly, write down timings and positions, and figure out for yourself what is actually going on. And only then flipping on the mic once you have an idea of what to look out for and when. Part of the game is predicting what is going to happen ahead of time and that certainly helps when doing a cast. Until you get better at knowing when to flip to what and what to look out for in the moment and while it happens live, you can help train yourself to know what to look out for by doing your homework beforehand.
On the other hand, if you really just want to play it natural and do the kind of thing where you really want your raw personality and mannerisms to show through (and not put on a production laugh), you might consider trying to go more the route of NukeTheStars where you do a bit of the "other stuff" like chatting about random stuff going on in the scene, taking predicition, discussing rvialries, talking about your pet tarantula, etc. You don't have to "talk about the bathroom products you use" -- but you could! Like NukeTheStars, you could be "the guy you watch Starcraft with", only with you it would be more like "the girl next door". I mean, this is just a guess, but I would think there are a lot of guys out there who think it's awesome that "that hot chick likes video games", and I think you know this. Why wouldn't you want to use that as a standpoint from which to springboard into a better analytical caster?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is like others have said using other words, you can't have it all at the same time. You can either focus on improving your analysis, to which you ought to tone down the personality (otherwise you make people think you just sound awkward or unprofessional), or you play up the personality and work on the analysis slowly as you go (maybe watch the game before hand, write down 3-5 major points to discuss during the cast, and make sure they are spot on -- maybe find someone to bounce your analysis off of or watch someone else's cast of the same game as was mentioned). If you try to do both too quickly with proficiency, you are going to get a lot more advice posts on how to improve.
I do think you did a better job in this cast with some of the presentational things like using filler words less often and being more confident when you were speaking. I think your awareness of the kinds of these issues will help you improve in these areas as you continue practicing. But as Starcraft is a game of decisions, and trying to make the right decision at the right time, I think you need to do some analysis of yourself and determine which direction you really want to go in. I would suggest you watch some NukeTheStars -- maybe some of his early games, and some of the games from this past OSL to get a feel for his style and also how he improved his analysis over time. You also might want to try this with a caster like Husky who is in some ways similar to Nuke in the way he casts; watch some games from the beta and then from his more recent stock.
Whichever you decide upon, I think you should seriously consider waiting to do more totally live casting until you are more accustomed to casting in general and do some prep beforehand each time. If you go with hardcore analytical casting, this will be essential; if you go with personality casting with slow analytical improvements, it will still help you a lot to get comfortable. I really wish you luck with this and hope to see some good improvement from you over the next few months.
If i had to categorize you as a caster id put you with husky. You can see the passion when something happens but seem to stumble through the filler. DJ wheat for instance has some meh filler but during big engagements he goes crazy and reminds me why i like him as a duo caster.
Some big difference between your videos of you just talking and the 'filler'. Even listening to the beginning of casting practice #2 if you could keep that energy in the cast it would be amazing.
Good to see you still working hard and we can all see the improvement keep it up
On August 29 2012 16:06 TheGreenMachine wrote: good improvement! :D
If i had to categorize you as a caster id put you with husky. You can see the passion when something happens but seem to stumble through the filler. DJ wheat for instance has some meh filler but during big engagements he goes crazy and reminds me why i like him as a duo caster.
Some big difference between your videos of you just talking and the 'filler'. Even listening to the beginning of casting practice #2 if you could keep that energy in the cast it would be amazing.
Good to see you still working hard and we can all see the improvement keep it up
Interesting...
Thanks for the support! I'll work on my enthusiasm even more in the next one! ^^
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
High isn't as relative as you say it is. No, Artosis wasn't a godly korean killing bw player. He still played competitively and is high masters on korean ladder. Apollo is a high masters random player, Day9 is (according to him) a gm level player. Theres a massive difference between their level of play and hers (gold league??).The reason they can successfully analyze games is because they fundamentally understand the game at a high level because they play on it. TB and DJWheat understand they arent amazing at sc2 and they fill a different role because of it.
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
High isn't as relative as you say it is. No, Artosis wasn't a godly korean killing bw player. He still played competitively and is high masters on korean ladder. Apollo is a high masters random player, Day9 is (according to him) a gm level player. Theres a massive difference between their level of play and hers (gold league??).The reason they can successfully analyze games is because they fundamentally understand the game at a high level because they play on it. TB and DJWheat understand they arent amazing at sc2 and they fill a different role because of it.
It can be done, and I don't care to listen to anyone else who says differently.
I am simply out of practice, left handed, and just need to buckle down and focus on speech, playing, and a little more knowledge. IMO, my knowledge outmatches my league. When I watch a game, I see so many things that I cannot possible imagine to see while playing, all of this comes with practice.
All of that is irrelevant, though. I think anyone who trains as hard as a pro can get good enough to cast, at the VERY least, in a couple year if not much sooner. I have years... I'm only 22! Saying it can't be done is just demeaning to yourself, the human brain and race as a whole, and me.
Besides, I could be so much more than a good host or the face of a company, and the thought of accomplishing something mentally challenging like that is what drives me! RAWR!
ps. When I do, I am totally buying a shirt that says "All this, and I can cast!" UNS UNS UNS!
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
High isn't as relative as you say it is. No, Artosis wasn't a godly korean killing bw player. He still played competitively and is high masters on korean ladder. Apollo is a high masters random player, Day9 is (according to him) a gm level player. Theres a massive difference between their level of play and hers (gold league??).The reason they can successfully analyze games is because they fundamentally understand the game at a high level because they play on it. TB and DJWheat understand they arent amazing at sc2 and they fill a different role because of it.
Since when was Artosis high masters on KR (unless you mean in the very first few months when everyone was bad). Because I played even back in season 1, when he was high masters NA and I was still a bit higher than him (I was ~3860 so I assume he was around that too). And I don't consider myself to be high masters capable, neither then, now, or ever so far on KR. Well, maybe back in season 1 since everyone was bad.
And actually I assumed you were talking about mid-high masters level of analysis, with the judgement being using NA players. I think that level can be reached in a few months if you spend a lot of time on it and are smart. Might not be able to play at that level that fast unless gifted, but analysis is a different thing. It's just learning a lot of heuristics. You have more of a time delay cushion when recognizing it during analysis than during playing. Furthermore you can focus on the analysis and not worry about the execution, so it's not a big problem if it's not a reflexive decision yet - so you can come to the right decision in decent time, but if it were in game you'd have been fucked cause you were too slow at coming up with the solution etc.
Of course I also stated that doing it while casting requires some additional practice, because casting + analysis is multitasking, though not as dexterously demanding as playing while analysing if you're not 100% certain with the analysis.
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
Artosis had one of the best understandings of the opening game(back in bw), he's also been around forever so he's has so much experience, u could show him a replay and have him only look at the mini map, and he could tell u what builds the players were doing and roughly how many units they would have at each point in time (well not mid-late game) yeah his analytical eye is what makes him so great edit: i remember day[9] saying this when he was doing he's bw dailys, but enough of that. Tara if this is what u want than go for it and let nothing hold u back, u have a really good mind set atm for getting better. If u really want to get better and u put in the time and effort than who are we to tell u that u shouldnt. Good luck
On August 26 2012 02:08 rogzardo wrote: I'll tune into this girl analzying sc2 the same day I watch a video of day9 pole dancing.
hahahahahah oh fuck my sides.
Going to be completely honest: you doing this probably isn't going to work unless you significantly improve at sc2. Currently your casting is just saying whats happening. You can't analyze because unlike apollo, day9, artosis, etc you do not/ have not played at a high level. Playing at a level that would let you analyze like that would probably take years. I think you would be much better off doing hosting like anna prosser or the GVG girl or whatever.
"High" is relative. One could argue that Artosis' playing skill was never really high, not very recently anyways. Heck, even in the last few years of BW did Artosis ever break B ranks? Because I don't recall him as being a top foreigner in the later years of BW.
What he does have is an analytical eye. That can be trained faster than both the eyes, hands, and mind together. Tbh, I think the analytical skills I could develop in someone in a few months. Translating it to casting is harder. For instance I am so much more of a derp if I am talking while analyzing.
And then after that it requires watching a lot of really top level games of all sorts of styles to keep current and feed your mind to develop even more heuristics and so on (so tag on another time sink at the end of those few months). But really it is a matter of dedication and is not on the order of years I think. Translating it to good casting as well, especially solo casting, sure. Would definitely take a lot longer.
Artosis had one of the best understandings of the opening game, he's also been around forever so he's has so much experience, u could show him a replay and have him only look at the mini map, and he could tell u what builds the players were doing and roughly how many units they would have at each point in time (well not mid-late game) yeah his analytical eye is what makes him so great
You realize any non-cheesing-only high master on NA can tell you the exact same thing. I think you overrate his casting because of your personal lack of knowledge. I thought the dude who had 60apm was supergosu in highschool.
I watched this on mute, but it looks like the observing part (camera control) needs a little bit of work. I'm not sure exactly how to give you advice on how to fix this, but don't drag the screen around quite so much. Keep at it! Casting is hard.