varkonasnorse Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I was wondering if any of you guys have ever used text-to-speech software for character dialogues. If you are a modder that needs voice acting by the opposite gender, but it isn't readily available, would it not be feasible you use a voice enhancement software to create the character's dialogues? Sounds reasonable to me. Now, granted this kind of software is a bit lacking sometimes in the punctuation department, and is usually devoid of emotion. But still, I'm thinking it could be a viable substitute for the real thing. Has anyone ever done it? I want to try it, but I want your opinions before I knock my brains out for nothing. :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonathanOstrus Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 I've seen a few authors try to pull it off. Usually those mod's don't get a lot of traction because of the terrible quality from the text to speech engines. As you noted there's no emotion and the cadence of speech flow is usually awkward. If it were something like Cortana's speech engine or the more recent updates to Google on Android it *might* be OK for small one liners. But trying to do complex speech dialogue will probably be very lacking. Some of them can have detailed phoneme notation to get the annunciation how you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
varkonasnorse Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 Yeah, I was kinda thinkin' that myself. I wouldn't want my females to sound like the late Mr. Hawking though. However, I have yet to find a female with the time or the inclination to sit for hours on end to record lines for me in the CK. Maybe I'm just not offering enough cash. I was just grabbing at some ideas. Thanks BigAndFlabby for your input. It sounds like more trouble than it's worth actually. :mellow: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonathanOstrus Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Most voice actors worth anything can just do a recording session and send you a big long wave file for you to cut whatever you want from. I suspect that's how most do it when they don't do their own acting. And probably even some that do. You can put the audio in after the fact. It's just a matter of getting the filename right and putting it in the proper place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
varkonasnorse Posted March 21, 2018 Author Share Posted March 21, 2018 Most voice actors worth anything can just do a recording session and send you a big long wave file for you to cut whatever you want from. I suspect that's how most do it when they don't do their own acting. And probably even some that do. You can put the audio in after the fact. It's just a matter of getting the filename right and putting it in the proper place.You're right, of course. My idea was to use a synthesizer to try and match an existing NPC voice type for a few lines I wanted to add. If I "hire" a voice actor I would have to have the person do all of the lines for the NPC, otherwise it wouldn't sound right. I have mods where the voices were spliced and blended, but they are terrible and takes away from the character's credibility (if that's even possible for an NPC). I don't want to do that. I guess I'll just keep hunting for a viable human voice type that is right for my NPC character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinxxed0 Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 At that point, I'd just use a voice morpher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
varkonasnorse Posted March 23, 2018 Author Share Posted March 23, 2018 At that point, I'd just use a voice morpher. There ya go. I'll try that. Sounds like a viable option. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evilynn2429 Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 (edited) Amazon Polly is the best free option I've found... It's not technically free, but you would need to do hundreds of hours of recording every month to break out of the free tier. Edited March 28, 2018 by Evilynn2429 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
varkonasnorse Posted April 4, 2018 Author Share Posted April 4, 2018 (edited) Thanks, I'll give it a shot. So far I have tried three different morphers and the female conversions just are not right. They sound like adolescent boys or women who smoke too much. Lydia's voice type, or close to it, is my goal and I cant seem to come anywhere near that. I'm thinking I need a real woman to do the dialog because their voices produce a unique tone that men just can't duplicate. :ermm: Edited April 4, 2018 by varkonasnorse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evilynn2429 Posted May 29, 2018 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Thanks, I'll give it a shot. So far I have tried three different morphers and the female conversions just are not right. They sound like adolescent boys or women who smoke too much. Lydia's voice type, or close to it, is my goal and I cant seem to come anywhere near that. I'm thinking I need a real woman to do the dialog because their voices produce a unique tone that men just can't duplicate. :ermm: If you still need help or are looking for a voice actor, I suggest fiverr.com - as long as you don't need a ton of speech. I've hired several voice actors for the mod I'm working on. All have been easy to work with, and depending on what you need it can also be very cheap. Most charge by the word, and many have 75-150 words in a $5 package. If you need a couple thousand words - or even more - that becomes much more expensive and you are probably looking at ~$150 - $250 .. and that's more than enough to be painful. It's still cheap for voice acting, but it's not like we are paid for this work! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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