Using Avatar voice bots for mod voiceover

[Executor64]

You know the one thing i've been wondering about is this:

avatars and online voices that speak your sentences (like in google translate)

have been around for quite some time, could they (lawfouly) be used in production of voice over for new NPC's in mods?

 

I know they are far from perfect, but some voice is better than no voice (when i play a voiced dialogue game like oblivion, those mute people really stand out)

but still if you can create any sentence you want and record it all in a matter of seconds, if that is not forbidden, why not just do it?

 

here's a voice bot i've came across recentley, It has several voice templates, as well as accents (well actualy it has different languages, but for example if you choose italian and type an english sentance you get an exotic accent)

 

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php

 

for example: text > you'll regret approaching me , language > english, voice > daniel (UK), effect > speed , level > slow

is like O.o

 

 

so thoughts on this?

Edited November 9, 2013 by Executor64

[Lanceor]

Very interesting idea indeed.

 

Currently, Oblivion and Skyrim use pre-recorded voices. The Construction Set has a lip sync generator that reads the text of a conversation topic, matches it to the timing of the recording and generates a lip movement file.

 

If the text to speech program can generate mp3 or wav files, they could be used instead of real human voices. However, it would be a similar amount of work to using a real voice actor so I don't see many modders would want to do this. It might be useful for robot characters or for people from non-English backgrounds though.

 

A bigger idea would be an OBSE / SKSE plugin that can generate voices on the fly (like a higher tech version of Elys Universal Silent Voice). Or a perhaps a utility that could check all the conversations in a mod / modlist and generate voices for any topic that's missing a voice file. These would require much more programming expertise to create, as well as requiring licensing for Text-to-speech engine and the voice files, but they would be great if someone managed to pull it off. :smile:

[Executor64]

heh, you mention actors as if people are fighting over the chance to give modders some voce acting :smile:

 

Yeah a thought has crossed my mind as well, some kind of plugin in a form of an application, that could co-exist with obivion, and that could scan the text npc's have in subtitles, so it can produce sentences when needed, and be silently minimized when no subtitles are there

 

Still though, I would very much love to try to voice over some good old mods whose production has long since stopped. Like bards of cyrodil, 300 lore dialogue, oblivifall - let's talk, countless Cm and non cm companions...

 

So yeah if inserting voice over is easy-medium difficulty i might just do that, recording the voice from voicebot is a peace of cake, so really only two concerns are licencing from voicebot (<.< although i can swear i heard diablo 2 imp sound in fcom :P) and how hard it is to insert recorded sound in a particular mod

Edited November 11, 2013 by Executor64