suggestion for voice acting

zdoofop

Firstclaimer
Jul 26, 2016
531
766
93
Noneofyourbeeswaxistan
#1
ok, so in almost all games, the voices are scripted to omit the name of the player, because there is no way to know what name the player would pick. But what if you didn't have to know?

Sounds impossible, right? Hear me out. Text to Speech technology has come a very long way. Even Siri, Cortana, and other such voices all use TTS technology. Here's the thing: they have to record the voices somehow. What if all your voice actors had to do was make TTS voices, then you took the player's name as input and had the appropriate voice just read it?

This has other long term benefits, such as if a voice actor cannot/will not continue. You don't have to find a new one, you just take the existing tts read the new script.
 

Torgue_Joey

Kaiju Slayer
KAIJU 'SPLODER
Jul 27, 2016
1,123
2,703
113
Germany
#2
XxxBiatchexxx / *server commit suicide*

Mike1978 / Hello Mr. Mike one thousand nine huntdred seventy eight.

l llll lllll ll / barcode anyone?

B A L R O G / Hello Bee Ai El Ar Oh Gee, we need your help
 

EvilKitten

Well-Known Member
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
777
1,557
93
#5
I think this would be great if our omniframes AI talked to you. The problem with TTS though is that it tends to lack the proper inflections and tones that is present in natural speach, so I don't think it would work for actual characters talking to you. Also with that said...some names do not deserve to be spoken aloud...

The other option could be that you choose a first name from a drop down list and then have to make a unique last name? The game can refer to you by the preselected name only. I don't think it would be too bad to record a couple hundred names?
 
Jul 28, 2016
98
87
18
spiralofhope.com
#7
I've had this idea in mind for some time.

The solution is for the player to have a choice as to how their name is pronounced. They have their login name, and they would use a text language to better-describe how things are spoken.

login: spiralofhope
spoken: spih'rahl'of'hohpe (a bad example)

We'd be using an existing long and short vowel, and syllable concept. The game would guess, or use something basic, or perhaps as advanced as the IPA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

When done properly, this vocalization can be used openly, for all players and not just the account-holder.
 

Nalessa

Commander
Jan 6, 2017
84
219
33
38
Belgium
#10
Problem is, text to speech still has a somewhat lacking emotional tone to it.

Reason I liked Aero for example was because she felt like a human being and has reaction that are fitting, I'd rather have that as my advisor/adjutant/whatever, then an emotionless AI.
 
Jul 27, 2016
167
234
43
#13
Problem is, text to speech still has a somewhat lacking emotional tone to it.

Reason I liked Aero for example was because she felt like a human being and has reaction that are fitting, I'd rather have that as my advisor/adjutant/whatever, then an emotionless AI.
Give us a voiced selection to choose from. That massively cuts the workload, even if it's 4 options.
 

EvilKitten

Well-Known Member
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
777
1,557
93
#19
All M3 backers are getting a voice pack in game done by her.
While awesome in and of itself I am hoping she will have a much larger roll than ~2000 players. Perhaps the AI can be based on a real in game character who is also part of the story/action. I remember when Aero appeared "in person" in the ...blackwater(?) mission back in beta and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to suddenly run face to face with the person who always "talked in my head".
 
Jul 28, 2016
7
12
3
#20
I've had this idea in mind for some time.

The solution is for the player to have a choice as to how their name is pronounced. They have their login name, and they would use a text language to better-describe how things are spoken.

login: spiralofhope
spoken: spih'rahl'of'hohpe (a bad example)

We'd be using an existing long and short vowel, and syllable concept. The game would guess, or use something basic, or perhaps as advanced as the IPA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

When done properly, this vocalization can be used openly, for all players and not just the account-holder.

That was literally what I was thinking of. The only proper way to get ANY name right, no matter how horribly bad it is (mashup of an entire sentence anyone?) is to provide its phonetic pronunciation. Allow for a playback to be performed by the player until they are satisfied with the result. This can be done quite easily and with relatively low overhead as it would all be done client-side. Team-speak is a good example of a program that has this feature, except it is even more rudimentary in that it doesn't require syllable parsing. Suffice to say its relatively easy to work with. It's not that difficult to have a recorded dialog/speech in-game that provides a blank gap for any name to be inserted... with the inserted name being TTS'ed, if not attempting to just TTS all the dialog.