Icline on horizon. Modders use AI to voice text lines in Betsheda games using original actors.

[Perkel]

Highly impressive. Maybe we will go back to 10 choices in dialogs after all. Soon probably voice actors will be jobless. Mind you this is only 1.0 and as you see some are shit but some are great.

 

[Butter]

There are going to be be some Crispin Glover-style lawsuits in the next ten years when voice actors are unable to compete with their royalty-free likenesses.

 

[Bester]

Almost out of the uncanny valley, but not yet.

 

[Perkel]

Almost out of the uncanny valley, but not yet.

Nord female was basically picture perfect betsheda nord female.

1.0 of modders work surely to be inproved as it is connected to trainingmodels and amount of training. There are already text to voice pro apps that are hard to discern.

The point is even RPG indie studios soon will be able to completely voice everything automatically without reducing text and dialog choices. Hell this could be probably used well on some stuff like Dwarf fortress system created dialogs with some decent systems in place.

Say game already knows that this should be angry voice and has like Dwarf, alcoholic tags so final voice line would be sounding like angry alcoholic dwarf shouting something.

Moreover this is AI so soon AI will be able to discern what tone of speech it will need to use just from lines themselves much like you expect it when you read something.

 

[Drowed]

Almost out of the uncanny valley, but not yet.

I agree, but it makes me wonder, if the technology is already at this level today, how will it be in 4 or 5 years? Or in 10?

I'm not thinking about Bethesda's games here, because honestly, I don't care that much. But imagine if you use this same technology to expand the conversations with VO in Fallout 1 or 2? And since it's an AI, it means that the final result is adaptable. That is, you can basically take the performance of a good actor, teach an AI to speak like him/her but change the tone/pitch or rhythm of the voice sufficiently to use it in some project of yours. And maybe, who knows, escape a process of image/sound use rights.

Which at the same time opens doors to impressive and absolutely terrible things. No doubt the terrible ones will be the most common, I pity how many actors from classic works will be "resurrected" to do the voices of terrible projects in the coming years.

 

[Reader]

And since it's an AI, it means that the final result is adaptable

Or memetic

 

[Semiurge]

Silent fan missions will be a thing of the past.

 

[Gargaune]

There are going to be be some Crispin Glover-style lawsuits in the next ten years when voice actors are unable to compete with their royalty-free likenesses.

Hm... Is a person's vocal pattern covered by "likeness" copyright in the same manner as their image? What do the Codex's legal experts say?

 

[otteaux]

Just in time for my planned Gilbert Gottfried/Fran Drescher mod

 

[Terra]

This tech is really moving along well and picking up pace, very impressive results. Seems only a matter of time until some legal issues appear as a result of this tech though.

 

[lukaszek]

I agree, but it makes me wonder, if the technology is already at this level today, how will it be in 4 or 5 years? Or in 10?

game studios will have to disclose some background behind the dialog lines, perhaps disclose name of the game even

Spoiler

not kidding, they are completely in blind

so that voice actors can compete and start delivering more emotions

 

[Tigranes]

Isn't it great that we used fancy new technology to fix a problem that doesn't exist

We'll just have more terribly directed, shittily written lines read out by mostly-OK, sometimes-dumb-as-shit machine generated voices. And there will be even greater pressure to churn out shitty pointless VA instead of just having no VA. It'll become harder to justify budgets for actually good VA when you can just do some half assed job with some half-working AI.

Ain't gonna do shit for actually good games, or people who make actually good games.

 

[lukaszek]

Isn't it great that we used fancy new technology to fix a problem that doesn't exist

We'll just have more terribly directed, shittily written lines read out by mostly-OK, sometimes-dumb-as-shit machine generated voices. And there will be even greater pressure to churn out shitty pointless VA instead of just having no VA. It'll become harder to justify budgets for actually good VA when you can just do some half assed job with some half-working AI.

Ain't gonna do shit for actually good games, or people who make actually good games.

dunno... wasnt there company that specialises in generating trees for other gaming companies?
You might get company that creates a tool that can spit out decent lines, cheaply, quickly, with 100 pregenerated voices? Sounds like win for everyone. AA titles become cheaper and better voiced. Will we get man of many cheeses this way? Unlikely

 

[Tigranes]

Isn't it great that we used fancy new technology to fix a problem that doesn't exist

We'll just have more terribly directed, shittily written lines read out by mostly-OK, sometimes-dumb-as-shit machine generated voices. And there will be even greater pressure to churn out shitty pointless VA instead of just having no VA. It'll become harder to justify budgets for actually good VA when you can just do some half assed job with some half-working AI.

Ain't gonna do shit for actually good games, or people who make actually good games.

dunno... wasnt there company that specialises in generating trees for other gaming companies?
You might get company that creates a tool that can spit out decent lines, cheaply, quickly, with 100 pregenerated voices? Sounds like win for everyone. AA titles become cheaper and better voiced. Will we get man of many cheeses this way? Unlikely

It's not a win if you think that voice acting should have a sense of craft and direction, because this will just kill human voice actor market even more, except for random games with voices by Dr. Dre or someshit.

It's not a win if you think voice acting is usually an unnecessary distraction from making good games, because it'll become more prevalent, more devs will feel market pressured to put them in, but it will rarely be actually good despite sometimes being cheaper.

It is a win if we decide that we just want every game to have completely generic, forgettable VA that just ticks the box, so let's do it in the cheapest way possible. I'm sure some people feel that way. I don't see what it adds for what I consider good games.

Underrail isn't any better with mostly-passable, sometimes-cringy AI-generated voice acting. And we aren't better off with a million user requests saying OMG EVERY GAME HAS AI-VA NOW WHY DONT U.

 

[lukaszek]

It is a win if we decide that we just want every game to have completely generic, forgettable VA that just ticks the box, so let's do it in the cheapest way possible. I'm sure some people feel that way. I don't see what it adds for what I consider good games.

that ship already sailed. Only indie games can afford not having voice acting. As I said actors know shit in most cases so you get mediocre performance anyway.

 

[DeepOcean]

Underrail isn't any better with mostly-passable, sometimes-cringy AI-generated voice acting. And we aren't better off with a million user requests saying OMG EVERY GAME HAS AI-VA NOW WHY DONT U.

Most voice acting isnt any better than machine Ai content, as some voices are very close to the original voice actor lines as you can see on the video, only really top professional voice acting for main characters on AAA dont half ass their voices. I see a situation where random NPCs will have Ai voices so we might end having more than a single line of dialog with a NPC on a AAA "RPG" and no, with exception of niche genres, unfortunately, the reality is that most people dont like no voice acting. Also, if the technology improves more, even an indie RPG might have all lines voiced, what might bring more people to play RPGs.

 

[lukaszek]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...or-who-didnt-know-he-was-working-on-fallout-4

I had no idea I was one of the bad guys in the game

And yet, despite these multiple recordings, at no point do they ever tell him that in fact, he's been voicing a character called Conrad Kellogg for a game called Fallout 4. If you've played it yourself, you'll know that's not an insignificant role.

as I was saying this is AAA industry standard for VO. If it doesnt change it would be surprising if ai cant compete within few year span. You probably would need to add some tags for emotions and background.
So like general tags per character
[male], [violent], [viking], [injured]
and pair with more specific per line
[angry], [loud]

 

[Tigranes]

It is a win if we decide that we just want every game to have completely generic, forgettable VA that just ticks the box, so let's do it in the cheapest way possible. I'm sure some people feel that way. I don't see what it adds for what I consider good games.

that ship already sailed. Only indie games can afford not having voice acting. As I said actors know shit in most cases so you get mediocre performance anyway.

It already happened, so it's good news if we make it worse? What?

When shit happens, it's not some irreversible thing. Luckily we didn't say, "sadly, turn-based combat is dead, people want EXPLOSIONS, the ship has sailed, let's just double down on explosions for everyone."

The point is that like most "AI" shit, this doesn't really improve what really matters in a game or movie or whatever - it just makes it easier to create a lot of crummy filler. It's like automating trash mobs (which, yes, has already been done) instead of making hand-crafted encounters better. I see nothing to cheer about that.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'd like to get this in a Codex UI so the Codex gets read to me in voices appropriate for the section. Like GD should be full of alcoholic lunatics, while Gen RPG maybe Jeanette from Bloodlines.

 

[Drowed]

It is a win if we decide that we just want every game to have completely generic, forgettable VA that just ticks the box, so let's do it in the cheapest way possible. I'm sure some people feel that way. I don't see what it adds for what I consider good games.

Well, yeah, to be fair, I honestly believe that in a few years, the VO of these AIs will be better than the VO of several current studios. I won't say that the performance of an AI will surpass that of a great dubber (at least not in a relatively near future), but hey, most studios don't hire great dubbers. I believe that, without a doubt, these things will easily reach the level of an average dubber and, in this context, it will offer better options than what we see in certain games nowadays. It's better to see a average dubbing than a horrible dubbing. It's also better to see a average dubbing of 80 different voices/NPCs than a average dubbing of 5 actors doing 80 NPCs.

For really good games? Yeah, I agree that it will make no difference - either because the designers/publisher invested in good actors for VO, or because the VO wasn't necessary in the first place. But I can easily see a situation where it will raise the level of several games which before would be 'bad' to something 'tolerable'. It's positive in a general way, even if irrelevant for specific audiences like the Codex.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Voice acting is unnecessary

 

[Xamenos]

This is an impressive piece of tech, but it seems kind of a waste to use it on games. Imagine, say, feeding it data on a politician's voice and "leaking" a phone call where he admits to whatever. Really, the sky's the limit once it gets good enough.

 

[HeyCheckOutHowHardICanPee]

dude just slapped an electron UI on an already existing base project, tinkered it a teeny bit and is at this very moment siphoning 214 eurobucks a month out of it from patreon so your GPU can overheat and kill itself trying to make something sound like microsoft sam

bravo 10/10
behold actual true art:

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Most western VA actors are so bad that AI will easy do a job as good as them.

 

[DeepOcean]

Voice acting is unnecessary

To me is unnecessary but as each day pass, there are less and less people making games for me, there are something like only 10000 active accounts on RPGcodex, not enough for a long shot to pay for even an indie game and while no voice acting is a popular take here, if you go to steam forums, it is "No voice acting? No buy." every minute.

So, even if a developer make a game for us, "spoiler alert: nobody gives a damn to us RPG grognards.", he will still need those "No voice acting, no buy." people to even pay for the basic budget of the game. Also, this idea that this will ruin voice acting is an unrealistic idea, Nolan North and Laura Bailey wont voice act mister generic NPC, they are hired for main characters and complex scenes that require a better actor, nobody pays their salaries for doing mister nobody, that is team B job, so yeah, most dialog even on AAA rpgs arent no better than some of the voices on the video.

Also, this is focused for mod voice acting, actually, text to speech is an improvement over regular mod voice acting.