speech?

[cassius]

Hi

Whats the best way to get speech into a game? Should I buy a microphone or is there a software soliution?

[David Will]

Professionally speaking, I usually hire out a sound studio for a few days and have actors in to play out the scripts. Sometimes I do have to resort to some last minute recording at home, but I don't recommend it unless you can post-process the audio correctly.

 

Hi

Whats the best way to get speech into a game? Should I buy a microphone or is there a software soliution?

[cassius]

Has anyone used a speech synth software to bring speech to a game. If so can you reccomend one.

Recording studios are outside my means by some distance.

[Canardia]

Look at my Guess A Number game in the Werkspace Games downloads, it has quite realistic synthetic speech

It uses AT&T Natural Speech engine, but it's not built-in, because it would require a commercial license, so I only baked them with NCH WavePad, which should be legal.

[cassius]

If I purchase a microphone is there a way to save result as a wav?

[Road Kill Kenny]

Obviously the best why is to hire out a sounds studio. However, if this is not possible or too expensive then your next bet is to buy a some recording equipment and get something like pro-tools for home use.

 

Sound is tricky I think because, unlike graphics and art where one person at home with Blender can make someting amazing, it becomes a bit more technology and environment dependant which can be expensive.

[Richard Simpson]

I think windows built in sound recorder saves as WAV. You can also download Audacity and use that as a speech recorder, this also saves to WAV.

[cassius]

Thanks for replies. I have downloaded a speech synth prog called speakonia which is free and I already have audacity.

The speech in my game will be restricted to single sentenxes to give the player clues. Things like "I think theres a key for that door"

[Richard Simpson]

Ah I totally forgot about speakonia! That's a fun program. xD

[cassius]

I just purchased a cheap microphone which works fine with audacity. Now I can do medieval voives without an American accent wich is what you get with those text to speech programs.

[Richard Simpson]

Ah cool!

[megigames]

vocaloid anyone XD

[paramecij]

Have you finished this one, or are you still searching/recording? .. it dawned on me that I got access to a sound studio and can use it for free, while I know nothing about sound production, I have a friend who is a real boy wonder in this field, he can do recording. mastering, post-production and is also very good at composing all kinds of music, can sing and is a good speaker.. but best of all, he's a nice person (like me ) and can be swayed for the 'cause' with some nice words and a couple of Heinekens. If you don't need many different voices (as finding other willing (free) actors who speak English well enough might be a problem) or if you need some tweaking and clean-up on your own recordings, or some custom BG music and loops we can work something out. This offer stands to anyone interested.

[Richard Simpson]

Have you finished this one, or are you still searching/recording? .. it dawned on me that I got access to a sound studio and can use it for free, while I know nothing about sound production, I have a friend who is a real boy wonder in this field, he can do recording. mastering, post-production and is also very good at composing all kinds of music, can sing and is a good speaker.. but best of all, he's a nice person (like me ) and can be swayed for the 'cause' with some nice words and a couple of Heinekens. If you don't need many different voices (as finding other willing (free) actors who speak English well enough might be a problem) or if you need some tweaking and clean-up on your own recordings, or some custom BG music and loops we can work something out. This offer stands to anyone interested.

 

Really cool! I wont be needing sound for a while , otherwise I would have used your friend!

[cassius]

I just playrd a game called morrowind which seems to be set in the seventeenth centuary in which the word "ok" is spoken.

I thoight that word only dated back to the american civil war.

I also watched a british tv drama about Robin Hood in which the sherrif of nottingham points to his wrist and says to his men "Hurry lads tmie is ticking by...tick tick tick.."

This was about 500 years befoee wrist watches were invented.

If we are gonna have speech lets at least try to make it historicaly accurate.

[Canardia]

Wrist watches don't especially say tick tick tick, unless you put your ear right next to it.

The first tick tick tick clocks were made already in the 13th century, so it is absolutely historically correct to say in the 17th century tick tick tick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock#Early_mechanical_clocks

The word OK was also invented in the 17th century, so it is also historially correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay#Earliest_documented_examples

You should really Wiki all your info, because without doing that, you're hopelessly on ignorative grounds. Even if the Wiki is not 100% updated, it's still the best you can get.

[Richard Simpson]

Wrist watches don't especially say tick tick tick, unless you put your ear right next to it.

The first tick tick tick clocks were made already in the 13th century, so it is absolutely historically correct to say in the 17th century tick tick tick:

 

I think Cassius means that wrist watches weren't around back then, not the noise it made.

[Canardia]

Maybe he was a visionary. Like Leonardo da Vinci, or Dr. Michio Kaku. In future we will have sunglasses with integrated computers and screens. It doesn't exist yet, but it's quite sure that it will, because we want it.