malixegames
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Robotic voices for everyone! 🗣🤖
🕑 Added 2024-10-14 19:33:19 +0000 UTCHi guys,
I'm very happy because, thanks to your help, I've managed to purchase a text-to-speech system with public-domain voices, and uncensored, perfect for use in the game.
Nicole is the one who will show you the result in the video, but I wanted to quickly explain the technical details, as usual.
My cutscene sequencer is organized by “Lines”, I call them that way because they can count both dialogue and actions, like the lines in a movie script.
Previously, what determined the time of a Line was the size of the text. I soon realized that it was best to let the audio take care of the timing, so I programmed an editor.
The “Actions” are sequenced based on the audio graphic. Each action can trigger anything in the game, such as animations or facial expressions. The result is a much more organized sequencer than in the past, with ginormous timelines, and with less room for bugs.
If you imagine a graph with a line from point 0-0 to 1-1, with the voice timing horizontally and the text processing the lip movements vertically, I just neet to add curves and indentations to the line to synchronize the lips with the voice.
The hard part will be programming an editor that allows me to manipulate this line. For now, I've limited myself to using “#” to indicate the spacing in the text, and it's kind of worked, you notice some synchronization problems, but it looks better than some animated TV shows. Still, the system is ready to receive the editor when I get around to it.
And that's it. I hope this is the “cat's leap” to speed up the process of creating cutscenes. I then intend to work on playable content. I hope to be able to deliver something by the end of the month.
Thank you very much for your support and for allowing this project to continue. I wish you all the best!
See you soon!
Comments
MaliXe
Hello, Archy. Yes, what you see in the game is just the tip of the iceberg, most of the work doesn't appear. So I like to share these technical details, even at the risk of sounding pedantic, it's a way of showing you that the work is being done. I don't know anything about dubbing techniques, so I trust that it works as it does on my system. 😂 Answering the questions: Each Line has two text formats, one that does the lip-syncs, and the other is the localized text, which can be translated. The localized format allows it to be exported to a spreadsheet that can be edited in Excel and re-imported into the game. It is then possible to add various languages to the subtitle text, but the system so far does not allow you to change the audio language. Thank you for your help and your always valuable feedback, and also for your patience, which I'm working hard to stop stretching.All the best to you!
Archy_TaxiWhy
Hello, it's a me again ^^ Well then, I'm not going to re-post what I've already put on Discord because it's not productive. It's really cool of you to show us the other side of the story and to see how hard you worked to get to the “Final” result. If I understand correctly, it's like a rhythm track in the world of dubbing ? It's a really nice idea. So if I understand correctly, each action in the game will allow you to create a reaction/animation on the part of the character to it. If that's the case, I can't even imagine how much time you'll save by setting up multiple paths in the game via this addition. I think your lip-synchronizer works quite well. In the video, we can see that there are still some minor synchronization issues, but the result is much more advanced than in certain animation series. I wish you all the best with your tests and the creation of this editor, which I have no doubt will be of great use. ========This leads me to ask the following questions:======= 1 - Are your texts independent of this system, allowing you to modify them and export them independently in a file format ? 2 - Will this system make it easy to set up multiple languages, or will it complicate the task of future translations when the time comes ? ==================================================== In any case thank you for this article and bravo for your efforts which are just colossal !!!!! Once again it's just impressive the quality you offer us! And no pressure on dates, take your time, take care of yourself and have a little fun. :D Best regard
