Embark Studios' The Finals uses text-to-speech AI for in-game voices : gaming

[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 40 points 8 months ago

unsurprisingly, these lines sound like total shit.

[-] Pistcow@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago

ow, my robit balls

[-] VulcanDeathGrip@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago

Really? I find them totally fine. Pretty impressive really when you take scope and responsiveness into account.

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 8 months ago

Nope. Wont be playing now.

[-] vinceman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 8 months ago

Was gonna play this, now I will not be. Pay fucking humans

[-] Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social 15 points 8 months ago

The main announcer sounds like he is just phoning this in for the paycheck and stumbles over stuff like he can't believe he has to read this. Wow. AI is so authentic these days.
More seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if more games with announcers started replacing them with AI. In a lot of those games, it's easy to tune it out and not really pay attention to it. I'm not sure if someone casually playing would even realize it's AI. I'm curious how long it will take until a publisher tries to put AI voice-acting in a game where players would actually notice the dialogue sounding unnatural.

[-] Sternhammer@aussie.zone 2 points 8 months ago

I think players are desensitised to unnatural dialogue. For example, to my Western ear lots of Asian games seem to have weird dialogue, no doubt due to poor translation. (Kojima is known to insist his dialogue be translated strictly and literally from the Japanese which explains, partially, why his games feel pretty strange. Plus Kojima is bonkers.)

[-] lemann@lemmy.one 11 points 8 months ago

Seems pretty neat I guess, but not for me... personally prefer to support actual voice actors making a living, putting passion into their work - not some random C suite or shareholder using AI to cut costs

[-] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 10 points 8 months ago

The female voice didn't sound so bad next to the train wreck of the main announcer.

[-] SirSauceLordtheThird@beehaw.org 9 points 8 months ago

the voices all sound so soulless, what were the devs thinking?

[+] OfficialThunderbolt@beehaw.org 7 points 8 months ago

[deleted]

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There is a difference between synthesized voices and AI-generated ones. Those old ones were synthesized.

[-] donio@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago

The speech in Impossible Mission was sampled from a human actor not synthesized.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hmm, they aren't clear whether it's fully voice-acted or whether he provided phonetic sounds for them to synthesize according to the text, but in either case, it's not AI whatsoever.

Important to note that ESS Technologies (the company cited there) was literally a company who made synthesized speech for video games.

Electronic Speech Systems produced synthetic speech for, among other things, home computer systems like the Commodore 64. Within the hardware limitations of that time, ESS used Mozer's technology, in software, to produce realistic-sounding voices that often became the boilerplate for the respective games.

[-] shiveyarbles@beehaw.org 4 points 8 months ago

Stay awhile... Stay forever!!!!!!

[-] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 7 points 8 months ago

I think tech like this makes way more sense for like random ass NPCs. Like the ones cluttering the background of a city or whatever. AI could really enhance them and make them interesting.

[-] Sharpiemarker@feddit.de 6 points 8 months ago

This is the kind of shit I think of when people tell me AI is taking people's jobs.

[-] SmoochyPit@beehaw.org 4 points 8 months ago

That’s a damn bummer. Game plays great, and with the microtransactions they’re gonna make bank. I’m curious where the decision came from to do this, rather than hiring voice talent.

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