You would be surprised how much sound affects the perception of a multimedia. You can have quite minimalistic graphics, but with good sound effects, music and voice acting it is hardy noticable. On the other hand, poor sound fx and voice dubbing can ruin the atmosfere of a movie or game.
We will cover the theme of sound processing in later articles, today we will focus on speech synthesis sofware.
Ok. So you need to have voices in your game.
There are several solutions for this problem:
A. Pay real actors (recommended)
B. Outsource recording studio (usually plus A)
C. Use voice synthesis, for a placeholder in game prototype
Ah, and there is some nebulous option to record voiceovers yourself... (not recommended)
There was certain technology leap in voice synthesis in the last 10 years. You can have completely synthesized voice, or sampled voice solution.
SOFTWARE TIPS:
Ivona Text to Speech Probably the best sound in speech synthesis, M/F English, German, Spanish and Polish voices. Professional, however the most expensive solution. The online recording or the software license could cost you approx. $1k for a project (or $10 - $20 for couple of sentences) ...
Cepstral There are very good sampled voices in their list, somewhat more computer sounding but usable as placeholders or special characters voices. Price is from $7-30 per voice, demo is free.
Voiceforge.com is a Cepstral Project, with better presentation of the same technology.
AT&T Labs Natural Voices® Classic synthesized voices. Many "Voice Synthesis Companies" are just reselling their voices, with a hefty bonus. Distribution is doing Wizzardsoftware , we are supposing the price $300 - $1,500 , depending on number of Sound Fonts used.
There are many TTS (Text to Speech) Readers, but most are based on (or support) AT&T and Cepstral Voices (Texttospeech , Oddcast , Coolspeech etc.) There are also SDKs available for using TTS Readers directly in your software (for a indie developer, the main issue is license cost).
WARNING Online demos are usually legally restricted, and you will need to buy a license to use the voice (or recording) in your game or movie...
When on doubt, write the developer and let them specify their license offers. Keep the communication and contracts for (possible) later trial...
TO BE UPDATED.
