Replica Studios, an artificial intelligence (AI) voice technology company, opened the beta waitlist today for its synthetic voice plugin, AI Voice Actors for Unreal Engine. Replica will offer its advanced AI voice software for game developers to create more expressive in-game characters at scale by producing synthesized speech from scripts, with easy to use style filters that control the mood or emotion of the voice, and more advanced controls to fine tune performance characteristics like pacing and intonation. Developers who join the beta waitlist will gain access to a growing library of more than 30 voices for use in prototyping, pre-production or final products when it becomes available in Q1 2021.
More than 7.5 million game developers use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, making it one of the most widely used engines worldwide. However, many developers continue to suffer from the limitations of voice dialog in games due to the costs of managing talent and inefficiencies in recording, editing and re-recording dialog. Quick iteration and scalability of tools like Replica’s synthetic voice plugin will be game changers for the industry, saving studios large and small from months of work, and making quality in-game voice more accessible, leveling the playing field for creatives.
Shreyas Nivas, Co-Founder and CEO of Replica Studios, said: “AI Voice Actors for Unreal Engine will come at just the right time for teams that are planning their development roadmap and milestones going into 2021. As we look ahead to the future of gaming, it’s trending towards being more social and personalized. There’s this exciting shared long-term vision about building the ‘Metaverse’ with photorealistic virtual worlds and virtual characters. You can’t build the Metaverse without millions of high-quality voices, and our tools are going to make voice production significantly easier for developers.”
Although its roots are in game development, the Unreal Engine is also making strides in other verticals like entertainment within the film The Mandalorian as well as in automotive, architecture, education and training content, which can all be better served by AI voice software.
AI Voice Actors for Unreal Engine will feature:
- Voice Library: audition from 30+ AI voices that range from expressive game characters to narrators and storytellers with a diverse range of accents and speaking styles
- Custom Voices: build unique character voices and styles
- Text to Synthesized Speech: enter a script and receive the synthesized speech as a complete audio file [within seconds]
- Voice Direction: leverage fine-tuned controls to apply moods, emphasis, pitch, sound effects and other characteristics where needed
- Local File Storage: capture multiple takes and access a history of saved dialog lines for future adjustments and iterations
Nivas said: “The human voice is our oldest and most powerful storytelling tool. Today, the digitization of images and 3D content has revolutionized visual creation so you can create immersive virtual worlds within minutes. However, we’re still in the stone age when it comes to how dialogue and voice overs are produced. AI Voice Actors for Unreal Engine aims to bring dialog and voice over production to the next level.”
