Voice alteration for animated characters

Darramouss · Post by **Darramouss** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:15 pm

Hey there people.

I know that this is not strictly to do with AS Pro but it is to do with animating.

I have a Mac and a PC, (therefore will not enter into a 'which one is better' discussion as they both have their place), but I'm looking for voice alteration software for my characters for the Mac. I have some on my PC but can't find anything good on Mac. On my PC I have MorphVox Pro as I don't really like AV Voice Changer.

Anyone out there know of any good software? It has to be able to really alter a voice's pitch and timbre, not just make it sound like a robot.

Thanks guys!!

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:51 pm

have you tried audacity?

www.audacity.sourceforge.net
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features

There are some filters that allow make louder or higer voice without change the voice speed.

it is opensource and there are versions for all platforms

-G

Darramouss · Post by **Darramouss** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:27 pm

Hey there.

I have Audacity and whilst it's a great sound editing package it doesn't really encompass the finer nuances of voice alteration.

I suspect I'm going to have to keep on trucking with working on two platforms.

Ronbo · Post by **Ronbo** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:12 pm

Have you checked out Melodyne yet? You can adjust formants and pitch without the "Micky Mouse effect." It comes in several flavors and you can download a demo.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:17 pm

Wooohooo!

I'm going to try that Melodyne demo. Finally something on the Mac for this type of thing.

I've used some of those PC voice changing programs but... the quality is crap... at least for me it was. It might work for games or over the phone but for final animations the quality just isn't good enough for me.

Should I move this to the "other software" category? Or is this important enough to leave where it is?

-vern

InfoCentral · Post by **InfoCentral** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 3:01 am

I'm running on a PC and I've been interested in voice synthesis software for years. I went to Guitar Center and the hardware they had when I was looking was no more when I went back to purchase. Software would be so much cheaper if there is anything decent out there.

sarahg · Post by **sarahg** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 10:33 am

It does look good!

Maybe put this in the resources thread?

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:00 pm

I am always on the lookout for this kind of stuff, vocoders and such are typical tools for vocal transformations.Samplers with morphing are good but expensive (normally) look for free vst you might get lucky, I like the angular momentum site for good donationware audio tools.
http://www.amvst.com/

You might want to look at this one, there are some examples to listen to. I definitely want this one if I ever get enough kitty.

http://www.native-instruments.com/index ... m8xmultifx

InfoCentral · Post by **InfoCentral** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:43 pm

I looked at those links and I didn't see anything about vocal synthesis.

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:37 am

probably cos the topic is voice alteration not synthesis, no audio software or hardware is completely automatic, they will always require a creative input from the operator ,unlike anime which has the famous " create animation" button.
On the Kore page, check out the 'deep transformations' mp3 player on the right, there's an effect plugin that modulates the original sample voice (or what ever sound is input)
Chameleon might be a good option, here one link about it, I know it looks like a synthesiser but its what it can do with sample envelopes that makes it good for vocal transformations.
http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_camel_a ... on_macwin/
or
http://www.camelaudio.com/cameleon5000.php

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:36 am

I played with the Melodyne demo a little bit. It has a steep learning curve I think.

The cool thing is its ability to turn "sound" into "midi". The sound files are converted to midi notes so they can be changed with out any noticeable distortion.

This could be GREAT for changing dialog. You could change the whole emotion or inflection of dialog by changing the pitch. With enough effort you could change it totally to a different "character" but it is not automatic. You could create and save modifications I suppose.

I had this idea to use a monotone robotic synthesized voice on the mac reading my dialog, and then using the "notes" and timing derived from my own voice reading the dialog to apply the "emotion".

I haven't figured it out yet with the demo. Some of the example videos show this being done... I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet.

-vern

NetGenSuperstar · Post by **NetGenSuperstar** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:04 am

heyvern wrote:I had this idea to use a monotone robotic synthesized voice on the mac reading my dialog, and then using the "notes" and timing derived from my own voice reading the dialog to apply the "emotion".

That's almost exactly how they did the voice of GLaDOS in the game Portal. It worked really well there.

I'll have to look into that program sometime. I did install the demo, but I haven't actually used it yet.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 11:49 am

Ha!

They used that "GLaDOS" thing as a video demo. I had no idea what it was but could tell what they were doing with it. I couldn't figure out how they were applying the "notes" though. It could be the demo is an older version. I think they just updated.

-vern

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:03 pm

For voice synthesis here's one - Dspeech.

Its free and portable and has quite natural voices (compares to what we are used to)

DSpeech is a text-to-speech program with the option of saving the output as a WAV or MP3 file, It also supports dynamically changing the features of the voices eg. insert pauses, emphasize specific words, spell them out etc. using tags.

http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/index.html

I haven't tried it yet so I can't give a real review.

but I have heard some samples an they seem pretty good

Ronbo · Post by **Ronbo** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:05 am

heyvern wrote:I played with the Melodyne demo a little bit. It has a steep learning curve I think.

I agree, Vern. As this was designed primarily for use with musical instruments and singers, it is a very powerful program. But it works nicely for animation purposes also.

As I mentioned previously, Melodyne is available in several versions. My favorite is the plug-in, which is the simplest to use. Since it is not a standalone format, however, you need to use it in conjunction with an audio program. I would suggest trying the plug-in version with GarageBand.

Ron