AI Voice Actors come to Unreal Engine

Replica Studios, an artificial intelligence (AI) voice technology company, has opened a beta waitlist for its synthetic voice plugin, AI Voice Actors for Unreal Engine. Replica will offer its AI voice software for game developers to create more expressive in-game characters at scale, by producing synthesised speech from scripts, with style filters that control the mood or emotion of the voice. The software also has advanced controls to fine-tune performance characteristics like pacing and intonation. 
  
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 dialogue 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 save smaller studios months of work, and make quality in-game voice more accessible, leveling the playing field for creatives. 
  
Shreyas Nivas, co-founder and CEO of Replica Studios, says: “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 Disney’s The Mandalorian, as well as in automotive, architecture, education, and training content. 
  
Replica Studios says 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 synthesised 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 
    

To learn more and sign up for the beta waitlist, visit www.replicastudios.com/unreal.