As it turns out, developer Embark Studios is using AI for essentially all the voicework in The Finals.
This tech is going to be sooo good for the indie scene. Every single game and every character is going to have quality voice work from now on
'The Finals' Is Using AI Voicework And It Is Bad
Submitted 8 months ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2023/10/29/the-finals-is-using-ai-voicework-and-it-is-bad/
Comments
Grimy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 7 months ago
We need to finally have RPGs where they refer to you by name
idunnololz@lemmy.world 7 months ago
thrillho
UpsKaputt@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Played a couple of matches already and I haven’t noticed. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. The announcers need to relay information about events in the game, but you’re focused on other stuff happening and don’t really have time to think about their voices.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah I’d just turn it off tbh if I could, its only really good for keeping tabs on other trios.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Isn’t that what it’s there for?
pycorax@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yea the gameplay is fun but I’m frankly not a fan of the whole sports theme. The announcers are pretty obnoxious to me.
thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz 8 months ago
I opened the article planning to dislike it, and I do dislike the man’s voice (the woman’s voice sounds quite good though), but then I thought about it. Sports announcers actually seem like a decent use for AI. I would imagine that it would be incredibly difficult to build decent announcers from pre-recorded voice lines… It’s heavily context-dependent, and this way it can even read out the team names, which I imagine are chosen by the teams. I think this could possibly work well. I don’t see how to create a system like this without AI
ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
It’s not a generative model running on your graphics card coming up with novel speech to match the gamestate; it would never be fast enough (and you’re also using that card to, you know, run the graphics). They’re using machine learning to generate speech for their pre-written lines so that they can avoid both hiring voice actors, and the old way of having whoever isn’t too busy in your office record the lines.
subignition@kbin.social 8 months ago
Depending on how many variables/contexts there are in the lines, that could still be a combinatorial nightmare to record.
nuzzlerat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yeah I’m not a fan of using AI voice actors but this doesn’t seem like a terrible use. It’s pretty useful for reactions to dynamic events.
Btw the male voice sounds fine to me. It’s the female voice that sounds obviously fake imo
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
The biggest issue to me seems to be the model struggling to put emphasis in the right places, but if that’s something you can manually tune…
Aside from that, it sounds fine. I would hate to be a VA right now. Maybe it won’t kill the field, but it will reduce a lot of job opportunities.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I think it’ll change VA’s so that their likeness or specific voices they do can be licensed out or paid royalties to.
Wanna make a Machinima with the voice of a videogame character? Sure, build it in Eleven labs based on voice lines you got from the game, but the moment you make money on it a percentage goes to “X” actor or maybe they’d just prefer a one time fee per person to use the voice, idk.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Played it for like six hours last night and I didnt even realize the announcers were AI generated. It can’t be that bad if it’s passable to those who aren’t informed.
Moneo@lemmy.world 7 months ago
six hours last night Bruh those are rookie numbers. Gotta pump those up.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Tried again today, apparently my wins reclassified me and i got my ass kicked today.
sir_reginald@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I like to support voice actors, but the headline is exaggeration. The voice is not bad, not as good as a VA, but it’s decent.
Generative AI is getting better and better, Voice Actors should definitely start unionizing like writers and force studios to sign against using AIs to replace them.
tdawg@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I honestly can’t understand the people defending how it sounds. It sounds terrible. I’d honestly rather they not included the announcers at all and just saved the money. I’ve already disabled all dialogue in the game
ALERT@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
The article title is misleading. “Quite nice” is misspelled as “Bad”.
kemsat@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No it’s not. I’ve played. The voice work was fine. Definitely would prefer if they hired VAs, but it’s not bad in-game.
aluminium@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Honestly I think that is great. It allows them to easily add stuff down the road. If they add a new gamemode for example that needs new voicelines - easy! Otherwise getting all the VAs in makes things way harder.
That being said, for a singleplayer game that doesn’t evolve all the time I would be a lot more critical.
Graphy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Honestly expected them to be worse.
Thranduil@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Ai voice could work for rpgs where they never say your custom name
Siegfried@lemmy.world 7 months ago
And for defending the city and its people, i name you Thane XxXPussy_DestroyerXxX of Whiterun
bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Not just saying your name, imagine having real conversations with characters, or better yet, having the characters come up with their own quest lines for you. Previously meaningless side npcs could in theory end up as a key character in an evolving story. Obviously thats probably a few years off, but it’d be amazing for variety and replayability.
big_slap@lemmy.world 7 months ago
i played a lot on saturday and didn’t notice at all.
AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That wasn’t bad at all, it was decent. I get not getting behind AI to support the VAs but calling that bad is a reach.
alphapuggle@programming.dev 7 months ago
I honestly don’t get it either, I thought it was all voice acted and was surprised at the customized lines for each team. Didn’t even consider that it could be AI