About names...

They're funny things, aren't they?  It is interesting how many times the pronunciation has very little to do with the phonetic appearance of the name.

I swear you can take the name "Bob" and someone will insist that his name has a long "O" sound, and it's pronounced "Bobe" (rhymes with robe).

Of course with the United States of America being the melting pot it is, we have the confusion added by a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds.  Do you want to change the spelling of your name so it gets pronounced correctly?  Accept the mispronunciation?  Or fight it your whole life?

We knew a family who named their daughter "Angelica," which most people would pronounce the "G" to have a "J" sound, like in the word "angel."  Like "Anjelica."  But it was an "H" sound, so it was "An-helical."  Okay, just don't be surprised or upset when people pronounce it the way 99.9% of the other Angelicas pronounce their name.

To take it a step further, the mom also insisted you say it with a particular accent!  Say what???  I don't insist people put on a Norwegian accent when saying my name.  Should I imitate The Godfather when I say "Antonio"?  Can you picture that happening in a conference room during a business meeting, putting on a different accent each time you say someone's name?  That's just silly.  (Hmm... could make for a funny skit.)

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Just about pronunciation... another wish I have, which is not directly related to iClone SW, but still related to it in terms of final product.
I would like to see TTS system that emulates the accent when Italian, Indian, French, Mexican, etc. speak English.
I would also like to see such a SW where a professional user interface allows me to select part of the text and apply many different vocal variations: intonation, accents, speed, tonality changes, etc. all of what we usually do when we speak...not just the speed and pitch: this we can easily do with any decent audio editor.
Finally, I would like to see a TTS SW without the "pay-per-blah" business model, but just the same as all the other SW: I buy it and I use as much as I want!!

I see the proposal from RL for their TTS: it's a good attempt but far away from the level of quality reached by their animation SW suites...

Cheers

Roberto




My PC:
OS: Windows 10 Pro English 64-bit / CPU: Intel i7-9700 3.6GHz / MB: ASUS ROG Strix Z390  RAM: 32GB DDR4 2.6GHz / HD: 2TB+3TB  /  SSD: 2x512GB Samsung 860 EVO + 1x2TB Samsung
VB: Palit GTX2080 TI GamingPro 11GB / AB: embedded in the MB and VB (audio from the MOTU M4 I/F) / DirectX: 12

Roberto, I'm pretty sure that RL's TTS is white-label offering from a third-party vendor; it's not something you do yourself overnight and certainly not in a large number of languages, so it's not within RL's expertise.

The pay-per-word model is the only way you will get royalty-free TTS. That is the reality of the market place, unfortunately. The terms when you buy the TTS software are very restrictive as we all know from past discussions.

You can have a person speak English with a foreign accent. I have done it for French and German. You simply spell the words in a way so that it approaches the sounds of English. It's kind of fun to try.

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There is no problem with my name in Dutch, it's just that "phonetic appearance" is hardly a universal concept. So I for people I deal with on a daily basis I usually provide an approximation to the pronunciation of my name that's doable for them and doesn't hurt my ears.

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Hi Michiel,

yes, probably you are right: this TTS offer sounds more like a partnership with a 3rd party rather than a brand new development from RL.
Regarding the mixed accents, in the past I also tried what you suggested, but the result I got is a more robotic tone than the clean accents.
Another thing I noticed is that there is no inflection with "?", "!", etc.
In other words, IMO, these TTS SWs are ok for an audio preview, but far away from giving an audio result at the same level as the video result of iClone.

Roberto

My PC:
OS: Windows 10 Pro English 64-bit / CPU: Intel i7-9700 3.6GHz / MB: ASUS ROG Strix Z390  RAM: 32GB DDR4 2.6GHz / HD: 2TB+3TB  /  SSD: 2x512GB Samsung 860 EVO + 1x2TB Samsung
VB: Palit GTX2080 TI GamingPro 11GB / AB: embedded in the MB and VB (audio from the MOTU M4 I/F) / DirectX: 12

Thanks for the feedback regarding the Gizmo. This will be reviewed by the iClone team.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com