I was thinking i could do a female voice using voice changer software but it's stupid and it sounds so bad. So it's come to the point that i'm just gonna do it by subtitles when women speak. Yeah it's kinda dumb but there's no other way. I'm willing to bet many of you guys are outgoing types and can meet women and have female friends so it may be easy to ask them to voice act for you. But some of us, we're just plain shy's with no social life. Anyways, how do you guys deal with having female Poser figures in your movies. Do you not have them at all or do you not make dialog for them or do you do the subtitle thing like my idea? I guess i 'll still use mimic to make the mouth move but i won't put my ugly dumb voice on a female character. that's for sure

I have friends that have done female dialog for me. But for serious work, in this day and age voice acting is easy to obtain. Thousands of voice actors have a home setup to record themselves and you don't have to worry about geogrphy, you do everything over the net.

Google 'voice acting' or voice over acting.

Yes, it is a profession and you have to pay, but you get professional results.

Option2: take it or leave it: Use this requirement to help break your shyness over talking to women.

::::: Opera :::::

I am quite serious here... do you have any non judgemental female relatives or such that would voice maybe even over the phone? Also, I have found very good free computer software that read text files in very pleasent male and female voices and one (I can't rember which) has an upgrade to very natural sounding male and female voices for about $10 or $20 I think. I don't think you can subtitle only the fem parts... you should do all of them that way or none of them that way. Also, if you are able to force yourself, contact the community college theatre department... people will do any old thing to get an other item on their resume. Maybe you should take an evening theatre class or try out for a community play and then you might meet some nice people... I have done that... if you can't perform you can do tech stuff like scene painting for them or just general helper work. Are you rich? I wonder if a phone sex lady would read your text for you? I would sample random arabic or chinese audio and then subtitle it :)

bop, post a notice in the jobs forum, saying you'll pay 'em to record lines of dialog. getting yer friends to do the voices doesn't work too good, as the voices are usually flat, squeaky, blunt affect, etc. ad nauseum. ya need somebody who can do it right.

There may be a money-making opportunity here for a woman with
a decent voice and good reading ability; flexibility and dialects would
be even better.   

I often wish I could insert a good female voice in my blog animations;
if it were available with a fairly fast response (like next-day turnaround) 
I'd gladly pay for the service.  Pay what?  Certainly $15 per minute of
solid speech. 

they also need to watch the animation whilst reading the lines. (in case anybody asks).

"they also need to watch the animation whilst reading the lines.
(in case anybody asks)."

Depending on your workflow, that is. I have on several occasions for practice animated to an audio, such as a snippet from a movie.

So, while Nancy's advice is true if they are speaking to sync into a finished animation, then yes. If you will animating to an audio soundtrack (radio play is another word for it) then the reader/actor(s) do not need to see anything of an animation.

::::: Opera :::::

there's a whole subculture of 'virtual synths' and effects out there. There's magazines devoted to it, with freebie CDs., etc. I know there are voice processors that will turn a man's voice into a woman's, but they cost (at least a few years ago) several hundred dollars.

Wouldn't hurt to find someone, and avoid the middle(wo)man..;) as long as the dialog's not too offensive (a very subjective distinction), there should be someone who could do it.

Typically voice overs are recorded then provided to the animators to animate & properly sync up the mouths to the dialogue.  Only time it's the other way around is when re-recording a differnt language dub.  Been doing 2D long enough and know enough folks in 3D to know the process hasn't changed much since sound first came into animation way back when!!

Gerard

Attached Link: http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.shtml

...or you could ask your wife to do it, or you could use the IBM demo, which isn't too (well, not totally) shabby. link is up top.

As a female, I don't have that problem but, I do have it when I try to do a man's voice lol. Use an audio editor, you can change the pitch to a higher tone to make it sound female. I've done this with my own voice, make it sound deep enough to be a man's.

Oh and don't pay for voice overs, that's nuts in my opinion. I'm sure if you ask someone to help you for free, they would.

I think Garage Band (Mac only) has a voice modification feature.

operaguy. yeah it does. it's decnet but it makes a warble robotic sound over it and it makes it sound really bad. i may end up using that but it doesn't work very well.

tebop are you considering an encounter with a person of the female persuasion?

Attached Link: Voice123

Voice123** is home to the biggest and most technologically advanced group of talents and voice producers ever to exist.

I still say you should take a community college theatre class... it will be fun! If you can't afford the time /money there should still be some volunteer theatre group around. Maybe you could join a Read to the Blind or Ederlie group and meet some girls there. I am thinking you should get out of the house if you can. I am being quite serious. Do not pay for this! There must be people willing to do it for fun. If you have to pay maybe one of the life drawing models at the nearest art school would do it... they are far cheaper than voice actors.

There's your trade off, the more time and effort involved to get it done right cheaper or paying more for people that are willing and know how to do it already. 

It depends which you have more of, time and patience with teaching or money and a desire to make it easier.

All pitch shifters are not created equal. What you want is a type called a formant corrected pitch shifter. The cheap "voice changer" programs you find here and there are not formant corrected.

Waves UltraPitch:
http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=288

This one is for Mac:
http://www.soundtoys.com/products/PurePitch/

Here's one as a hardware device that's supposedly pretty good:
http://www.bossus.com/index.asp?pg=1&tmp=59

I hate subtitles will not watch a video with them.

Would never suggest using them.

Shy ? get a job being a server in a restaurant, you will get over ya shyness

once you realize all humans are human .

RorrKonn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

Actually, tebop, if you have a community college, chatting up the -professors- in liberal arts could get you the voice talent you seek. Teachers who are creative are always looking for ways to challenge their students, and there are few things that force home the point on vocal talent better than doing voice acting, where there is no output but voice. If you have a completed script, you might be able to set something up with a class, and let the teacher handle much of the class interactions. If they have a sound program, you might even be able to get -that- class to do the recording. You would want to have releases for the actors to sign, and offer them copies of their work for their own demo reels and credits (once I manage to save for that optitrack mocap system, the colleges and dance studios are going to be seeing me; not many liberal arts majors can say they did motion capture of any kind as a class activity. It could only help them after the graduate, and it would help me out enormously. The same could be said for voice acting for animation).

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

Try the French and German voices... they give a crazy gibberish!

This is a site with a community of amateur voice actors who might be willing to help you out. They have a forum area specifically for requests for help:

http://www.darkerprojectsproductions.com/forum/index.php

Another alternative is to just ask friends and family to help out--I've actually been surprised at what a good job some of them have done.

--Tim

i don't have friends so that one won't work. Family members are not good at acting. i used them for my PART I of my poser movie and they sounded like they weere reading( reading badly). well but they all moved away now, so i can't use them anymore. You all say you don' like subtitles....so what do you vote on? My fake woman voice OR the warble filled Garageband voice? I also found a new one yesterday. called Voice Tweaker , it's a VST and AU plug in , can be used for mac SOUNDTRACK program which i have(comes with Final cut express). That plug in , It's pretty good but the bad thing is...it keeps switching between the generated female voice and my voice. even though i have it on FULL WET!! . man if that was not like that, it would be great.

i gotta say Voice Tweaker is pretty good. i'm kinda playing with it and i can almost achieve wht i want but my original voice is still there on top of the other voice.

If you really want to be a 3D Artist,Producer,Director.

Then you half to bite the bullet, get over being shy and talk to people.

There people just like you that have all the exact same fears,insecurities,etc etc. as you.

Even a drop dead gorgeous perfect 10 center fold model has fears,insecurities,etc etc.

Just be ya self your fine the way you are tell them what ya doing ask them if they would like to be a part of ya production

Starting out.99 out of a 100 will say no but 1 will say yes.

the first 1 is the hardest 1 to get after ya get 1 before ya know it ya have 10+ and more help then ya need.

RorrKonn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

**tebop,

**If it's a small movie, don't be conned into paying someone for a voice over.

'Audacity' is free and is an awesome pitch changer it will make your voice sound
anyway you want.  I use the program.

It's not hard to learn either. I highly recommend it for voice work.
**
I have to add: I don't know if it has a Mac version or if it's just for PC's.

**

I am solid that you shouldn't spend money unless it is money well below the "discretionary spending unit" and you wouldn't mid tossing it away.

I have no problem with sub-titles... I would use the the AT&T link above to make giberish talk noises for the sound track and then sub-title it. Do the whole sound track in gibersih to make it consistant. I watch subtitled anime films on those tiny YouTube screens - Death Note.

Aren't there any women here who will call this guy from a blocked number and do his voice over? Just ask him for the text and e-mail him a .wav file?

Attached Link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity has a Windows, Mac (MacOS 9.2 and OSX), and Linux version (it began as a Linux version).

Site linky up top.