@dammu5 I am very sorry but I didn't understand what you were asking for help with.

Please try to ask again and I will try to understand you as best as I can :)

Wasn't overly impressed with Azure either actually. If you haven't looked at the Replica Demo I strongly recommend it as it is far better and far more usable than either AWS or Azure. It actually could voice a character through a range of emotions.

https://replicastudios.com/

It looks like Polly isn't that good. will look at the MS Azure demo now

@poisinivy, Thanks for the link to the MS Azure service I will have to check it out. I have also found one for AWS Polly that has a plug-in for UE4 that I may investigate too as I am using UE4 a lot at the moment.

I think the friend that helped me on my animation entry for the Xmas contest is likely to be wiling to help me in future and she sounds great... unlike me who did the rest of the voices!!! If she will help in future I really don't need to much more.

Anyway you can't beat a real voice but I am very impressed by how far they have come recently with AI text to speech so I will keep monitoring that and find an affordable option... although as you say for artists and hobbyists free is the most affordable :)

@poisinivy, I found a good AI text to voice service that is offering a trial that includes 30 minutes of free voicing and what I saw in their demo clip was very impressive. You can even create a replica voice by recording yourself (or someone else) reading some of their scripts so they can create an AI voice out of it.

https://replicastudios.com/

here is what their free account gives you 30 minutes of generated speech Access to all default voices Creation of 1 Replica Voice Unlimited projects

Their pricing is not too bad. $20pm for 4 hours of speech generation.... or $24 to buy an ad hoc 4 hour block. I was going to be up for around $15 to hire someone on Fiverr and I don't expect I would have got anywhere near 4 hours of speech out of them so this doesn't sound too bad. At any rate if the project is serious $20 or so is reasonable to get some voice acting that was more impressive than I expected it to be.

I have never seen an AI text to voice engine that I liked as it is so hard to be expressive with them. it's ok for straight forward text but not if it is too complex. I ended up getting some help from a friend which was great but I ran out of time and had to compromise on a lot of my original plans. TBH the audio was slapped together far too quickly over scenes that all still needed lots more love and attention... but hey this is just for fun and as a learning exercise so in the end I was fairly happy with it all.

Very cool!

Maybe I should have just done a narration. It may have been easier. I still may find it easier as I assemble this beast but we shall see.

Thanks for sharing. :)

thanks for the responses. I got a friend to help but I left myself very short of time and am currently pulling it all back to get something finished. I looked on Fiverr and there are loads of people on there offering voice overs so for anything important I might go there or voices.com.

@anniemation I am an Aussie and used a friend so I guess I too used an Aussie friend. I think everyone needs an Aussie friend :)

Thanks, although I don't think this is the right forum for it as I am not trying to reach out to animators. The sort of people that are likely to help could be anyone on here.

With the short timeframes left I am already thinking about major changes to what I was hoping to put together.