Yeah, I really don't care. Outside of people being against AI on principle, it's hard to imagine how most of my favorite old games from the 90's where the programmers recorded their own lines would have been improved by union membership. And it's the rare game I play even today where the voice acting makes any impression on me what so ever. Bring on the AI! Especially in indie games with lower budgets that can't afford union prices.

Good, anything that might help to bring on the much needed next game crash.

Games will move to where much of the spoken word is LLM generated anyway, actors cannot read those lines so AI voices will

I've also see some amatuer mods/games voiced by some text to speech variant - allowing small time games to have spoken voice across lots of text

there are many things developing and i'm not sure this will stop increasing use of 'dynamic' and ai voiced 'acting' in games in the next few years

after that, who knows - whole environments, gameplay and other features may be generated

good, capitalized ai slop must die

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:06:

good, capitalized ai slop must die

If it sells, it's in the game.

The guy who did Niko in GTA4 got peanuts, and I think AI would've done a better job with the accent.

Video game actors were more relevant during the FMV boom of the 90's.

Nowadays, you can tack on the motion capture sensors on even the programmers' and other staff of the developers faces, and overlay this on any CG drawn characters.

Malik wrote on 2024-07-27, 22:47:

Nowadays, you can tack on the motion capture sensors on even the programmers' and other staff of the developers faces

Sure, but if you expect an Anthony Hopkins-worthy performance from regular people working on the game, you are mistaken.

I like seeing professional actors performing in video games. John Noble had a great role in "L.A. Noire", for example. We are not at a point where AI can just simulate a real professional presenting emotions on camera. Sure, you can tell it to try, but a human can still see and hear if it's the real actor or a simulated copy. There are small glitches here and there, in the audio or the video. AI is just a soulless imitation of a human being, nothing more than that.

Of course studios try to capitalize on that. Why pay real people to act in videogames when you can just generate a 75%-accurate version of them? That's good enough for most gamers and saves a lot of money. Morally, it's not a direction our society should steer to, though. I hope laws will be made in the future, protecting these actors and putting a brake on soulless AI content.

Namrok wrote on 2024-07-26, 15:42:

Bring on the AI! Especially in indie games with lower budgets that can't afford union prices.

gerry wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:04:

Games will move to where much of the spoken word is LLM generated anyway, actors cannot read those lines so AI voices will

I've also see some amatuer mods/games voiced by some text to speech variant - allowing small time games to have spoken voice across lots of text

vvbee wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:38:

The guy who did Niko in GTA4 got peanuts, and I think AI would've done a better job with the accent.

Malik wrote on 2024-07-27, 22:47:

Video game actors were more relevant during the FMV boom of the 90's.

Nowadays, you can tack on the motion capture sensors on even the programmers' and other staff of the developers faces, and overlay this on any CG drawn characters.

Yeah, screw those people and their commie unions!
LLM will replace real people anytime now anyway!

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:06:

good, capitalized ai slop must die

Imagine an RPG where you converse with the NPCs with your own (written or spoken) words and responses are generated by a social AI on the fly based on what you said and in-game conditions (reputation, faction alignment, your history with the specific NPC, etc.). If there is a medium where "ai slop" has a place, it's interactive mediums like video games.

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-07-28, 14:44:

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:06:

good, capitalized ai slop must die

Imagine an RPG where you converse with the NPCs with your own (written or spoken) words and responses are generated by a social AI on the fly based on what you said and in-game conditions (reputation, faction alignment, your history with the specific NPC, etc.). If there is a medium where "ai slop" has a place, it's interactive mediums like video games.

Imagine a text adventure that has a loose outline of a plot that the AI controls like a dungeon master.

Namrok wrote on 2024-07-26, 15:42:

Yeah, I really don't care. Outside of people being against AI on principle, it's hard to imagine how most of my favorite old games from the 90's where the programmers recorded their own lines would have been improved by union membership. And it's the rare game I play even today where the voice acting makes any impression on me what so ever. Bring on the AI! Especially in indie games with lower budgets that can't afford union prices.

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:06:

good, capitalized ai slop must die

I agree with both personally, AI is a tool that can be used professionally without cutting corners but the risk is always there.
For indie i would say a good way to use AI for voice acting would be to have at least 1 voice actor, clone friends, family voices etc. so that the 1 voice actor can use multiple voices, thus eliminating the repetition issue.
You still get all the humanity for the delivery but without being stuck on a single voice.

If actors could act, it might make a difference. Same with voice actors, some of it is so bad it's almost funny.

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-07-28, 14:44:

Imagine an RPG where you converse with the NPCs with your own (written or spoken) words and responses are generated by a social AI on the fly based on what you said and in-game conditions (reputation, faction alignment, your history with the specific NPC, etc.). If there is a medium where "ai slop" has a place, it's interactive mediums like video games.

That's a whole lot of computing power and perpetual rights corporately stepped on for fucking markov chain madlibs.

If anyone is going to play the accessiblity card next, then you're better off from librivox than top talent character actors.

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-28, 17:24:

That's a whole lot of computing power

Which we have more and more every year and devs happily waste it on worse, less immersive things.

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-28, 17:24:

and perpetual rights corporately stepped on

What rights exactly?

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-28, 17:24:

for fucking markov chain madlibs.

And that's a bad thing, because...

Garrett W wrote on 2024-07-28, 14:03:

vvbee wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:38:

The guy who did Niko in GTA4 got peanuts, and I think AI would've done a better job with the accent.

Yeah, screw those people and their commie unions!
LLM will replace real people anytime now anyway!

If AI replacing teachers means the teachers are out of a job but the students reach a higher potential, what should be done?

Why won't we replace forum members with AI too? Humans are dumb and barely know a thing about very old games on new systems, it's only fair to replace them with AI that knows everything. Bots everywhere!

AI is nothing but a search engine with a frequency counter and someone's black list attached. It will never be a good replacement for a human. Just go play chess against a computer, or street fighter.

gerry wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:04:

I've also see some amatuer mods/games voiced by some text to speech variant - allowing small time games to have spoken voice across lots of text

Personally, I'm loving those Chinese Text to Google Translate to Speech TEMU ads.

Garrett W wrote on 2024-07-28, 14:03:

gerry wrote on 2024-07-26, 16:04:

Games will move to where much of the spoken word is LLM generated anyway, actors cannot read those lines so AI voices will

I've also see some amatuer mods/games voiced by some text to speech variant - allowing small time games to have spoken voice across lots of text

Yeah, screw those people and their commie unions!
LLM will replace real people anytime now anyway!

not a 'support' for replacing actors, but an observation that actions, strikes or not it will happen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sCWf2VGdfc

a year ago already

LLM might well *displace* real people online too 🙁