Fallout 4 Mantella mod is now available, starting today!!

[rob.ghtwri]

If you want to add alot more immersion and depth to your NPC interactions and RP, then this is the next level. I've used this mod for Skyrim and Enderal, and honestly I can't play without it now (especially Herika mod for Skyrim). Finally, I can replay Fallout with this amazing mod! And... maybe talk to Dogmeat? I've talked to Whirlwind, my donkey, in Enderal so...

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/79747?tab=description&BH=2

[dead]

will check it out. thanks for the Mod♥

[Zekiran]

This is a glorified sales pitch for the voice theft programs, though.

[craldark]

Will this enable me to insult NPCs who insult me? For instance, a caravan guard who says 'make a move and I'll end you wastelander' when I've not done anything wrong? Or a Diamond City slag who says I'm not your friend when I've just passed by!

[Fear2288]

It’s definitely an interesting thing, but until they reach a point where they can convincingly make the NPCs NOT sound so robotic it’s a pass for me.

Also, it definitely looks like it’s more trouble than it’s worth if you have to shoot them with a Mantella gun first every time you want to talk to them.

[Vuyek]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

This is a glorified sales pitch for the voice theft programs, though.

voice theft program.

hahahahahahahahahah
oh wait he is serious
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA

[Zekiran]

That is literally why the company it tells you to go use *costs money* because they can't allow people to just upload 'whatever they find on the internet' to train their AI.

It's a legal thing, that's why it costs money to use. Eventually, this kind of thing will probably hit politicians where it hurts the most: their advertising with "their voice and their face" deepfaked, and wow suddenly it'll be the most terrible thing in the world.

It already is: because those voices came from somewhere.

Did you pay for their voice actors to be trained to say those random lines? No? Then it's illegally acquired voice talent.

[Fear2288]

Originally posted by Vuyek:

Originally posted by Zekiran:

This is a glorified sales pitch for the voice theft programs, though.

voice theft program.

hahahahahahahahahah
oh wait he is serious
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA

I could be wrong, but what I believe he’s referring to is the fact that mods/software like this take an actor’s voice and use it to create new lines of dialogue.

The potential issue with this is two-fold.

First, the actor isn’t consenting to their voice being used in such a way. While the result of this mod may be innocent and in good faith, the technology CAN be used to make an actor say anything, and that can be an uncomfortable thought.

Second, by using technology like this, you’re essentially getting hundreds if not thousands of lines of dialogue out of an actor who does not receive credit for it nor compensation.

Unless you’re lucky enough to be one of the VERY few “big names” in voice acting (Mark Hamill, Troy Baker, Tara Strong, Jennifer Hale, Nolan North, etc), you get very little in compensation from a single role. Voice acting is not a lucrative job and it’s very competitive because unless you’re one of those big names or are a celebrity the developer REALLY wants for a role, you’re easily replaceable and thus have no real power to negotiate in regards to payment or role. You take the role they give you, you read the lines they write for you, and you accept the money they’re willing to hand you and if you don’t like? They’ll just bring in one of the other BAZILLION self-proclaimed/aspiring voice actors who will.

Thus, it kinda rubs these people the wrong way to think that a piece of software can take their voice from a job they’ve already done and were paid for and use it to endlessly create new lines of dialogue.

The potential fear here is that developers themselves will begin to utilize this technology - ultimately reducing the amount of time and work an actor needs to perform for a job…and if that actor doesn’t need to personally record as many lines in the studio, then that developer can justify paying them even less.

A developer could even use an actors previously recorded lines they did for a past game in a new one or a DLC/expansion…all without having to hire them again and pay them again because as it stands now, those audio recordings don’t belong to the actor, they belong to the developer.


This all sparked up in Skyrim a year or two back surrounding the mod Dragonborn Voice Over (DBVO).

As the name suggests, it makes the player character actually talk when you select your dialogue responses rather than the normal silent protagonist thing.

While some DBVO mods were made by people who personally recorded the lines themselves, the more popular ones used this tech to take the voices of various actors from other games and media.

Eventually, the voice actress who played Evie Frye in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate found out her voice was being used in a DBVO mod, and not long afterwards it was brought to Ubisoft’s attention as well.

The actress wasn’t too pleased with the fact that she essentially was now voicing the main character of a game without her knowledge or consent, and Ubisoft wasn’t too happy that their copyrighted material (her voice recordings) were being used in such a way either.

Ultimately, that mod was removed from Nexus as were a few other similar DBVO mods, and the conversation began over the use of this technology and whether or not it was okay to use someone’s voice without their consent or compensation.

[craldark]

The counter to all this is that it's more efficient and economic (for all of us) to create artificial voices. So they need to pay voice actors to contribute voice samples as a one-off so that voice can ever after be used freely. I'd gladly contribute my voice for say £20,000 and so would many others. That's the market. In a similar way, in time, most visual actors will be replaced in movies by their contributed images. And further in time, totally artificial voices and avatars will be used without anyone contributing. The day will come when a virtual actor will become a celebrity much like bugs bunny. The actor won't actually exist in the real world. Costs of producing movies will come down dramatically with everything being super-cheap CGI. And eventually these virtual actors/voices will be BETTER than the average actor.

[rob.ghtwri]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

It’s definitely an interesting thing, but until they reach a point where they can convincingly make the NPCs NOT sound so robotic it’s a pass for me.

Also, it definitely looks like it’s more trouble than it’s worth if you have to shoot them with a Mantella gun first every time you want to talk to them.

True, although you can tweak it a bit and clean it up through xVASynth to take off that robotic edge. But it's still amazing that we've gotten to this point in gaming. Now you don't have to shoot them with a Mantella gun, now you can just set a hotkey to initiate conversation.

[rob.ghtwri]

Originally posted by craldark:

Will this enable me to insult NPCs who insult me? For instance, a caravan guard who says 'make a move and I'll end you wastelander' when I've not done anything wrong? Or a Diamond City slag who says I'm not your friend when I've just passed by!

Sure freakin can bud. You could tell off anyone you wanted. Maybe even a deathclaw. Even your own son.

[Fear2288]

Originally posted by craldark:

The counter to all this is that it's more efficient and economic (for all of us) to create artificial voices. So they need to pay voice actors to contribute voice samples as a one-off so that voice can ever after be used freely. I'd gladly contribute my voice for say £20,000 and so would many others. That's the market. In a similar way, in time, most visual actors will be replaced in movies by their contributed images. And further in time, totally artificial voices and avatars will be used without anyone contributing. The day will come when a virtual actor will become a celebrity much like bugs bunny. The actor won't actually exist in the real world. Costs of producing movies will come down dramatically with everything being super-cheap CGI. And eventually these virtual actors/voices will be BETTER than the average actor.

They said that digital books on LED tablet screens would completely replace physical paper books in a matter of years, too.

How’d that work out?

Vinyl came back into fashion while MP3s were on the rise, and now apparently CDs are seeing a renewed interest.

Over the last few years there’s been a quiet push back on the whole “everything online and digital” wave that came through in the 2010s - more people are showing interest in owning physical media instead of just links, codes, and nebulous licenses.

Heavy use of CGI in movies and television shows is still criticized and mocked and hardly impresses anyone, while those which make use of convincing practical effects are praised and look more real (the plastic model ships of the original Star Wars are STILL more convincing and realistic looking than anything seen in the films/shows that came after).

The use of digital de-aging or face transformations (Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue One, Harrison Ford in Dial of Destiny) is met with more negative reception and unease than positivity.

People have a threshold for “fake” things.

Maybe one day your theory will become reality, but it’s not going to be in our lifetimes.

[craldark]

Agreed, not fully in our lifetimes, but throughout this century. Evolution is infallible and unstoppable. Whatever is best will tend to survive.