Project Shift and Project Screenplay by Supertone to Enable Real-Time Voice Chat as Characters

Courtesy of HYBE

AI audio startup Supertone, a subsidiary of HYBE, the K-pop powerhouse housing BTS, has unveiled two innovative voice-generating technologies at G-Star 2023, showcasing advancements that could revolutionize the gaming industry.

Founded in 2020, Supertone, known for its audio contributions to K-pop and K-content, is expanding its reach to the gaming sector. Among its notable achievements are voice manipulations, such as Elvis Presley singing a Korean singer's ballad and creating a new voice by blending those of actors Lee Han-byeol and Nana in the Netflix series "Mask Girl." 

▲ Courtesy of HYBE

The newly revealed technologies, Project Shift and Project Screenplay, were demonstrated at Busan's Bexco convention center. Scheduled for release next year, Project Shift is an audio service that analyzes a user's voice for 10 seconds, converting it into the voices of 12 proprietary game characters, with features allowing adjustments to voice balance, pitch, and whisper levels.

Project Screenplay, the text-to-speech audio generating software, enables game developers to input dialogue for immediate reading in a character's voice, with customizable attributes such as pitch, enunciation speed, age, and gender.

Yoo Han-kyul, director of Supertone's business development unit, highlighted potential applications across business sectors, envisioning applications in virtual K-pop group interactions, live streamers' engagement with game subscribers, and casual entertainment, allowing gamers to voice chat in their characters' voices.

Currently available in Korean, English, and Japanese, both technologies raise the prospect of voice licensing discussions, presenting an opportunity to preserve iconic voices from human actors for extended use.

A spokesperson from HYBE noted that, at present, there is no legal framework for voice licensing, and the profitability trajectory for these technologies remains undetermined.

Sayart.net

Blue YIM, yimyoungseo1010@naver.com