Forum Discussion
New Neural Text to Speech Voices from Amazon Polly
Storyline 360 uses standard voices from Amazon Polly for it's text to speech functionality. I imagine they use their API for this. This has been great for prototyping sides and getting the timing ri...
Hi, everyone!
I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 83, we’ve included important fixes and new features!
One enhanced feature we’ve included:
Unlock new possibilities for text-to-speech audio. Use speech synthesis markup language (SSML) to adjust the speaking rate, modify pronunciation, emphasize words, add pauses, and more.
To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here!
Although Neural voices are not supported inside of Storyline yet, I have created an application that can help streamline the process if you use Amazon Polly directly like Rick talks about in his post here.
1. You’ll need an Amazon Polly account (https://aws.amazon.com/polly/)
2. Save your scripts to be encoded as separate files (MS Word or Text)
3. Download HeroVoice TTS from the Microsoft Windows Store
(fully functioning 15-day free trial)
4. Encode your script files using HeroVoice TTS
5. Load each audio file into Storyline
HeroVoice TTS supports many of the requests that I’ve seen on the Storyline forums including:
· Adjusting the overall speed of your files with one setting
· Adjusting the overall pause duration for commas
· Adding your own SSML tags to get more finer nuanced, naturally sounding results
· Neural voices
· Batch processing your script files
Hi Thor. How much extra time does it take you to do this do you think rather than using the built in TTS?
Hi Ginger -
My workflow is a bit different now since I last posted in this thread because I created another HERO app to streamline the process even more. This workflow is based on having scripts in the Notes section of a Storyline course and I can say confidently not only is it faster than Storyline's built in TTS but gets better results:
1) First, I use HEROPREVAIL to extract the scripts into one folder. Each script is automatically labeled with the slide number and title of the slide. I don't have to go slide-by-slide to extract the scripts as it's done automatically. A significant timesaver and stress reducer, too!
2) Next, I use HEROVOICE TTS. I select the provider I want to use (Amazon, Google, or Microsoft - you do have to set up accounts with the providers you want to use), I then select the quality of voice (Neural is the best and not currently offered by Storyline), the language, and then the voice.
3) I select the files I want to encode and let HEROVOICE TTS work in the background. It's very fast as it processes through the list without any intervention on my part.
4) I then manually insert the files back into Storyline. Easy to do since they're all labeled but probably the slowest step in the entire process. No surprise there since the file has to be imported and placed on the timeline. It's about the same time it takes for Storyline to add the Text to Speech file it gets back from Amazon.
Step 3 in this workflow offers flexibility, as you don't have to batch encode. You could do it one file at a time so you could listen and then make adjustments. HEROVOICE TTS supports SSML (Synthesized Speech Markup Language) and provides tag support to make it faster - you don't have to learn another programming language per se as it helps form the tags correctly for you. Very helpful for pauses, slowing down the speed, and correcting those pronunciation problems you've encountered or read about here in the Storyline forums.
FYI - I typically like to batch encode because most of the time it's good enough. If I find a mistake, no worries, it's easy to correct.
I hope this helps and if you have more questions, please feel free to send me a private message or reach out to me on LinkedIn. There are more HERO apps and I'm working on a new one that's going to need testers to make sure it's as good as the ones mentioned here. 🙂
