One of the companies we were massively impressed by at the recent Engage-Invest-Exploit event in Edinburgh was Speech Graphics. Their technology, which synchronises lip movement with recorded speech is simply the best we’ve seen. To the extent that all of the Xbox 360 and PS3 games we played over the following weeks looked almost embarrassing as the hunky space marines flapped their badly animated traps in random spasms, rather than speaking properly…
It’s based on very advanced technology too:
Realistic speech breathes life in to your characters. Our audio-driven, muscle-dynamic technology achieves the fluidity and accuracy of natural speech. It even matches the intensity of facial movements to the intensity of the speaker’s voice, syllable by syllable, to convey emotions in the speech. Our high-fidelity lip sync process is robust and scalable to thousands of lines of dialogue.
Now the company, which boasts both Colin MacDonald (commissioning editor, games, for Channel 4) and Brian McNicoll (Dynamo Games alumni and founder of Haptic Play) on the board, is recruiting.
They’re looking for a Maya Programmer. It’s a contract position initially, potentially leading to a full time position…
We seek one highly skilled Maya programmer to develop tools for setup, export and import of facial models and animation between Maya and other tools, and to perform other Maya tasks. This will be a contract position or internship, possibly leading to full time employment. This is a contract position, possibly leading to full-time employment.
We think Speech Graphics is destined for great things. We like their technology and we’ve yet to come across anyone who even comes close to their capabilities.
If you’re interested. If you want to know more, visit the company’s website. Tell them we sent you.
You can also find them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.