TTS and Animation

Interesting, this one is in my back yard almost.

The IMS Voice-to-Animation Solution Selected to Power

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.– MakeBeliever Productions, LLC has selected Interactive Multimedia Solutions, Inc.'s IMS V2A MDKTM (Voice-to-Animation Multimedia Developer’s Kit) product for the development of the company’s innovative online personalized video greeting solution. MakeBeliever is an Arkansas-based company that was recently founded to revolutionize and transform the online greeting card market with an unprecedented level of personalization in online video greetings. For the first time ever, consumers can create their own videos and have a real human character say virtually anything you want to anyone you want with an automated process.

“Being part of this next generation of online video greeting cards is exciting and just the type of project that truly demonstrates the capabilities of our core solution offering,” said Donovan Moxey, Ph.D., founder & CEO of IMS. “The IMS team has been involved in every aspect of this project from conception to launch, and we along with our strategic partners are very pleased with the final solution released with the launch of the MakeBeliever web site.”

The IMS V2A MDKTM is a developer kit that takes a recorded voice and automatically creates precise mouth, jaw, and lip position data. The audio files can be in any language, and recorded by a human, or generated by a text-to-speech (TTS) engine. The core voice-to-animation engine is ideally suited for English dialog, and because of its unique proprietary co-articulation algorithm, animation data can be generated for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and a number of other languages.

In order to assist MakeBeliever in bringing this solution to market, IMS leveraged several of its key strategic international relationships to provide web development, software integration, text-to-speech, texture mapping and other services.

“What is really innovative about the MakeBeliever offering is for the first time ever a consumer-oriented solution that incorporates 3D animation and video compositing on a grand scale is being provided without the need for a post-production environment,” said Moxey. “The MakeBeliever V-Greetings utilize key technology components to showcase the true value of an automated voice-to-animation engine as part of an integrated multimedia solution that focuses on personalization and user-generated content.”

“We are very pleased with the total solution and the role that the IMS team has played in helping to make our vision a reality," says David Wallace, Co-Founder of MakeBeliever. "When we were looking for technology solutions for our product offering, we also wanted a company with innovative thinkers who would be dedicated and could execute; we definitely found this in the IMS team.”

IMS Products and Solutions have been used in a number of other consumer-oriented entertainment products and applications including the Spider-Man series of video games from Activision, Valve’s Half-Life2 game engine, and several game titles including “A Shark’s Tale” from Amaze Entertainment. MakeBeliever’s launch centers around charming Santa video greetings where Santa “knows” each child’s name, home state, favorite activities, nice deeds, what they want for Christmas and more.

“Early testing indicates that children have been mesmerized by the level of personalization in their greetings. Much of this believability is due to the technology and unique expertise IMS provided. It also has allowed us to keep our price below $10”, says MakeBeliever co-founder Ted Taggart.

“We are very excited to be part of this revolutionary change and look forward to continuing to team with MakeBeliever to expand this innovative technology to other applications and other languages, said Moxey. ”We think we are just getting started.”

About IMS
Interactive Multimedia Solutions, Inc. (IMS) is a multimedia software and solutions company focused on developing and delivering innovative software solutions that allow for the seamless integration of interactive animated talking digital avatars as part of multimedia solutions to be delivered via the web or as part of a DVD/CD-ROM. The software solutions developed by IMS can be applied across a number of markets including Online Entertainment, Gaming, Interactive Training, and Interactive Kiosk systems. www.IMS3D.com

About MakeBeliever
MakeBeliever Productions is a multimedia company and the developer of a new online product category: V-Greetings (virtual greetings). Founded in 2007 by longtime friends and entrepreneurs Ted Taggart and David Wallace, MakeBeliever is changing the way people exchange online greetings by enabling customers to create realistic, personalized Flash videos that are delivered via e-mail MakeBeliever fills a distinct void in the Web 2.0 marketplace, offering customers an unmatched opportunity to create video messages specifically tailored to each recipient. www.makebeliever.com