Uncanny Speech - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 228

judgements made to correct mouth shapes that ap-
pear too strong or too weak are likely to be based on
the subjective opinion of an individual developer.
Even then, the developer is still constrained by
the number of mouth and facial muscles available
to modify within the 3D model, which may not
include an exhaustive depiction of every single
muscle used in human speech.
To avoid the uncanny, working with the range
of mouth shapes and facial expression that cur-
rent technology allows for within tools such as
Faceposer , the developer should at least avoid
an articulation of speech that may appear over-
exaggerated. The mouth shape for the phoneme
used to pronounce the word “no” (“n” in Face-
poser ) may be applicable if the word is pronounced
in a strong, authoritative way, but would appear
overdone and out of context if the same word was
used to provide reassurance in a calming and less
domineering manner.
Indeed, if the developer wishes to create an
uncanny sensation for a zombie character, adjust-
ing mouth shapes so that articulation of speech
appears over exaggerated may enhance the fear
factor for such characters by increasing perceived
strangeness. In the same way that a snarling dog
or ferocious beast may raise the corners of their
mouths to show their teeth in an aggressive way,
viewers may be made to feel uncomfortable by
overstated mouth movements that suggest a pos-
sible threat.

4. Speech delivery that is perceived as slow,
monotone, or of the wrong tempo
5. An over-exaggeration of articulation of the
mouth during speech.

Whilst such characteristics of speech may
adorn the spine tingling sensation associated
with the uncanny for antipathetic characters in
the horror genre of games, a developer may risk
the uncanny if such characteristics exist for empa-
thetic characters. The protagonist Mary Smith, as
featured in the tech demo for the adventure game
Heavy Rain (2006), may have been intended to
evoke affinity and sympathy from the audience.
Instead, Mary Smith was regarded as strange
and abnormal: Uncanny speech for this character
contributed to just such a negative response from
the audience. The speech was not only judged as
lacking synchronization with lip movement but
an inaccurate pitch and lack of human-likeness
raised doubt as to whether the voice actually be-
longed to the character or not. Attributes such as
these reduced the overall believability for Mary
Smith. However, for zombies such as the Tank
and the Witch from the survival horror game Left
4 Dead (Valve, 2008), uncanny speech increased
(in a desired manner) how strange and freakish
these characters were perceived to be.
The outcomes from this investigation show
that the majority of characteristics for uncanny
speech in computer games may be induced by
current technological limitations in the production,
reproduction, and control of virtual characters.
Restrictions as to the range of facial muscles avail-
able to manipulate in automated facial animation
tools used to generate footage in real-time is a cur-
rent constraint for achieving realism in computer
games comparable to film. It seems there is a lack
of an exhaustive range of mouth shapes to fully
represent each phoneme sound and variation of
interpolation between syllables in a range of dif-
ferent contexts. Such constraints may contribute
to a perceived asynchrony of speech and mouth

sUMMArY AND cONcLUsION

In summary, attributes of speech that may ex-
aggerate the uncanny for realistic, human-like
characters in computer games are:

1. A level of human-likeness for a character's
speech that does not match the fidelity of
human-likeness for a character's appearance
2. An asynchrony of speech with lip movement
3. Speech that is of an incorrect pitch or tone.