Adding new voices
A key feature of Furhat is to be able to use different voices for languages and dialects. If you want to have access to additional voices, please contact support@furhatrobotics.com.
All voices that are correctly installed are visible in the voices drop-down menu in the Face menu page. They will show their name, language, and the voice engine they are from.
Installing existing voices
Cereproc
Note: the voices need to support Cereproc2 - Cereproc's second generation API. If your existing voices don't work, please contact Cereproc.
To install a Cereproc voice, you will need to manually add the voice files to the file system. That way, Furhat will use the pre-installed Cereproc API.
Installation process
- Go to the Cereproc voice directory. This directory is
C:\furhat\static\voices\Cereproc
on a Furhat robot and<yourSDKPath>/addon/Cereproc/voices
for the FurhatSDK. - To add a voice, create a folder under this directory with the name of the voice (e.g.
C:\furhat\static\voices\Cereproc
or<yourSDKPath>/addon/Cereproc/voices/sarah
). - Paste in the following files for your Cereproc voice ([voice] is the name of the voice):
- [voice].lic: The license file for the voice
- [voice].properties: A properties file for the voice (see below)
- [voice].voice: The voice file
The properties file should contain the language and gender of the voice:
gender = Male
language = en-GB
Acapela
To install an Acapela voice, you will need to manually add the voice files to the system. The steps to add a voice differ slightly if you are adding a voice to a Furhat or on your developmental machine.
- The first thing you need to do is to obtain the voice-files, for now please contact support@furhatrobotics.com for this step.
Finally, whether you are adding a voice to a Furhat or to the FurhatSDK, follow the steps below.
Installing on A Furhat
- If your Furhat was not originally requested with Acapela support, please contact support@furhatrobotics.com in order to obtain an Acapela license for your Furhat.
- On the Furhat, go to
C:\furhat\static\voices\Acapela
. Create this folder if it is not available - Place the Acapela voice folder into the correct language folder. If the language folder does not exist, create a folder with the correct Acapela language name (same as the downloaded folder name - for example "British").
- Restart the Furhat server, the voices should now show up.
Installing on the SDK
- You will need to have installed Acapela on your developmental machine, and have a valid Acapela license. See Acapela.
- Go to
<yourSDKpath>/addon/Acapela/library
- Place the Acapela voice folder into the correct language folder. If the language folder does not exist, create a folder with the correct Acapela language name (same as the downloaded folder name - for example "British").
- Restart the development server, the voices should now show up.
Note: Each language of Acapela voices have their own voice engine, a folder that resides inside the language folder. For example, the british english voice Rachel22k_HQ requires the voice engine folder British-1.202 (where 1.202 is the version), both of these folders reside in
C:\furhat\static\voices\Acapela\British
for a Furhat or<yourSDKPath>/addon/Acapela/library/British
on the SDK.
Windows/SAPI voices
It is possible to install any TTS voice that supports the Microsoft Speech API SAPI. For installation, each provider has a different process but typically they come with an installer that adds the voice to the Windows TTS which makes them accessible from Furhat.