Voices and narration

Every module Vidext builds is narrated. Use this page to choose the voice and the presenter, and to know which changes alter what the voice says. The narration is written into each module's script, recorded in the module's voice, and on some screens spoken to camera by the module's presenter. You choose the voice and the presenter in the module's studio, the panel in the chat where you watch and adjust a module.

Choose the voiceCopy Anchor Link

In the studio, click the face on the controls pill (Choose an AI instructor) and open the Voice tab. The voice belongs to the module. When you change it, the line at the top of the Script drawer says Voice changed, the next takes and build use it: recordings made from then on use the new voice, and so does the module's next build.

The picker offers the voices of your organization's library that speak the course's language in its exact regional variety. Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico), for example, are different voices, and a Spanish (Spain) course only lists the first.

Choose the presenterCopy Anchor Link

Choose a module's presenter on the Avatar tab of the same control, the face on the controls pill. A + tile comes first: it starts a new presenter in the chat, where you attach the photo. Then come the presenters your organization made, then Vidext's, all in one grid. Until you choose, a default avatar that goes with the module's voice is used. A module cannot be left without a presenter.

The presenter appears only on the screens Vidext's agents give it, where it speaks to camera with nothing else on screen. A module with no such screen shows no presenter and has no presenter video to render. A new presenter applies from the next build, and the line at the top of the Script drawer says Presenter changed, the next build applies it.

The presenter's video is rendered after the build. The studio shows the presenter's still image meanwhile, and a module with presenter screens is only built once the video exists. See Build, review, and get ready to publish.

Make your own presenterCopy Anchor Link

You can make a presenter from a photo of a real person, in the chat:

1. Send one photo of one person facing the camera. You can also ask for a presenter, and the agent asks you for the photo. Tools in the sidebar starts one too: its + beside your presenters opens Home with the request already written, ready for the photo.
2. The agent asks you to confirm, to name the presenter, and to choose its default voice, female or male.
3. The presenter then appears on the Avatar tab of every module in your organization.

The presenter card also asks whether you want portraits: choose them and the agent draws three portraits of the person in Vidext's look, each set in a different place, then asks you to pick one or to keep your photo as it is. A photo too small or too wide to use as it is can still make a presenter, but only as portraits: its card asks no portrait question, saying yes to it is choosing portraits, and you pick one of the three. Nothing is drawn until you choose portraits, and the original photo is kept either way.

To remove a presenter, ask the agent in the conversation that made it. The original photo is kept with the presenter.

How narration is recordedCopy Anchor Link

• Each screen that teaches carries what the voice says, in one to six paragraphs written to be heard. The cover always speaks: the script's opening, or its promise when there is no opening, or the unit's title when there is neither; each chapter after the first opens with its Intro line, or its title when there is none; and the closing speaks the outro. A check's questions are spoken too, each as it comes up: every question is recorded as a take of its own.
• As soon as a script is written, the studio records what the stage speaks. Each recording is a take, and the build plays those takes in the module.
• Takes are kept by their words and their voice. Building again after a small change only records the screens whose words changed. Changing the voice records every take again.
• Learners get subtitles, on by default, and can change the playback speed from 0.5x to 3x.

What changes the narrationCopy Anchor Link

• Asking in the chat changes the script, and with it what the voice says. Pick a line or a screen on the stage first to say which part you mean. The new script is reviewed again, and only the screens whose words changed are recorded again.
• Typing over a line on a screen in the studio changes only what the screen shows. The narration stays as it is, and the screen has to agree with it: a number the voice never says, or words that repeat the narration word for word, are refused. See Change a text.
• Typing over what the voice says in the studio's Script drawer, such as a paragraph of narration or a check's question, changes the script with your exact words. A few seconds after you stop typing, only the words that changed are recorded again, and a screen that no longer agrees with its narration is laid out again.
• Changing the voice records every take again in the new voice.

To change narration that learners already have, see Editing published content.