Want a SitePal™ to, uh, Enhance Your Site?

I came across this rather interesting web tool of sorts.

As stated on their site: Oddcast’s VHost SitePal™ allows YOU to create speaking animated characters (avatars) for your web site, and add your own audio message via Text-to-Speech or voice recording.

Click on "Text To Speech" (top left hand corner), input some text of your own, and hear how their SitePal™ character will pronounce it. You simply must try selecting Japanese and Chinese under the language menu. The Japanese one sounds quite similar to how a native will speak. The Chinese one, however, seems a tad racist. Try it, and you'd see what I mean.

On their main page (the one that has, "IT'S AS EASY AS 1-2-3!!!"), click on their "Try Now" button.

Here's where things get even more interesting, as you get to see how you can modify the avatar to your liking. It's rather like making a new character in The Sims. You can change the hairstyle, the shape of the mouth, the shirt, and so on. You can also change the size and colour of various parts of the avatar so as to create something totally alien (literally), or something totally comic.

Anyway, alien or not, I still find it creepy to have the avatar's eyes constantly tracking my cursor.