How to... select an avatar as a main character for your course

Dec 29, 2012

Hi folks,

I guess the title says it all I want to create something where a user can select one of multiple characters before starting a course... That character will then be the main character in the course.

I had a look at Mike Enders screenr here and figured I'd so something with placing all characters over each other and enable/disable them based on a variable. Mike countered that you could do something with one object and have all character options as states but that seems complex to me especially if I want my main character in different poses.

If I take it a step further I'd perhaps like the character that haven't been chosen to play a part in the scenario...

Anyone got some brilliant ideas?

27 Replies
David Anderson

Hi Jeff,

You can go about that a couple ways depending on how you're working with your content.

Slides

This is probably the most common way since it allows you to make all the changes at the slide level.

Demo | Source

Slide Masters

For larger project, this might work better since it controls the custom avatars from the slide master level. This is also likely the more efficient way to manage different poses since you could include a different slide layout for each of the poses. Here's a single example that hopefully gets you started

Demo | Source

Richard Watson

RE: Slides

This is probably the most common way since it allows you to make all the changes at the slide level.

 Demo | Source

Great sample. One question.. can someone explain how the state changes are setup to show the other characters (see red below)? I've setup all triggers and slide master layers but when I go to change the Content slide, it doesn't allow me to change the state to Christian or Christy without changing the character for Brian as well. I suspect it is something very simple but what am I missing.

Thanks!

Richard

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Richard,

When you click on "Edit state" you're able to go into each state and change the character, position, or even remove the person entirely. Since these are Photographic characters, you may not have them all installed as Storyline comes with Atsumi as the one photographic character although you can purchase other ones. 

Amy Price

Hi David,

I have tried to recreate this - but can you please clarify some triggers for me? I note that when you hover over your character icons - their face appears...and then you can click on the character. However I cannot see a trigger for this hover in your source files.

I have created a hover trigger that changes the state of my character to move slightly when the mouse hovers over. But there seems to be no way for me to click the character after this. 

Can you please help?

 

Thank you.

Amy

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Katie, and welcome to E-Learning Heroes! ✨

If you want to have a different character in a state, here are the steps:

  • Insert a character in your slide (Insert -> Characters)
  • Under States, click Edit States
  • Click the page icon to add a new state

  • When the state is created, right-click the character in your slide, and choose Replace Pose. You will then be able to choose a different character from the content library.

Replace pose

Let me know if this works! 

Lynda Thornton - Guelker

I have read these and  many others and I think I am getting brain overload. It use to be easy 

Set Character to value Jennifer / when the user clicks Jennifer

I am working on a new file and the trigger is so different and will not work like I want it too.

Set state of Character 1 to Jennifer / when the user clicks Character 1 

On my first project, it showed both  avatars as character 1. I am creating a new presentation and it is showing both character 1 and 2.  I can not get the avatar to follow on the next slide. 

I haven't worked with Master slides either and what I am reading this is what I need to be doing! Any help would greatly be appreciated. 

I should also explain that I did hide my characters at one point, that didn't help. 

I added both, just to see if that was the culprit. Gave Greg his own states even. That didn't work!

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Lynda.

Thank you for reaching out!

The first trigger you mentioned is correct: set character to value Jennifer when the user clicks Jennifer. You need a variable (Character) to receive the value the user selected. 

Once the variable is set, you can change the character's state based on that value.

I recorded a short Peek 360 overview (3mins) with the changes I suggest for your project. 

Let me know if you have additional questions!