Character animation (Eye, Lip, and hand movement) in articulate Storyline

May 14, 2016

Hi All,

I need your advice on the following:

I am developing a K12 course and would like to know whether I can do a minor animations such as Eye, Lip, and hand movement with my 2D character. I want to show my character to the left of the screen like mascot and the text at the right side.

Also, please tell me in which format (JPEG, PNG, or any other?) my graphic designer should prepare that 2D character (mascot) so it would be suitable to storyline screen.

I would be very thankful if you give me a solution with this.

Thank you,

Vijay Karkhile

8 Replies

Parashuram Vhaval

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 6:38 am (UTC)

Hello Vijay,

Well-come to community. Basically in storyline you can only add animations that are defined in presets in animation tab. No other animations which included frame by frame animation can be created. But yes there are many ways to have such animations in Storyline.

The easiest I would suggest to have multiple images of various poses of character and appear/disappear them in sync with slide audio. For this you can use any static image format like JPEG or PNG.
Another method is quite complicated and I would suggest use this only if you want it on single slide. For mass production it will be head-ache nothing else. Simply get your animations done using any software like flash and convert it to GIF sequence, and embed them in your storyline slides.

Nick Petch

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 9:00 am (UTC)

Hi Vijay

I would advise against facial animation in Storyline as you will not get your desired results.

Instead, I would recommend using "Crazy Talk" to animate your characters and then import these into Storyline as .mp4.

Best of luck

Nick

Crystal Horn
Staff

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 2:09 pm (UTC)

Hi there, Vijay! Looks like you're getting some decent recommendations here! Parashuram's idea of having a few different iterations of the character with expressions was the first thing that came to my mind. You could easily use states and triggers to achieve the change in expression when you want it to happen. Good luck with your project!

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 2:23 pm (UTC)

Hello Parshuram,

Thanks for your reply. Both your ways for the character animation were in my mind and was searching some better results. I think, preparing GIF would be a good idea, but stopping or syncing the GIF animation with audio would be a headache in every screen. First way is good on a basic level. Anyway, your suggestions are quite clear and helpful. I am very thankful to you.

Vijay Karkhile
Author

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 2:30 pm (UTC)

Hello Nick, I will try for Crazytalk. Thanks for a good suggestion. I am not very familiar with it, but will surely look into it. Thanks for your suggestions. Crystal Horn, I will ask my designer to use states. Let's see what it suites. Thanks to you! Thanks guys for your support. I would love to connect to all of you for such a nice approach on developing any course.

almost 8 years ago05/16/16 at 2:35 pm (UTC)

No problem, Vijay! Also, another great place to connect with other instructional designers for all kinds of design ideas is in our Building Better Courses forum. Thanks for participating in Heroes!