I have the Character Bundle 1, went looking at 2 just to see if by chance there were asian or indian characters - and alas, no. Guess I won't be purchasing.
Articulate please add these! For those of us who develop content across the world, we need as many various ethnicities as possible.
Anyway --- I am wondering --- do any of you know of any websites or places I can go to find something like this?
Thanks for reaching out here - and I know the sentiment about more ethnic diversity among our characters and photo characters has been shared before. So in addition to sharing here, I'd also ask you to send that note along to our product development team here in the form of a feature request!
right click the character and select "Save as Picture"
Save the character image as an EMF file
Open powerpoint and insert the .emf image into it
select the image and ungroup it, when powerpoint asks if you want to ungroup it select yes
select the whole character again and ungroup it a second time
Look at the selection pane, there are now two groups and 2 lines in the middle of the two groups, remove the two lines.
Select the character and ungroup a third time
Now you have all of the pieces of the character separated in powerpoint. You can select the pieces individually and change the colors or shapes of the characters to whatever you need.
If you are looking for other photographic character bundles, sites like eLearningArt and eLearningBrothers sell character packs for storyline.
Hi Ashley, I was checking if there have been any progress in 2 years on having Asian and Indian characters. Unfortunately, I still don't see any Asian and Indian characters (illustrated or photographic) featuring in Articulate Storyline. I did submit the form requesting that feature but I haven't seen a concrete outcome so far. I hope Articulate appreciates diversity and would have this feature soon if not another year.
Have you taken a look at the Articulate 360 set up and Content Library? We've increased the number and type of characters available. Take a look at the information on content library here and feel free to download the Free trial so that you can see more of the characters! (You can download a limited character set during the trial - but you can see them all).
Appreciate your prompt response. I did check the Articulate 360 content library > Characters and found few Asian characters such as Paulina, Quan, Sukiyo, and Andrea. However, these do not include Indian characters and the support is not extended to Articulate Storyline 2. It would be really beneficial to have a support for versions prior to Articulate 360. Thank you.
We still continue to support products like Articulate Storyline 2 and Studio '13, but they are not scheduled to receive new features or new character sets.
Articulate 360 as a subscription model allows us to add new features on a more regular basis and I've passed along the note to our Content Library team about the need for more Indian characters.
I was wondering if you ever found the characters you were looking for? Did you try the power point trick?
I am also looking for a greater diversity of characters, as I work for a program that serves students from across a city of over 1 million. Not only does Storyline need a greater diversity of characters, but they need to consider the fact that not all people today in the workplace are Westernized in the way they dress. For example, I would like the option to use a woman wearing a hijab or a man in a turban or a braid to demonstrate more diversity in culture (these three examples would represent some of our students).
I would also love to use characters that show more diversity in their physiology. All Storyline characters are thin, which is not representative of the population.
I hope Articulate will work on creating more diverse characters in the near future.
Thanks for that feedback on our current character set. I know we're continually adding more characters and items to Content Library (the beauty of Articulate 360 being a subscription!) so it's great to have some additional insight into what you'd need.
I've passed this along to my colleagues who manage all those assets! Thanks for the feedback and insight.
I apologize for the delay in responding to your note. For some strange reason, the automated email on this thread was buried in my inbox.
I am not sure if by the PowerPoint trick you meant the one recommended by Jackson Hamner? If yes, I did try that trick for my illustrated character storyboard. Unfortunately, it took a lot of time and resulted in compatibility issue when those characters got imported from PowerPoint to Storyline. I was not happy with the conversion quality as well.
I appreciate the insights you've shared and couldn't agree more on them. You've provided some thought-provoking and valid concerns with concrete examples that Articulate needs to attend to. I would also like to see the differently-abled (e.g., visually or physically challenged) represented in the character set.
I am still stranded with limited options even in the photographic character set of paid Articulate 360 subscription. It's been over 4 years since multiple requests have been made on this and other thread including our requests 4-5 months back, still the improvements haven't been significant in the diversity of characters.
Hopefully, Articulate would realize the need of the hour in a time-sensitive manner and without further delay.
Thanks Aloshe for sharing here, and I've passed it along to our team who manages the Content Library (which includes the characters) in Articulate 360.
I see that the character packs for photographic characters and illustrated-modern characters now have a bit more diversity which is good; however, the illustrated-classic characters are still the same. I'm not looking forward to telling my client that the Asian character that they wrote into a story can't be used because such a character doesn't exist in storyline.
There are more diverse characters in the Illustrated - Modern section. Do you see something there that may fit your need or is it more specific than that?
I see there are more diverse options in the Illustrated-Modern section; however, they prefer the look of the Illustrated-Classic characters. All of their modules to date have been built with these characters so switching course isn't really an option at this point. :/
We'll keep you posted if more characters are added to Content Library by sharing updates in the Storyline Version History, and our What's New, What's Next page.
Hello, Marissa! We don't have an ETA for any particular character ethnicity. As we add many types of characters, the best place to stay informed is on the What's New page.
27 Replies
Hi Christina,
Thanks for reaching out here - and I know the sentiment about more ethnic diversity among our characters and photo characters has been shared before. So in addition to sharing here, I'd also ask you to send that note along to our product development team here in the form of a feature request!
If you can work with the illustrated characters you can edit the illustrated characters yourself in Powerpoint. You can read about it in Meryem's post
Basically you want to:
Now you have all of the pieces of the character separated in powerpoint. You can select the pieces individually and change the colors or shapes of the characters to whatever you need.
If you are looking for other photographic character bundles, sites like eLearningArt and eLearningBrothers sell character packs for storyline.
Thanks for sharing that here Jackson!
Wow! Great tip!!!! I will definitely do this - can't thank you enough!
Hi Ashley, I was checking if there have been any progress in 2 years on having Asian and Indian characters. Unfortunately, I still don't see any Asian and Indian characters (illustrated or photographic) featuring in Articulate Storyline. I did submit the form requesting that feature but I haven't seen a concrete outcome so far. I hope Articulate appreciates diversity and would have this feature soon if not another year.
Hi Aloshe,
Have you taken a look at the Articulate 360 set up and Content Library? We've increased the number and type of characters available. Take a look at the information on content library here and feel free to download the Free trial so that you can see more of the characters! (You can download a limited character set during the trial - but you can see them all).
Hi Ashley,
Appreciate your prompt response. I did check the Articulate 360 content library > Characters and found few Asian characters such as Paulina, Quan, Sukiyo, and Andrea. However, these do not include Indian characters and the support is not extended to Articulate Storyline 2. It would be really beneficial to have a support for versions prior to Articulate 360. Thank you.
Hi Aloshe,
We still continue to support products like Articulate Storyline 2 and Studio '13, but they are not scheduled to receive new features or new character sets.
Articulate 360 as a subscription model allows us to add new features on a more regular basis and I've passed along the note to our Content Library team about the need for more Indian characters.
Hi Aloshe,
I was wondering if you ever found the characters you were looking for? Did you try the power point trick?
I am also looking for a greater diversity of characters, as I work for a program that serves students from across a city of over 1 million. Not only does Storyline need a greater diversity of characters, but they need to consider the fact that not all people today in the workplace are Westernized in the way they dress. For example, I would like the option to use a woman wearing a hijab or a man in a turban or a braid to demonstrate more diversity in culture (these three examples would represent some of our students).
I would also love to use characters that show more diversity in their physiology. All Storyline characters are thin, which is not representative of the population.
I hope Articulate will work on creating more diverse characters in the near future.
Thanks,
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
Thanks for that feedback on our current character set. I know we're continually adding more characters and items to Content Library (the beauty of Articulate 360 being a subscription!) so it's great to have some additional insight into what you'd need.
I've passed this along to my colleagues who manage all those assets! Thanks for the feedback and insight.
Hi Ashley,
Thanks for passing my feedback along to your colleagues.
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
I apologize for the delay in responding to your note. For some strange reason, the automated email on this thread was buried in my inbox.
I am not sure if by the PowerPoint trick you meant the one recommended by Jackson Hamner? If yes, I did try that trick for my illustrated character storyboard. Unfortunately, it took a lot of time and resulted in compatibility issue when those characters got imported from PowerPoint to Storyline. I was not happy with the conversion quality as well.
I appreciate the insights you've shared and couldn't agree more on them. You've provided some thought-provoking and valid concerns with concrete examples that Articulate needs to attend to. I would also like to see the differently-abled (e.g., visually or physically challenged) represented in the character set.
I am surprised that Articulate is not taking active lead on these in their developments while recent players like GoAnimate are making progress by leaps and bounds.(https://blog.goanimate.com/customizable-goanimate-characters-get-an-update/)
I am still stranded with limited options even in the photographic character set of paid Articulate 360 subscription. It's been over 4 years since multiple requests have been made on this and other thread including our requests 4-5 months back, still the improvements haven't been significant in the diversity of characters.
Hopefully, Articulate would realize the need of the hour in a time-sensitive manner and without further delay.
Thanks,
Aloshe
Thanks Aloshe for sharing here, and I've passed it along to our team who manages the Content Library (which includes the characters) in Articulate 360.
Thanks Ashley.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen any developments on my request. :(
Hi Aloshe,
We've been adding new characters to content library, and you can browse all of them here!
We'll share updates on new characters as a part of our “What’s New” page so that you don't miss any of the information.
I see that the character packs for photographic characters and illustrated-modern characters now have a bit more diversity which is good; however, the illustrated-classic characters are still the same. I'm not looking forward to telling my client that the Asian character that they wrote into a story can't be used because such a character doesn't exist in storyline.
Hi Nadia,
There are more diverse characters in the Illustrated - Modern section. Do you see something there that may fit your need or is it more specific than that?
Hi Leslie,
I see there are more diverse options in the Illustrated-Modern section; however, they prefer the look of the Illustrated-Classic characters. All of their modules to date have been built with these characters so switching course isn't really an option at this point. :/
Hi Nadia,
We'll keep you posted if more characters are added to Content Library by sharing updates in the Storyline Version History, and our What's New, What's Next page.
Thanks, Ashley.
Do you have an ETA for Indian characters??
Hello, Marissa! We don't have an ETA for any particular character ethnicity. As we add many types of characters, the best place to stay informed is on the What's New page.
I have such high regard for Articulate's products. I think they are first-in-class among authoring tools. I am shocked that this feature request, to make the character library more diverse and inclusive, has been ignored for the better part of a decade (also requested here: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/more-options-for-illustrated-characters).
Ashley, Leslie, Crystal, please give us some good news about progress on this feature.
Hi Kim and welcome to E-Learning Heroes. 😊
I appreciate you chiming in to share your thoughts and concerns on this subject.
We have added characters over the last few years and they are outlined in our version history here:
Content Library 360 Version History
Here is a little preview of the photographic characters:
As well as our illustrated characters:
We are listening. If you're able to share what characters you are looking for in the product, I'd be happy to share this with our content team.