Hello Heros! I have a client that wants to use an illustrated character in our storyline module to represent her. The only problem is that she is white with long black hair. There is no character like this in the character pack. Can I somehow access the source files for the characters? I could do a quick skin tone change to get what we need. cynthia

Arturo Hernandez said: Yes I need to change the characters clothes color, let me know asap Arturo, Someone (possibly Dave?) did a tutorial on this a few months back. You can change the appearance of a character with just a little bit of work if you have powerpoint. I'm using PPT 2010 for this. First insert the character you want to change on a Storyline slide. Then right click and "save as picture." Save it as an EMF file. Now, open powerpoint and insert the .emf file. Select it and ungroup it. When Ppt asks, YES you want to ungroup it. Now, select it again and ungroup it again. After the 2nd ungroup, look at your selection pane. There is one group with over a hundred shapes, and then two other images that are not grouped. Those two are little strips across the neck, one colored and one white. Get rid of them. They'll just cause you trouble. Now, ungroup a third time. Finally you get to do the painstaking work of clicking on the hundred little pieces and recoloring them. I've attached a file in which I recolored one character to have black hair and light skin. Also her clothes are now a new color.

I created an application which allows you to install custom characters into Storyline's Illustrated character menu. I'm currently developing custom characters in Illustrator as vector's and soon going to make them available to everyone through my website where you can pick and choose the features such as hair color, clothes, skin color, etc... you want to add to the characters and then have the ability to upload them to the Illustrator Character Menu in Storyline. Paul

Yes I need to change the characters clothes color, let me know asap thx

I must say I haven't really given much thought to editing the stock characters, so a big thanks to Meryem for posting up those instructions. Works a treat

This is good advise. Very easy to create new props such as access cards, masks, sterile clothing articles etc in powerpoint and then save them as .emf to import back in SL. I had to change all the blue workwear to green so we could use the characters in our hospital. In future upgrades of SL how great wouldn't it be to have a character editor for illustrated characters, just like the player editor. My only issue is that all my characters have a line across their neck when I save them as images. Anyone have the same issue?

Modifying characters | Articulate

anonymous1136
Community Member
13 years ago
Yes. It's taken a lot of work on my part.
MatthewGraham
Community Member
13 years ago
I'm definitely interested in the finished product. Is there a website to keep bookmarked, or are you still working on that?
anonymous1136
Community Member
13 years ago
It's in the works as we speak. I'll provide you with a link as soon as it's available.
- ErinClarke
  Community Member
  10 years ago
  I know this is an old post, but I am very interested in this if it is available?
FarrenBellmont
Community Member
13 years ago
Any update on this?
RustyWorden
Community Member
12 years ago
So - what's the word on this? Any updates? Does anyone know how i can add my own photos to the characters list?
ArturoHernandez
Community Member
12 years ago

Hi!

Many thx for your suggestion, however, after the several ungroupings and successfully changing the color of the coat (which is my objective), I then grouped again and pasted to my Storyline project at which time I saw jagged edges on my character and a white rectangle surrounding it. Thinking I had made a mistake somewhere, I copied the samples you had made and pasted them in SL at which time I also saw ragged edges and a white rectangle around your modified character

Is there a means of:

a) Improving the quality as it degraded a bit

b) Getting rid of the jagged edges

c) Eliminating the white rectangle

Also, is there a way to import the modified character into the SL character inventory so I can use it from there?

Tons of thanks . . . . again

Arturo
SimonPerkins
Community Member
12 years ago
Arturo, did you save your edited PowerPoint image as a JPG? If so, this will remove the transparency and render the background white. Have another go and save as EMF.
JudithBlackb538
Community Member
12 years ago
Thanks so much, Meryem. This is a great idea!
JudithBlackb538
Community Member
12 years ago

The characters sometimes seem too "uptown" for my application, so I modified one to remove some of the makeup, give her a few more pounds, double-chin, etc. In other words, make her look more like me!

Found making modifications easier when I enlarged my view to 200% so I could see the individual pieces. Somehow lost the shadow behind her, though.
HeidiGreen
Community Member
12 years ago

Meryam, this is a great technique! Thanks so much for sharing it. You are right that it is painstaking, but it works!

I am a big supporting of adding this feature to the SL toolkit. It would make the avatars much more appealing to my clients. I do a lot of diversity work with my instructional design efforts, so being able to change avatars around is really valuable.

Thanks!