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JohnMcNichol's avatar
JohnMcNichol
Community Member
6 months ago

Mars Base Demo: Storyline Integration with Blender 360° Panoramic Renders UPDATED March 2026

I created this short e-learning demo for my Upwork portfolio, showcasing how to integrate custom-modeled 360° environments into Articulate Storyline. I wanted something unique, short, and interesting...
ai assistant
Graphics
storyline 360
Nathan_Hilliard's avatar
Nathan_Hilliard
Community Member
12 days ago

I love this thing! I so want to build out a replica of this just for the experience. It would make a great exercise for practicing skills. My Blender-fu is weak, but this is motivating. 

May I ask if this was built entirely by you? Could you share how many total hours went into the production? Thanks for sharing.

  • JohnMcNichol's avatar
    JohnMcNichol
    Community Member
    12 days ago

    Hi Nathan,

    Thanks so much for the kind words! It’s great to hear that it’s motivating you to dive deeper into Blender.

    To answer your question: yes, everything in the 3D environment was built by me. The assets within the UI (like the tabbed interaction and the 3D cube images) were generated in Storyline.

    Regarding the timeline, I’ve put about 250 hours into this project across the initial build and this recent remaster. A significant portion of that time was actually R&D, experimenting with lighting, procedural textures for the Martian regolith, and base architecture that I ultimately scrapped to get it just right.

    I also spent about 8 hours specifically on accessibility. Integrating screen-reader support and keyboard navigation into a 360° environment required some creative hacks to bypass standard limitations. It’s currently optimized for keyboard-only navigation but it breaks if you use the mouse. The process was a huge learning curve that will make my future 3D/Web projects more efficient from the start.

    Thanks again!