Customizable 3D Model Viewer in Storyline 360 Using Three.js
TLDR A 3D model viewer (GLB/GLTF and OBJ fiel formats) for Storyline 360 using Three.js. See the links below. Please check in the comments for additional updates. Updated (2025-03-08): Minor adjustments to model reloads and resource disposal. Use new project file. Demo: 3D Model Viewer https://360.articulate.com/review/content/87acc80c-2820-4182-b99b-db9e7fd60852/review Demo: 3D Model Display Customizer https://360.articulate.com/review/content/d740f374-c2ac-4ae0-92bc-255b7d35ee1a/review Introduction In my ongoing efforts to better my skills, I’ve been learning more about Three.js, a 3D animation and visualization library for the web. At its simplest, Three displays 3D models in a web browser. This is something that many Storyline users have expressed interest in but alas, it is not directly supported. Storyline actually does incorporate Three.js as its viewer for 360-degree images but otherwise does not include it as a part of its projects. This Project Since displaying graphics with Three is actually fairly easy, it seems like this is something that would have already been done. Since I couldn’t find much regarding integrating Three with Storyline however, I decided to use this as a test bed for my learning experience. As a disclaimer, I am not a programmer, so my code may be inelegant and inefficient in areas. I also know very little about 3D modeling. My design decisions were based upon what I found interesting or potentially useful and may overlook standard practices or some key features that one might expect. Feel free to comment. The Model Viewer I broke this project into two parts. Both are created within Storyline modules. One is a model viewer template that you can use to display two varieties of 3D model files (GL/GLTF and OBJ models). It accommodates a configuration option (list of variables in a trigger) which allows you to customize many aspects of how the model is displayed on your slide. You can include multiple models, each with their own configuration, and switch between them. The size of the model viewer matches the container object on your slide, so it can be sized to your needs. The template module is pretty simple, with a viewer container, some JavaScript, and a handful of triggers and variables. I’ve included the project file for the viewer. You should either be able to adapt it directly or incorporate its parts into your own projects. The Display Customizer The second part is another, more complicated Storyline module. This component can be used to customize how your model is visualized. I linked much of the viewer’s functionality to a collection of Storyline controls, spread across multiple slide layers. Once you have your model setup and adjusted to your liking, you can export a block of JavaScript that represents all of the settings used in the viewer’s configuration options. You will copy and paste this into one of your viewer’s project triggers. Combined with your model files, this enables the 3D viewer to reproduce what you designed for display on your slide. Of course, you can also manually edit the configuration options if you desire, but for anything more than minor edits, this is far easier. Due to its complexity (4000+ lines of script and several hundred variables and triggers), I have not shared the project file. I will, however, leave an active link to the published module that you can use to set up your models. The Details (for anyone who cares) Inspiration for this project came from the following sources: https://threejs.org/docs/ https://threejs-journey.com/ https://github.com/donmccurdy/three-gltf-viewer https://community.articulate.com/discussions/discuss/drag-and-drop-objects-into-storyline/994181 https://github.com/Sphinxxxx/vanilla-picker Model Viewer The viewer module consists of A web object containing your model files and some JavaScript A viewer rectangle on your slide with its accessibility text set to “glb” A few variables A few triggers, including a main JavaScript routine and some configuration options The Web Object We will use a web object to include your model files and the Three.js base code into your project. While Storyline can load a version of Three when needed, it is older and lacks many of the additional resources we need. The script in the web is a custom bundle of the current Three components we need in this project, along the js-beautify library. The functions and classes are made available as global variables under window. Using a static version ensures that everything works together even if Three issues updates that break interactions. You also will include copies of your model resources. The configuration script specifies the base model files for the viewer. Additional files are typically referenced from within the base files. It is easiest if you create a folder for each model, and place all of the related files inside that folder, inside the web object folder. The viewer supports GLB, GLTF, and OBJ models. GLB models are typically one file with everything embedded. GLTF models often have additional texture files associated with it. Preserve any file structure that came with your model (i.e., If your textures are in their own folder, leave them there. If they are at the same level as the model file, leave them there. Also don’t change any of their names. You can rename the GLTF or GLB files and their containing folder, but they must match what is listed in the configuration script. OBJ models usually require several files. Include them all unless you know they are not needed. Final renders and reference images are not normally needed. As with GLB and GLTF, OBJ model files can be renamed but must match the configuration script. There is also an MTL file that should use the same name as the OBJ file (this allows the script to find this file). Don’t rename the texture files unless you know they need to be changed. Note: If you download models from places like CG Trader, Turbo Squid, or Sketchfab then sometimes the textures are separate from the models, or the filenames don’t match what is specified within the GLTF or MTL files. You may have to manually locate and/or rename the texture files. Sometimes you might need to edit the texture specs inside MTL files as well. If you make your own models, then I’ll assume you have what you need. You can also include optional environmental textures, which can provide lighting information and visual backgrounds within the viewer. These are supported as EXR, HDR, JPEG, PNG, and GIF files. If you include these, create a folder inside your main model folder called myEnvMaps and put the required environmental texture files inside this folder. Finally, add an empty text file to the web object folder and rename it to index.html. Once the web object folder is ready, add it to your project in scene 2. Note: Anytime you change the contents of the web object folder, you need to follow ALL of the steps below. Delete the existing web object Insert the new web object (browser to the folder, set to open in new window) Move web object to bottom of timeline list Publish the single slide in scene 2. Click the Load Now button to open the web object page Copy the portion of the URL text matching story_content/WebObjects/[random characters]/ Make sure to include the trailing “/” Paste this value into the dataFolder variable The Viewer Rectangle Create a rectangle. Fill and outline don’t matter, as it will be removed when published. Right-click on the shape’s timeline entry, select accessibility, and edit the text to read glb. You can change this value in the tagViewerContainer variable. This rectangle can be any size or shape and placed wherever on the slide. Variables and Triggers Make sure all of the variables listed in the viewer template project are included in your project. There is one trigger on the slide master. It loads the JavaScript for Three (from the web object). On the base slide, there is one trigger for the main JavaScript viewer routine. For each model you wish to display, there is one additional JavaScript trigger that sets the configuration options. You can generate new text for these triggers using the display customization module. Display Customizer The viewer has many options. Most are built into the Three objects used to display the model. A few are specific to this viewer implementation. You can manually edit the configuration trigger for each model if desired, changing values to fine tune your viewer. For large scale changes or initial setup, you might want to use the display customizer module (linked above). Loading Models The interface consists of a viewport on the left and various controls on the right. To load a model, you can drag and drop one or more files or a folder onto the viewport (or drop new files later to change models). The viewer will try to find and load the model and all of it associated textures and environment files. Dropping the files is convenient as an interface, but it requires extra processing to access the files. Since some of the model files can be large, it might take several seconds before everything gets loaded. Also keep in mind that all of the processing is done in the browser on your computer. If your machine is not very robust, then processing times may be longer. If in doubt, open and watch the browser’s inspector panel console to see if there are errors related to loading the files; especially when trying to load new models. Sometimes you don’t have all the files you need or they’re in the wrong folder. You will see what files the viewer is looking for, and if they are found. If unexpected problems occur, try reloading the browser window. Feel free to comment here if you discover recurrent error conditions. Base settings The base settings panel provides the main interface. You can see and control key aspects of lighting, as well as environmental, animation, and shadow conditions. You can also adjust the viewport aspect ratio in case you need something that is not square. Lighting Unless you set up an environment to provide illumination, you will need some lights to see your model. There are four types of lighting available. Ambient is equivalent to overhead sunlight. The other three types offer up to four light sources each. The controls show the colors. The corners control specific features (see the Help button for details). Right click on each square to get additional options. Each light type has its own options. There is a color picker to set your desired color. Making changes will be immediately visible in the viewport. If you can’t see a change, you may need to adjust the intensity or the positioning of the light. There is an option for a helper, which is a visual representation of the light shape and position. Turn this on to help you set up the lights. Syncing Lights Since the viewer offers the ability to orbit the camera around your model, lighting usually remains static in relation to your model (i.e., the model and lights appear to rotate together in the viewer). A custom feature in this implementation is the ability to sync your lights to the camera so they also move around your model, creating interesting effects. This can be enabled for each individual light, in two different sync styles. Lights may be made relative to the camera position, so they appear to remain in one place in 3D space. They may also be synced in the direction of the camera, at a fixed distance. This is similar to having a flashlight trained on your model as you view it. You can also specify whether each light will generate shadows. This can add realism to your displays. Shadows require significant processing, so use them sparingly to prevent laggy performance. Other Settings Other settings, including rotation direction and speed, environment controls, intensities, and animations are available. Animations seem to work with GLB/GLTF models. OBJ models do not support animation directly. Try out the various controls on your model to see the effects. Export Settings When you have set up your model as desired, you can use the Loader Settings button to export a copy of the current settings snapshot. These include the model filenames and camera positions (like a snapshot). Make sure things are in the position that you want them to start before you click the button. You will see a long list of settings that can be highlighted and copied. This will get pasted into the options trigger in the Model Viewer module. See the triggers attached to the example buttons in the demo file. You can also load and save copies of settings as session data in your browser. This could be useful if you have commonly used settings you want to reuse, or if you want to pick up where you left off on the previous day. Note, these are local to your machine and browser. They will not be available elsewhere. You can also Apply the loaded or the default settings to the current model if desired. The Defaults when Drop Loading checkbox indicates if newly dropped model files will use the current settings or the default start-up settings, in case you prefer one over the other. Technical Notes (thanks for reading this far) Loading Files The Model Viewer uses physical model files included with your published project. This increases your project size but improves the loading speed of the models on the slide. The Display Customizer uses a file drop mechanism to make it easier to switch between random models. This works by parsing through the files or folders dropped and converting them into URL blobs. The blobs act like internal web addresses pointing to each of your files. Large files, especially environment textures or complex models, may take a bit to fully process and load (the Burger model for example). When you utilize the Model viewer for your final product, performance should be better since you only need a single set of files, and they are included locally. You could potentially modify the Viewer script to allow for loading from external URLs rather than local files, but I have not done that yet. Environments Environment textures are 360-degree images, similar to what you use in Storyline. The format can be EXR, HDR, JPEG, PNG, or GIF. This only supports equirectangular, 2:1 images. EXR and HDR files tend to be very large, so keep that in mind. When using an environment Three infers lighting information from the selected image, making external lights unnecessary. If you want to use additional lights, you will need to lower the Environment Intensity setting so the lights don’t get washed out. The environment does not need to be visible to have an effect. If you want it visualized, then the image will replace the background color. Since the focus is really on your model, it is normal for the environment background to be somewhat blurred. Using low resolution images as textures will make this much more pronounced. If you wanted to have crisp images in the background, I believe you would need to modify the script to project the image onto a sphere instead, as you would when displaying 360-degree images (maybe I’ll add this later). OBJ Models My understanding is limited, but environments don’t project properly (or at all) onto imported OBJ models. You can display them, but they provide no lighting effects. Supposedly you can apply the environment textures to the meshes within the model, but I couldn’t get that to work. My approach, awkward but I like the outcome, is to replace all of the meshes in the loaded OBJ model with new meshes, apply the existing settings, and make some adjustments to shine and gloss settings on the fly. This results in a final model that responds to your environment lighting. I found that the test models I downloaded all seemed to come out super glossy. I added a few simple steps to calculate relative gloss levels between the model components and applied an overall adjustment to set it to a reasonable level. I was happy with the test results. Your mileage may vary. If your OBJ models don’t come out as you expected, you may need to adjust the MTL file to fine tune the output. I’ve also found that many OBJ model files (the MTL in particular) contain erroneous paths or incorrect textures assigned to material properties. If your model looks all white, black, grey or some odd color, check the MTL file (it’s plain text) and verify the data. Fix any broken paths, check to see if textures are supposed to be in their own directory, and make sure the correct textures are assigned. Particularly the lines starting with “map_”. These assign the texture images to material properties. Look at the actual texture images, the MTL file, and the Wavefront reference linked below. Play around with different settings to see if you can get it to look like it’s supposed to. See this link for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file. Lastly, the OBJ models don’t support animations like GLB/GLTF models. Even if your source says the model is animated, that may only apply to other model formats. You may be able to convert another animated version to a GLB format online, or by using Blender. Performance Remember that JavaScript runs on the user’s machine. Everything that Three and this viewer script does happens locally. Don’t overburden your model viewer with an abundance of processing requirements if you don’t think the end users’ machine can handle it. Light syncing and shadow display require extra processing. If you use them, do so sparingly to make an impactful point. Not every light needs a shadow to look realistic. Also, only include the files that are really needed in the final product. Extra environment textures just take up room and slow down website loading times. Excessively high-resolution images do the same and may not be needed. Downloaded models may include extraneous files unrelated to display needs. If you’re not sure they are needed, try removing them and see if everything still works. Only include those that are required. Customization There is a Storyline variable in the project called viewer. This holds a reference to the model viewer. Many of the settings seen in the Display Customizer can be accessed and modified using this variable. If you desire, you could add your own script that loads this viewer object and allows you to directly change settings. Things like turning lights on or off, changing colors, changing positions, starting or stopping rotation or animation, and moving the camera are all easily modifiable, giving you extra control on how your model behaves. You will need to reference the configuration settings script, the main viewer JavaScript trigger, and the Three documentation website (linked above) to understand the possibilities. Limitations There are a lot of moving parts in this project (quite literally with the 3D models). The Display Customizer module is quite complicated, and building something like this inside Storyline is not recommended for the faint of heart. It required 4 weeks, on and off, from concept to this beta version. There are undoubtedly logic errors and code conflicts that I have not discovered yet. This project is provided as is, with no guarantees. If you experience an issue, post a comment. I will look into it eventually and fix it if I can. I may post updates if I fix bugs or add any features. The models included as examples were all available for free from the CG Trader, Turbo Squid, or Sketchfab websites. You can download others or use your own. I could not get FBX models to work properly and lost interest in them. THREE seems to work best with GLB/GLTF models. I like the OBJ models as well since they are easy to manually examine and modify. Additional FIles Web object used in project file (holds Three.js and the example models. https://paedagogus.org/3DModelViewer/Web_Object.zip Additional sample models to experiment with. https://paedagogus.org/3DModelViewer/Other_Sample_Models.zipDrawing Annotation on Storyline Slide
Demo: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/518383b2-1161-408d-b9f5-adb9a6f57a11/review Inspired by code discussed on: https://img.ly/blog/how-to-draw-on-an-image-with-javascript/ Using Charts in your Storyline | Articulate - Community About This is a brief example of using an HTML canvas element to enable annotation on a Storyline slide. The example displays an image on a slide, sets a few variables, and the accessibility tags of a some slide objects. It then triggers a JavaScript trigger to create a canvas over the image, and then watches the mouse buttons and movement to allow drawing on the canvas. How it works A canvas element is created, filled with the specified base image, and inserted below a small rectangle (canvasAnchor) that is the same width as and placed directly above the image. Another rectangle (canvasClickArea) overlays and is sized to match the image. This is the area that allows drawing on the canvas (where the mouse is watched). Brush width and color can be controlled. The drawing can be cleared. It also resizes with the slide. To improve The events to watch the mouse and clear button should be better handled to allow removal when a new canvas is created. A mechanism to allow a blank base (clear) should be reinstated. Right now it just relies on the use of the initial image from the slide. Both options have their uses. Since the canvas is a raster image, resizing to very small and then very large results in poor image quality. The image can be extracted from the canvas. This could be saved or printed. More drawing options are available with the canvas element. Credit: X-ray images from https://learningradiology.com/Astrocat has had its time. Make way for the wiener!
DavidAnderson ... Let’s talk about the real issue in eLearning today: Why is the Articulate AI pet still Astrocat? Don’t get me wrong, space cats are cool. But you know what’s cooler? Wiener dogs. Long. Loyal. Low to the ground. Basically the instructional designers of the animal world. So I’m launching this petition to replace Astrocat with a wiener dog as the next Articulate AI mascot. Let’s call it... AstroWiener? Share your pet, or a link to their page (all instructional designers have created a page for their pets lol). Bonus points if they look like @David Anderson or could host a webinar!😅 Let’s make eLearning history, one tiny sausage dog at a time!Seemingly nothing non-AI in development
I’ve noticed for quite a while that the Features Roadmap hasn’t shown much beyond AI and localization. That trend continues today; the current roadmap only lists four items, and they’re all either AI Assistant or localization-related. What’s frustrating is that some popular items that were previously listed on the roadmap (like the expanded color palette for Rise) were removed without ever being implemented. Meanwhile, Storyline and Rise have so much room for improvement, and there are plenty of highly requested features from the community. It really feels like Articulate has moved away from updates or new features that aren’t tied to AI or localization. While those areas matter, they shouldn’t be the only focus. There’s still a huge need for improvements in Storyline and Rise that the community has been asking for.I made a Google Chrome plugin for Articulate Rise color swatches!
While I was at Articuland, sitting in all the amazing sessions, I noticed a theme come up again and again: style guides. (Shoutout AlyssaGomez !) Presenters were showing how they use them for everything, but what really stuck with me was how often swatches were being used to grab hex code colors from PowerPoint or a specially crafted Rise lesson. Even though it worked, it still felt a little clunky and slow to me. So in between sessions I started building what would become BuddyBar. It’s a Chrome extension that adds a neat little bar at the top of your Articulate Rise courses. With one click you can copy your primary, secondary, and accent colors. You can also save templates to reuse across courses. I posted about it on my Linkedin and Reddit and people seemed interested in it so I submitted it to the Chrome store! It’s the first app/extension I’ve vibe coded that might actually be useful for more people than just me. Check out the video I made below showing what it can do!
Cornerstone Users: How are you dealing with the incoming 2025 force use for One Player?
Hey all, we use CSOD for our learning experience with mostly Articulate courses. We've got the One Player force put off until November but we're seeing that the experience with One Player and the Articulate courses isn't great (hello, three scroll bars on one single page)...has anyone else figured out a work around for this sub par experience yet? Random picture of my dogs for discussion board "tax"...Auto-Generate PDF Certificates in Storyline (No HTML Edits Needed)
UPDATE August 20, 2025: I uploaded the new version of the file I've been using. It adds a layer for the learner to double-check their name, then blocks them from editing the name again if they download the certificate, in order to prevent multiple people from generating the certificate. I recently developed a way to generate a certificate PDF in Storyline without having to edit the published files. That means it works even in Storyline Preview and Review 360, and it's simple enough to use as a team-wide template. I drew inspiration from Devlin Peck’s tutorial, but updated the code to follow current JavaScript standards and removed the need to modify output files manually. You’ll find the full code and a sample .story file at the bottom of this post. If you like it or have any suggestions for improvement, let me know! You can also see an example version of it in action here, using a simple certificate template from Canva: https://philwingfield.com/wp-content/certificate-generator/story.html Table of Contents: What You’ll Need Define Your Storyline Variables Certificate Background Image Changing Orientation to Portrait Placing Text on the Certificate Naming the PDF File Triggering the Script in Storyline Troubleshooting TL;DR Full Code .story File (attached to post) What You’ll Need Storyline (obviously!) A background image for your certificate (.jpg or .png, set to A4 size) Recommended: Some sort of code reader such as Visual Studio Code Somewhere to upload the certificate file for testing, such as AWS (though there are instructions for local storage below under the Certificate Background Image header) Define Your Storyline Variables You’ll need to set up the Storyline variables that will be pulled into the certificate. Here are the variables I used: Storyline Variable Purpose UserName Learner’s name (typed in by the user) CHANGECourseName Course name (manually set per course) CHANGECreditHours Number of credit hours (manually set) ⚠️ Variable names are case-sensitive. userName ≠ UserName. I made this as a template for our team, so the variables beginning with CHANGE are the ones they will change manually when using the template in a course by changing the values of these variables: The current date is handled inside the JavaScript, so you don’t need to create a date variable in Storyline. Here’s how the script pulls in those values: This line gets us ready to pull the variables from storyline, and the next few lines redefine the Storyline variables as JavaScript variables: const player = GetPlayer(); And then this line pulls the value of the UserName variable from Storyline and stores it in a new JavaScript constant called name (a constant is a type of variable that does not change later) const name = player.GetVar(“UserName”); So then we do that with all the variables: const player = GetPlayer(); const name = player.GetVar("UserName"); const course = player.GetVar("CHANGECourseName"); const hours = String(player.GetVar("CHANGECreditHours")); If you need to pull in other variables, follow the same pattern. There is another variable, date, which is defined in the code itself in lines 20-24 and returns the current date. It does not need to be input to Storyline. You could also pull in quiz data if you like. In Storyline, make a number variable on the last slide (I'll call it score) and make a trigger to set score equal to the internal variable Quiz1.ScorePercent when the timeline starts. Then you could use something like this code after line 10: const score = player.GetVar("score")+"%"; The +"%" part will append a % sign to the end, so a learner answering 4/5 correctly will display as 80% instead of just 80. Don't forget to tell jsPDF where to draw it during the Placing Text on the Certificate section below! Certificate Background Image You’ll need a background image for your certificate — It should be sized as A4 landscape (297mm x 210mm)***. Make sure to leave space for where the name, course name, date, and number of credit hours can go. Note that jsPDF will compress the background image, so I would recommend doubling the photo size to 594x420mm if you want the higher resolution, or even tripling it. It will look less blurry when it is scaled down. Here’s an example background you can view (hosted via S3): 📎 certificate_example.png (Note: I may not maintain this file indefinitely.) To load the image in the code, host it somewhere with public access (like AWS with a direct link), and reference the URL like this on line 2: const CERT_BG_IMG_URL = "https://yourhost.com/your_image.png"; Alternatively, you can reference an image placed locally in the story_content folder after publishing and reference it as “/story_content/your_image_name.jpg”, but that will not work in Preview or Review 360. ***The defaults for a standard 8.5x11" are 216mmx280mm. jsPDF will convert your image to the correct size as defined in line 70, so the certificate may be slightly distorted if you don't use A4 sizing. Changing Orientation to Portrait There are 2 steps if you want to change your image to portrait instead of landscape. In line 62: remove orientation: 'landscape' so it is just curly brackets: {} The default for jsPDF is portrait A4, so we only need to define it as landscape if we want it that way. In line 70: change the size of the imported image. Swap the 297 and 210 in that line (the x and y lengths) so it reads (img, 0, 0, 210, 297) This will force whatever image you import to be 210mm wide and 297mm high, so make sure you change line 2 from the URL for my certificate to whatever certificate you have, or else it will be distorted. Make sure that your portrait image is portrait A4 as well. 🚧 CORS Warning If you’re hosting the image online, make sure CORS is enabled in the hosting service so it can load locally and in preview mode. For AWS: 🔗 Enable CORS in Amazon S3 If your PDF shows text but no background image, this may be why. The script is written to fall back and still display text if the image fails to load. Placing Text on the Certificate You’ll manually position the text using jsPDF’s .text() function. Here's an example: doc.setFont("times", "bold"); doc.setFontSize(30); doc.text(name, doc.internal.pageSize.width / 2, 130, { align: 'center' }); .setFont() – sets the font and weight. There are 14 accepted fonts from jsPDF, and you can see the parameters in the image below, taken from the jsPDF documentation: If you want to import custom fonts, Devlin Peck once again has a good tutorial: https://www.devlinpeck.com/content/jspdf-custom-font .setFontSize() – sets the font size .text() – 4 fields separated by commas which let you define the text (in this case it is the variable “name,” which was defined earlier in line 14), the x coordinate from the left, the y coordinate from the top, and then the alignment in reference to that coordinate. Note that the x coordinate in the example above uses a formula to place it in the exact center of the document from left to right. The y coordinate, 130, means it is 130mm from the top. To determine where your text should go: Open your certificate background in Canva, GIMP, or another editor Use guides or measurement tools to identify the X/Y positions. For example, in this screenshot, I had a line drawn in canva, opened the position editor, and could see the y coordinate at 129.97mm for the end where the name would go. So, it is entered as 130 in the text() function Use those values in the .text() calls in your script You can also preview your placement by: Pressing F12 to open the console in preview, review 360, or a published course. Copying and pasting your entire code into the console. Then you can paste again and quickly adjust the x/y coordinates until you get it fine-tuned. This is also a good way to check for console errors if the download is not happening (copying and pasting the console error message into google is how I discovered the CORS issue from above). Naming the PDF File Line 54 defines the filename for the downloaded certificate: doc.save(`${name}_${course}_certificate.pdf`); The ${} symbols simply allow you to call a variable, in this case name and course. If you wanted to make it a static name, you could replace that with something like: doc.save("Course Certificate.pdf"); Triggering the Script in Storyline Use a Storyline trigger like this: Make sure this happens after the learner has entered their name, or the UserName variable won’t have any value. In my example file, the js script is triggered when the certificate generation layer is opened and the learner clicks the "Continue to Download" button. I also have another js script set to execute when the timeline begins on the base layer (it makes the variable update as the user types their name, rather than after they click off of the field). Make sure you are editing the one tied to the download button. If the download button won't appear for some reason, then just set the button's initial state to normal instead of hidden. A.I. Troubleshooting As of 2025, generative AI like chatGPT and deepseek excels at catching things like syntax errors (e.g., missing a bracket), cleaning up code, or giving solutions to a very targeted question asking how to arrive at a very particular result. It can be an exercise in frustration if you don't have a clear idea of what you want the result to be, and you often have to help it troubleshoot yourself if something doesn't work. However, it is an excellent tool, especially for people like me who have a hobbyist-level understanding of JavaScript. Here are some suggested question types for how to use generative AI to troubleshoot - I find it works best when you ask the entire question at once, otherwise it won't wait and will just start generating: - "Why isn't [wanted action] happening when I run this code: [paste entire script]?" - "This script below gives me the date format as MM/DD/YYYY. How can I change it to the full written month name, like July 4, 2025? [paste the part of the script that generates the date variable]" - "The script isn't running at all. What's the issue with this code? [paste entire script]" - "How can I make a record of each time someone generates a certificate?" - "I want to change the color of the course title. How can I do that? [paste section that draws the text]" - "Explain line by line in detail what this section of code you gave me does [paste the code that it gave you]" Just keep in mind that generative AI will confirm what you ask and will often have on blinders about your issue. When you go to someone experienced and explain what you're doing to solve a problem, that person will often be able to give you a completely different way to approach it that's simpler and more elegant. Generative AI will almost never do that. Instead, it will dig into the method that you were trying and attempt to make THAT work, even if it is overly complicated or will never actually function. TL;DR Set up your Storyline variables Add a background image to your certificate Use jsPDF to place Storyline variables over it Trigger the script No need to modify published files Works in Preview and Review 360 as well as published outputs Generative AI is a great troubleshooter (to an extent) Full Code // --- CONFIGURABLE SETTINGS --- // const CERT_BG_IMG_URL = "https://philwingfield.com/wp-content/open-content/certificate_example.png"; // Background image URL (A4 landscape: 297mm x 210mm) // --- LOAD jsPDF LIBRARY DYNAMICALLY --- // const script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jspdf/3.0.1/jspdf.umd.min.js"; /** * Main logic to generate the certificate PDF after jsPDF loads. */ script.onload = () => { // --- GET VARIABLES FROM STORYLINE --- // const player = GetPlayer(); const name = player.GetVar("UserName"); const course = player.GetVar("CHANGECourseName"); const hours = String(player.GetVar("CHANGECreditHours")); // --- FORMAT CURRENT DATE --- // const now = new Date(); const dd = String(now.getDate()); const mm = String(now.getMonth() + 1); const yyyy = now.getFullYear(); const formattedDate = `${mm}/${dd}/${yyyy}`; /** * Draws the certificate text on the PDF. * @param {jsPDF} doc - The jsPDF document instance. */ function drawText(doc) { // User Name doc.setFont("times", "bold"); doc.setFontSize(30); doc.text(name, doc.internal.pageSize.width / 2, 130, { align: 'center' }); // Credit Hours doc.setFont("times", "normal"); doc.setFontSize(20); doc.text(hours, 233, 150, { align: 'left' }); // Course Name doc.setFontSize(30); doc.setTextColor(0, 0, 0); doc.setFont("times", "bold"); doc.text(course, doc.internal.pageSize.width / 2, 88, { align: 'center' }); // Date doc.setFont("times", "normal"); doc.setFontSize(24); doc.text(formattedDate, 210.64, 176.89, { align: 'left' }); // Save PDF doc.save(`${name}_${course}_certificate.pdf`); // format of the saved document name } /** * Generates the PDF, adds background image, and overlays text. */ async function generatePDF() { const { jsPDF } = window.jspdf; const doc = new jsPDF({ orientation: 'landscape'}); // Load background image const img = new Image(); img.src = CERT_BG_IMG_URL; img.crossOrigin = "anonymous"; img.onload = function () { doc.addImage(img, 0, 0, 297, 210); // Defines position and size in mm or image drawText(doc); }; // Skips background image loading if not available; check for CORS permissions img.onerror = function () { console.warn("Failed to load certificate background image. Continuing without it."); drawText(doc); // Proceed without background }; } generatePDF(); }; // --- APPEND SCRIPT TO LOAD jsPDF --- // document.head.appendChild(script);Links to external files break when the author is not the publisher
Before I start, check out this link to a Storyline project I created that illustrates the problem: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/92a6cce9-5da1-46e6-80c5-b6a346be23b4/review Password: PROBLEMS The Situation An author (call them Author1) creates a Storyline file. This file has some slides with triggers that open an external file stored on their local computer. Then, this author gets a new job and leaves the company. Another person is hired to take over Author1's duties. We will call this person Publisher1 They open the file, finish working on it, and publish. They upload as normal to their LMS. The Problem Now, when the users access the published content, none of the triggers to those external files work. Why? Because they were local file paths on Author1's computer. Those file paths don't point to the file from Publisher1's computer. The Current Workaround The solution that is currently provided by Storyline is to add those files to the resources tab first, so they get copied into the Storyline file itself. Then, when you create a link on the slide trigger, you need to remember to type in story_content/external_files/MyFile.pdf. Worse, if you need to replace the file with another file that has a different filename, you need to remember to change it in TWO places (Resources and the triggers on the slides). We Need a Better Solution This is not an elegant or easy solution for many people. It is prone to typos and it is hard to remember the exact text you must type in each time. I'd expect it to work properly without having to remember this "one weird trick". Has anyone found a better solution? There are discussions going back 9 years on this forum asking for a fix and as far as I can tell, it's still an issue. Here are some of them: Relative File/URL Links | Articulate - Community Broken links /path to external pdf-files | Articulate - Community Resources and URLs | Articulate - Community I work for a company with over 70,000 employees. We create hundreds of trainings each year. Some of them have over 100 slides. Doing this manually is not an option. I wish the Media Library allowed us to add external files with the same method we use for audio and video files. Those files would be imported directly into the Storyline file and everything would be embedded/linked during publishing using relative file directory paths instead of fully resolved paths on the local computer doing the publishing. The Resources tab does this today, we just need to be able to do this without the "one weird trick" method. It should just work.Simplified Approach to Adding Transparent Videos to Storyline
Demo: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/6534ea7f-0df5-4a02-813b-70811843fbf0/review Updated: Added an option for overall video transparency. Allows for see-through videos. For example, if you wanted to project them against a surface, like a wall, or overlay them onto a graphic background. Disclaimer Some time ago, Matt Kurtin published some instructions on adding webM videos to storyline to support transparent videos. Other discussions have also addressed this issue, utilizing web objects to contain transparent videos inside Storyline. I typically used web object for my projects, but recently developed an approach very similar to Matt's to make handling transparent videos more flexible. See: https://www.innovativelg.com/resources/enabling-videos-with-transparent-backgrounds-in-articulate-storyline/ I had not actually read his article before making this. I do want to acknowledge his work though. My approach expands upon the concept somewhat. Transparency on the web Videos with transparent videos are popular online. They are great for overlaying action onto otherwise static backgrounds. Support for transparent video formats is limited by your browser, however. A widely supported, but quite old format is webM. This uses the V9 codec, and it supports an alpha channel, which provides the transparency option. It is supported by the primary Windows browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.). These browsers on a Mac also support webM. The Safari browser on a Mac does not support webM, however. It supports an HEVC format that can be packaged as an MP4. Incidentally, the codec is tied to Mac hardware, so you cannot generate transparent video in this format unless you have Mac hardware (unfortunately for Windows users). To fully support both platforms, you need to offer both formats. Storyline and Transparency Storyline currently does not directly support video transparency. Import options are limited and any inserted videos are converted to a uniform format during publication. Even if you are able to insert a video that includes an alpha channel, it will be lost when published. The Web Object Approach My traditional approach to inserting transparent videos into Storyline has been to load them into web objects and display them as if they were their own webpages. This way, I could use any format you wanted. I would place the video files and an index.html containing the webpage structure into the web object. Controlling these from Storyline could be difficult but was doable. The biggest problem with web objects, however, is that they don’t render during the design phase, and properly sizing what they contained could be a hassle, requiring a lot of trial and error. Overall, using web objects was fairly straightforward, but cumbersome. An Alternative Approach Here, I offer another approach to inserting transparent videos into Storyline. This method still uses web objects to convey the video files into the Storyline project but is more friendly on the design side. Technically, you could also modify this solution to accommodate using the URLs of web-hosted videos and eliminate the web objects all together. I’ll leave that to you to play with. For this method, we insert a video (any video clip will do, since we’re not really using it) into our slide in one of the usual manners. I use the default Storyline settings of Show Video in Slide, Play Automatically, and Show No Controls. We will then simply replace the video source specified by Storyline with one of our own, using our transparent video and some JavaScript. Since this is done in real-time, after the project is published, Storyline does not prevent us from utilizing our transparent video formats. As long as we have access to the video files, we can use them instead. I mentioned that any video can be inserted to start. You should use a video with the same dimensions as your desired video, so the proportions are correct. You could also just resize the video placeholder to the appropriate dimensions. You can use a version of your actual video if you want. I just create a very short clip from my video, maybe the first few frames, and insert that. That way it remains small. It’s just a placeholder after all. Benefits The benefit of this approach is that the video is now easy to reposition and resize on your slide, without having to hassle with modifying and possibly re-inserting your web object each time. Any changes to the video’ size and position will be reflected in the transparent video that is swapped in to replace it. You also still have control over the video player through Storyline, without having to take extra steps. Making it Work Add a Poster: On the design side, in Storyline we can specify the image displayed by the inserted video placeholder. You just right click the video and click on Set Poster Frame. Create an image (for example, a single frame of your video) that is saved as a transparent .png file. Make the image the same dimensions as your video. This way, the displayed video placeholder will accurately represent your video. Accessibility Tag: You will need to edit the Accessibility tag for the video in SL (right click on the video in the timeline). Make the tag the same as the actual filename of your transparent video, without the extension. For example, for “Petals.webm”, just use Petals as the tag (no quotes). If you include both a .webm and an .mp4 version of your video file, make sure the base filename is the same. Create Transparent Videos: You need to have transparent videos ready. You can make your own or convert some green screen videos that can be downloaded from the web or through the Storyline media library. You will need a way to key out the green screen and then convert the video formats to webM (from Chrome, etc.) or HEVC MP4 (for Safari). If you have Adobe products, then After Effects and Premiere would work. You can also use the free version of Davinci Resolve to remove green screen in videos. Search for “3D Keyer Davinci Resolve” on YouTube for help. Save in ProRes format with the include alpha channel option checked. Output will be a .MOV file. These are very large, which is why it’s best to convert them into HEVC MP4s with a smaller size for web use, if you are supporting Safari. If you have access to a Mac, you might be able to use something like Rotato Converter to create both WEBM and HEVC MP4 formats. For shorter clips, you could use a free online converter (for example, https://www.aconvert.com/video/mov-to-webm/). This will convert the transparent MOV file into a webM file. You can also adjust the bitrate. Adobe Premiere can export webM with alpha using a plugin (https://www.fnord.com/). This is what I use to create webM files, make short placeholder clips, and extract a single frame to use as the poster image. Create the Web Object: The transparent video files should have the same base name, one that matches the accessibility tag you assign to the Storyline video. These go into the web object folder, along with an empty index.html file. This folder gets inserted into your Storyline project (say in a separate scene). See this discussion for more details on getting and setting the woFolder name inside Storyline. Notes on accessing files inside a web object: See the last section of this article Set the vidParameters Variable: This passes the details to the JavaScript that swaps the video on your slide. It specifies the identifying tag and other features such as autoplay, muting, and time indexes. It uses a string of text with commas separating each field. The script and this variable set up the initial swap of video when your slide loads and can also control your video further while your slide is visible, if you desire. See slide #1 in the demo to see how this works. The tag name is required, all the other fields are optional. Trigger the Script: Trigger the JavaScript to create the initial swap. For control later, place a “C” in the second field, and model the variable string as shown on Slide #1. Slide #2 shows a very simple example, with the minimum elements needed to make the video swap work. The buttons shown on the slide are optional. It should work on Chrome, Firefox, etc. browsers (I did not include the transparent Safari file). You can find the clip in Storyline by searching for “petals green” under insert video. Slide #1 should work on Safari as well, although I did not have a Mac handy to check. The clip was from another project. I’ve attached a sample .story file and the web object folder used in the demo. The script is commented. Feel free to modify it as you see fit. Still can't attach the zip file. https://paedagogus.org/VidSwapRsc/woFolder+Project.zip
