Creating Character Images in Storyline

Using images of cutout people in a training course can really bring it to life. They are a great for scenarios, case studies, and adding a personal touch.

Articulate Storyline comes pre-packaged with various illustrated and photographic people images. However, you may want to create your own.  In this post I’ll show you how to create storyline characters with multiple poses.

Steps to Create Storyline Characters from scratch

1. Insert an image of a person. (From main navigation choose Insert / Picture)
2. Click on the image and click on the States tab near the bottom of the screen. (Next to Timeline and Notes)
3. Click on Edit States.
4. You are now ready to add the additional poses to your person. Click the Duplicate State button.
5. When the Add State popup widow you can name your new state. You could use words like: Happy, Excited, Applause, Idea, Frustrated, etc.
6. You are now ready to add an image to the new state that you just created. Delete the duplicated image and go to Insert / Picture and choose a new people image to put into your new state. If you called the state “happy” then find a picture that matches that state name.
7. Go ahead and repeat steps 4-6 to add as many poses as you’d like to your character set.
8. When done adding poses, click Done Editing. You now had a character set that you can use in any Storyline course.

Let’s discuss how you’d use this character set.

You can copy this character set onto any slide that you’d like to have a person image. You then use the triggers to change the pose that appears.

Let’s see an example. Let’s say that you have a character set that you created and it has three states: Normal (default first state), Happy (one that you created), Frustrated (another one that you created). You have a question on the slide and two buttons: True and False. When a user clicks on the True button you want the Happy state to appear. When the user clicks False you want the Frustrated state to appear.

1. Copy your character set onto a slide.
2. Create 2 buttons. (Insert / Button) Name one of the buttons True and the other False.
3. Click on the True button and go to the Triggers panel. Click on add trigger.
4. Choose

• Action: Change state of
• On Object: Choose your picture file
• To state: Happy
• When: User clicks
• Then click OK

5.  Do the same steps as above for your False button but choose the Frustrated state.

That’s it! Go ahead and preview your slide. Now imagine having a character set that contains a few more poses. You could build great scenarios and as the user clicks various buttons have different poses appear. This allows you to create some creative content.

You can download my sample Storyline Character file and see what I did.

Also, our eLearning Template Library has lots of Storyline Templates. Templates include pre-built character sets, scenarios, interactions, and slide layouts.