Using Animated Characters in eLearning

"Designing An Exercise Routine" title showing two people exercising

Challenge #163 calls for the use of animated characters in eLearning. I went back and forth about the character I was going to use and finally decided on characters that animated the movements of physical exercises.

The Method

Most of the work for this challenge happened outside of Storyline. I started with some vector images of people exercising. In Illustrator, I ungrouped the image, made copies, and then rotated limbs around to show movement. Once I had the full range of motion represented, I exported the .pngs.

Screenshot of Illustrator showing two characters in a variety of poses

 

I imported the sets of images into Photoshop to create .gifs, as described by David Charney from eLearning Locker in this video. Since I only had a few images per person, it was pretty easy to figure out the timing of the .gif and what would look most realistic. To finish, I chose to make the .gifs loop forever.

Screenshot showing GIF creation process in Photoshop

 

Once I had the finished .gifs, the build in Storyline was very simple. I inserted the .gifs and didn’t have to worry about any animations or motion paths for the characters.

Character with dumbbell weights and instructions for performing side lateral raise exercise

The Result

Click here to see the full interaction.

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