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TheLearningHubNV
Participating Frequently
December 29, 2015
Answered

Creating a custom avatar the learner can choose at the beginning of the e-learning

  • December 29, 2015
  • 2 replies
  • 1930 views

We are currently developing an e-learning in Captivate where the learner has the choice to create a custom avatar to use throughout the e-learning. The learner can choose between gender, skin colour, hair colour and outfit. This results in 54 different avatars. We are now coming to the conclusion that we have to develop 54 similar projects but each with a different avatar. The e-learning itself is also quite complex so the development time will be huge. Is there any other way then developing the e-learning 54 times (javascript might be an option but we don’t have this expertise at this moment)?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer RodWard

    Guys, we realize that we made a wrong judgement regarding the workload, but we have to make to best out of this because we made a committent to the client. So every advice or possible solution is more then welcome.


    OK then, here is my advice:

    • Using an MP4 instead of a PNG is a bad idea.  You will be wasting enormous amounts of bandwidth and most likely compromise the user experience with slow download and playback times.  An image will always be easier to work with than a video.
    • If there are only so many components to these avatars and you can assemble each avatar using a small subset of images (body, face, hair, etc), then you can place all of them on an early slide, set all of them to be timed for Rest of Project, and then control their visibility for the duration of the project via Shared Conditional Actions triggered On Slide Enter of each slide.  This way you can use the same course for all users.
    • If at all possible I suggest you simplify the number of avatar combinations down to just a handful.  If you can do this then you could get away with just having each avatar as an image fully assembled and then shown or hidden by the actions.  This should have very little overall impact on your project published size.

    2 replies

    BDuckWorks
    BDuckWorks
    Inspiring
    December 30, 2015

    I'm curious how this is progressing, as I may have a wrinkle for you.

    Since you mentioned the avatar is going to appear over MP4 video, what you might be able to do is create a customized player, that has the functionality of the avatar customization, which calls a single MP4 file for delivery.

    I've created something similar in years past to show customized hockey equipment, it's a bit of a media management exercise, but shouldn't effect your course development effort too much.

    Is the customer accepting of flash player for delivery?

      T
      TheLearningHubNVAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 31, 2015

      That might be a very interesting solution indeed. Because of the great number of possible avatars, we still have to create a huge amount of MP4 files for each custom avatar. A single MP4 file that includes the functionalities of the avatar customization, might be the perfect solution for this.

      However, unfortunately, the client just recently decided that they will not support flash anymore. You think there are any alternatives (html5) where this will also be possible?

      RodWard
      Community Expert
      RodWardCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 31, 2015

      An MP4 is just a video format.  It's does not include the possibility of building in the same kind of interactivity and programming that you could have used with Flash or SWF.

      HTML5 interactivity is based on JavaScript and CSS.

      If I were you I would be taking your client's recent decision NOT to support Flash content as the reason why you CANNOT deliver what you originally promised and weasel out of the whole nightmare before you get deep into it.  The client's decision is probably well justified by recent developments in the industry and announcements from Adobe itself that Flash should not be used in future.

      Lilybiri
      Lilybiri
      Legend
      December 29, 2015

      Which version do you use? What about using multi-states if you are in Captivate 9? Will the avatar remain the same image throughout the course, once it is chosen?

        T
        TheLearningHubNVAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        December 29, 2015

        We are using Captivate 9. The problem is that we are mainly working with .mp4 files (movie) and less with a .png file (static image) and the multi-states are not possible to apply in an .mp4 file.

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