How Can I Turn Content Library 360 Characters into Silhouettes?

One of my favorite things about teaching people how to use Storyline 360 is watching them have an “aha!” moment. Sometimes those moments come when showing a seemingly small trick, which opens up the possibility of building interactions differently. In this post, we’re sharing one of those tricks – turning a Content Library 360 character into a silhouette. And even better, we’ll give you a practical way to use it. So, get ready for an “aha!” moment as we explore this “as heard in training” question: “How can I turn a Content Library 360 character into a silhouette?”

Creating Silhouettes with The Articulate Trainer

You’re probably already using the Content Library 360 characters that come with your Articulate 360 subscription. These characters are a great way to add an avatar or person to go along with the audio narration. Plus, Articulate frequently releases new characters, giving you even more choices for your projects.

We’ll start by going through the process of turning a Content Library 360 character into a silhouette. Then, we’ll show you a cool example of how you can use these silhouettes in an interaction. If you’d like to follow along, you can download the Storyline 360 exercise file.

Making Silhouettes from Characters

Screenshot of the Insert tab with Characters option selected in Storyline 360.

The first step is to pick a character you like and insert it onto your slide. While our example uses a photographic character, the following steps work for illustrated characters too.

Screenshot a female character on a Storyline 360 slide.

From there, access the Format Picture window by right-clicking the character and then choosing Format Picture at the very bottom of the menu.

Or, if you prefer keyboard shortcuts, select the character and then press Control + Enter on your keyboard.

With the Format Picture window open, choose Picture from the tabs on the left.

Screenshot of Format Picture dialog box in Storyline 360, which is described below.

To turn the picture into a silhouette, set the Contrast to -100%. You can also experiment with the Brightness and Transparency settings to adjust the silhouette to your liking, but Contrast is the key for creating the silhouette effect.

Screenshot a female character silhouette on a Storyline 360 slide.
Voila – you now have a silhouetted version of a character! Super easy yet impactful, right? Next, let’s explore one way you could use this trick in your next project.

Using Character Silhouettes

One idea for using silhouettes in e-learning is to create an interactive slide where learners explore different roles within an organization. In this example, we used one of our favorite building blocks of Storyline 360: states!

Screenshot of States for female character in Storyline 360.

First, we added a Selected state to the silhouette.
Then, we changed the Contrast back to 0% in the Format Picture window.

This way when the learner selects the silhouette, the character will transition to its normal, non-silhouette appearance.

Check out our example to see how this all works in practice and creates a great interaction.

Pro Tip: Want the character to have a colored border effect appear on hover? You can add a colored border to the character and play with the direction of the colored shadow on the Format Picture > Shadow tab.

Additional Consideration

Silhouettes can also offer a powerful way to create inclusive e-learning experiences. By stripping away details like clothing, gender, and ethnicity, they allow learners to focus more on the content itself. This approach can minimize distractions and unintended biases, and allow learners to project themselves onto the character for a more relatable and inclusive learning experience.

Hopefully this has sparked some ideas about how you can do something similar in a course you’re working on! If you have other ways of using Content Library 360 characters, let us know! We’d love to hear from you!