A Moment of Calm – The Train Journey

I’ve had an idea for a while now to create an interactive train journey across a tranquil, watercolour nature scene in Storyline. My original plan was for the journey to have a definitive start and end point, navigated by the user using a slider. As the slider moved, the seasons would change outside the window, adding depth to the user experience.

However, with sliders there’s always the temptation to zip across as quickly as possible to see what happens, which I felt would break the immersion. As a result, this concept evolved into the classical radio station tuning project that I developed for ELC#442: Using Background Audio in E-Learning.

I’m delighted that this week’s Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenge, which focused on toggle buttons, inspired me to revisit and evolve this project. In the end, I decided that toggling between day and night offered a subtle yet engaging way to make the scene interactive without overwhelming the senses with too much activity.

I used GSAP extensively for most of the animation and transition effects you see on screen, except for the eye blinking animations. These were late additions, incorporated as animated GIFs created in After Effects.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the capabilities of GSAP within Articulate Storyline for creating custom animation sequences. I’ve spent considerable time researching and experimenting with what the framework can do. I’ve even started to now implement these techniques in my client work, and the results have been fantastic. I’m excited to showcase these projects in the near future.

If you’re an eLearning developer based in the UK and are keen to dive deeper into GSAP yourself, then please consider joining me in Chester (on Weds 29th May 2024) for an in-person eLearning Mastery event hosted by The Learning Network. There I’m going to share everything I know about GSAP!

To see more Moments of Calm built in Articulate Storyline 360, continue following my ongoing series by clicking here.