Characters make a simulation feel like a real conversation. In each scene you choose a character and set their emotion — happy, normal, puzzled, unhappy or angry — to show the learner how the other person reacts to their choice. For example, a customer can become unhappy after a poor answer and happy after a good one.
Set the character's emotion
Open the scene's content window (click the scene, then the menu button with three lines).
Under Character emotion, click an emotion.
The content window of scene #1. On the right, the Character emotion list is highlighted: happy, normal (selected, in green), puzzled, unhappy and angry. On the left, the Character tab (two-people icon) is highlighted; it opens the character settings for this scene.
The emotion is the character's reaction to the choice that led to this scene.
Ready-made BranchTrack characters have a picture for every emotion, so they change their expression automatically.
Learners also see the emotion as text when the Emotion meter setting is on and the scene has a character. See Player Settings and Customization.
Choose a character
Click the Characters icon (two people) in the editor's left bar to open the Characters panel. It has two tabs: Collection and Upload. In the Collection, filter characters by In sim, By me, By teammate or By BranchTrack.
The Characters panel, opened with the Characters icon in the left bar (highlighted). At the top is the character of scene #1. Next to it, highlighted: the five emotion icons (normal is selected, in green) and the No character and Same as previous options. Below are the filters In sim, By me, By teammate and By BranchTrack (highlighted), and a grid of ready-made characters. A small smiley above a character means it has all five emotions. On the right, the player preview shows the selected character.
For each scene, click a character in the grid and pick its emotion with the icons next to the scene's character. A small smiley above a character means it has all five emotions. You can also choose:
Same as previous — shows the character from the previous scene on the learner's path.
No character — the scene shows only the speech bubble.
A simulation can use as many characters as you like, but each scene shows one character at a time.
Upload your own character
Open the Characters panel and click the Upload tab.
Click the upload area or drag your files onto it. You can upload several files at once. Only PNG files are accepted.
The Upload tab of the Characters panel (highlighted). The highlighted upload area says "Click to upload or drag multiple files here. We support PNG files only". Below it, the panel explains that BranchTrack trims transparent areas, scales the image to 460px height and aligns it to the bottom of the simulation.
Use a PNG with a transparent background. Characters look best cropped at the waist.
BranchTrack trims empty transparent areas, scales the image to 460 px high, and places it at the bottom of the player.
Uploaded characters have one emotion (normal). If you need a character with the full set of emotions, contact BranchTrack support.
Your uploads stay in your Collection (By me) and can be used in all your simulations.
Make sure you have the rights to use the images for your purpose.
On phones
On a phone, the full character is replaced by a small round avatar next to the speech bubble.