by Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP
In an earlier article, I described how I created an eLearning lesson that has GoAnimate characters discussing some spreadsheet problems. At a certain point, the lesson zooms in on a character’s computer screen, and suddenly a software simulation starts in Adobe Captivate. The voice of one of the screen characters becomes the voice who is guiding my learner through the spreadsheet lesson.
But how did I get the same TTS voice from GoAnimate to Captivate? The secret is, I didn’t. I went the other direction.
Knowing that I would want the same voice both in GoAnimate and in Captivate, I created some fake slides in Captivate, with the dialog script for the screen characters I was creating in GoAnimate typed into the Slide Notes.
From there, I used the NeoSpeech voices that come with Captivate to create high-quality TTS audio files.
Next, I exported the audio files from Captivate. (An audio badge below a slide in the Filmstrip indicates that there is audio attached to the slide. Clicking the badge makes exporting easy. So does the Export tool in the Library.)
Then I imported those files into GoAnimate, assigning them to my characters in the appropriate scenes.
Sure, TTS is still not the best audio option, but the effect of having the voice of an animated character you just saw walking and talking in a video smoothly continue as the voice that is teaching you about a spreadsheet is kind of neat. At the end of the Captivate software simulation, you see the animated character again, still talking in that same voice.
Of course you might want to have a more human sound to your GoAnimate videos. You can easily do that by recruiting friends, colleagues, or family to play the various roles. Voice acting for screen characters is not just for famous people like Beyonce, who is voicing Nala in the new Lion King remake. You can cast yourself along with Joan from Accounting in your next animated video!
Do you have audio tricks or advice for GoAnimate, or for eLearning in general? We would love to share your thoughts below as comments.
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Jennie Ruby, CTT, COTP, is a veteran eLearning developer, trainer, and author. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer and Certified Online Training Professional. She teaches both classroom and online courses, and has authored courseware, published training books, and developed content for countless eLearning projects. She is also a publishing professional with more than 30 years of experience in writing, editing, print publishing, and eLearning.
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