Following from the earlier discussions about tutorials on the Wish List, I decided to resurrect some of the
rough tutorials that I made to familiarise myself with different Opus functions and techniques. I was curious to compare and evaluate 2 methods of making tutorials:
1. Using Opus by making screen shots and animations, etc.; and
2. Using a powerful video application I acquired.
The results of these exercises were not surprising. I found some training situations to be better suited to Opus, while others were better with video.
Using Opus I
prettied up 2 of my tutorials. Should anyone be interested, you can download them from:
http://www.jeelan.com.au/Opus/OrganiseSetup.exe and
http://www.jeelan.com.au/Opus/WorkspaceSetup.exe
These are
very basic tutorials. One explains the layout and functions of the various elements that make up the Opus workspace. The other is a basic introduction to the Organiser. These are probably too basic for most who read these forums.
Each file is just over 4MB. I used several graphics and a lot of .WAV files. I wanted to make the tutorials in a way that allowed any user to concentrate on the screen and listen to the narration. I tried recording my own voice, but at the end of day 1 had laryngitis, so that put a stop to that idea.
I compared as many samples as I could find of the
voices provided for use with Text-To-Speech (TTS) applications. In my judgement (very subjective) the expensive commercial voices were only marginally better than a large range of free voices. I opted to use the free Mary's voice. It's a bit grating at first, but gradually it grows on you.
I found the speech WAV files to be so much more efficient and accurate when assigning timings and synchronisation. I was able to rely heavily on the
On Show and
Synchronise to End triggers.
At present, I plan on continuing to make tutorials as
test beds for my own learning experiences. For example, in these 2 tutorials I practised using MultiFrames and various untried Actions and Scripting. From now on, when I finish a tutorial I will post it to my web site. I hope to be able to continue to keep the price low, like
FREE, but that might depend on what hosting space costs me as the volume grows.
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