Coach Maker Icon

Maker DIY Coach

Pick a look. Give it a soul. Build the coach you wish existed.

Basics

Coach Maker is part of the PlanCoach ecosystem. We turned coach creation into a standalone app so anyone can contribute ideas and expand the PlanCoach coach lineup.

So that every difficulty has a solution.

Why Maker?

The reason is simple:

  • There are too many edge cases in the real world.
  • There are too many edge cases in human psychology.

In these edge cases, users need an expert, not an omnipotent generalist (which doesn't exist).

Bedtime procrastination is a good example

Bedtime procrastination needs a different approach from other stuck moments. For sleep, CBT-style guidance can slowly reduce stimulation and ease the anxiety of "I must fall asleep right now." For this specific case, we provide the "Chang'e" Sleep Guide Coach.

Some users respond better to a strict, high-pressure tone that triggers "fight or flight" and breaks decision paralysis. In that case, they need a very different sleep coach, not Chang'e.

To developers, these may look like edge cases. To the person living them, they are everyday life.

With Maker, anyone can create a specialist coach for these cases.

Creator Covenant: Do's and Don'ts

We DO NOT encourage

  • Violating public order, good customs, social morality, and universal values. The Coach Creation Agreement mentions thatevery creator is responsible for the coach they create. We will not abuse but reserve the right to delete coaches
  • Purely entertaining or spoof coaches (like a simple "Yeon-jin", which is just an entertainment symbol)

We ENCOURAGE

  • Targeting Edge Cases, using your insights to createcoaches that can help yourself and others
  • Turning methodologies that help you into a coach
  • Turning any person or thing you like into a coach to accompany your progress
  • Sharing your coach
  • Paying tribute to the original author when republishing a modified coach
  • Praising the original author when a coach helps you

Objects that can be made into a coach

Your idol Family Friends Crush Your cats and dogs Yourself Anything you want to accompany your progress

Why share your coach

One thing is definitely true:

If no one likes a coach you made, even if you are a bit frustrated, it will quickly dissipate.
But once someone likes your coach,when you know your creation helps others, and your output is valuable, your self-esteem will continue to improve.

The improvement of self-esteem not only brings direct happiness but also makes you believe you deserve better and are worthy of better things.
Thus, you will respect yourself more and be more powerful.

This is also why so many people like to do charity work for free. It seems like saving others, but it is actually saving oneself.

App Installation

Coach Maker Icon

Search the App Store for "Coach Maker" to download.

Go to App Store

Create Coach

  1. Open the App, click the + icon in the top right corner
  2. Fill in and supplement the coach's information sequentially, it's very simple

Voice Audition & Selection

PlanCoach is integrated withVolcengine the industry's top-tier anthropomorphic voice large model. Through different voices, you can give the coach a unique personality charm.

When setting a voice for a coach, you can go to Volcengine's voice synthesis page, and in the"Online Synthesis Experience"area, listen and select the best matching voice; then fill in your chosen voice name (like "Cancan") into Maker.

How to audition on Volcengine

  1. Click the button below to go to the Volcengine TTS (Text-to-Speech) page.
  2. Scroll down, find the "Online Synthesis Experience" area, you can browse different voice categories.
  3. Enter copy that fits your coach's persona, click to audition, and find the catchiest voice.
  4. Remember the name of the voice, and set it in the Maker App.
Go to Volcengine TTS to Audition

Prompt Skills

Use what the AI already knows

There are two types of coaches:

  1. AI The AI training corpus already has very detailed information about this character, such as "Lu Xun"
  2. The AI knows very little about them

For type 1, you just need to write "You are Lu Xun". Only type 2 requires a detailed specification of the character's personality, behavioral habits, etc.

Fully utilize PlanCoach elements

If you want to fine-tune specific elements, you can restrict them in the prompt according to the following dictionary:

Term Explanation Prompt Example
user Present the goal of the split steps, do not use "I" “You must use your intelligence and emotional quotient to get the user to take the first step”
opening_statement Coach's opening prompt, will be displayed in the chat bubble “opening_statement must not be mean”
step Title of each step “The step should not exceed 5 words”
emoji Small icon for each step “emoji cannot be repeated”
hint Hint for each step “hint must be placed in parentheses”
suggestion Extra suggestion “suggestion should quote a famous saying”
celebrative_words Congratulatory words “Congratulate the user in celebrative_words”

Usage of Parentheses

When the coach reads aloud (e.g., hands-free mode), the text inside the parentheses will be omitted. You can take full advantage of this to prevent the coach from reading hints aloud.

Don't over-specify

  • Text, like a painting, needs blank space
  • When there is too much text, the AI will lose focus and ignore what you originally wanted
  • Write only what is most crucial to the personality, leave the rest blank for the AI to improvise
  • Test more

Export and Test

Click [Export] to send the coach package to others or use it yourself.

In the share interface, click PlanCoach to import directly into PlanCoach PlanCoach.

Generally speaking, affected by the model's personality and reasoning ability, a coach needs to be tested at least 3 times (often over 10 times) to meet expectations.

Share Secret Code

Maker A powerful feature of Maker is that you can generate a short and easy-to-remember secret code for the coach you created. Anyone anywhere on earth can use this code to install your coach into their PlanCoach.

Current Limitations

Snapshot Principle

Each shared secret code corresponds to a "snapshot" of a coach, which cannot be iterated or modified.

Reason: The use of snapshots is somewhat like chat stickers; once published, their information should remain unchanged from beginning to end.

What if not: Imagine you enthusiastically share a coach made by someone else with your friend. After your friend downloads it, the coach is talking nonsense due to a recent iteration mistake by the original author. Your friend will question your taste.

Code Validity Period

The coach's code has a validity period. It cannot be downloaded after it expires.

Reason: Partly to control storage costs, and partly because we think internet memory should have an expiration date.

What if not: Imagine you turn yourself into a coach today and share it with your crush. 3 years later, this code spreads to your new circle of friends. You would cringe so hard.

Advanced Techniques

Modifying coaches created by others

Common Scenarios

  • You really like an anime character's anime, but you don't particularly like the original coach's personality. You want to change them to be more suitable for you.
  • A coach's prompt logic is very good, but you think they are not handsome/pretty enough, you want to make them more attractive.

Community Co-creation Principle

We hope Maker + PlanCoach can become a co-creation community where people keep improving shared work.

Maker's terms allow you to edit and improve coaches published by others. That also means the coaches you publish can be improved and remixed by others.

This is also somewhat like chat stickers. Once published, it has its own life cycle. Content with strong vitality will spawn branches and be continuously used.
It is also an inner incentive for the original author.

Method

Click Import Coach in Maker, enter the code to download it locally.
Then you can edit and republish it in the usual way.

Suggestion: When modifying and republishing someone else's coach, please pay tribute to the original author in the coach description.
Only in this way will the community have more good original content.

Image Generation Tutorial

  1. Use Nano Banana Pro
  2. Use the following Prompt template: 
    A pixel art sprite sheet of a handsome male. He looks fancy and charming.
Wearing a suit.
Age: 22.
Profession: Basketball Player.

Style: Stardew Valley. Pixel Art.
Palette: 16 colors strictly.
Background: Solid Magenta (#FF00FF).

***CRITICAL CHARACTER DESIGN***
- Reference: [Image or famous character]
- Perspective: Side view / Game view.
- Face to the camera.
- Full body. NO cropping.

***CHECK LIST***
- Do NOT add any text to the image.

***LAYOUT & GRID CONSTRAINTS***
- Canvas: 120 pixels wide x 80 pixels high.
- Grid: Strict 1 Rows x 3 Columns.
- Cell Size: Each sprite fits exactly in a 40x80 pixel box.

***DIRECTION RULE: ALWAYS FACE RIGHT***
- In ALL rows, the figure must face to the RIGHT (East).

***SPRITE SHEET***
- [0]: Stand.Idle : Idle Stance.
- [1]: Stand.Reading : Similar to Stand.Idle, but reading a paper note.
- [2]: Stand.Celebrating: Similar to Stand.Idle, with a thumbs up and a smile. Looking at the camera.

    Generation Example

    Sprite Sheet Example

    You need to generate it a few times. Usually, 3-5 times will yield a usable one. If it's not usable, you need to readjust the prompt.

  3. Editing:
    • Open Photoshop or GIMP
    • Remove the magenta background (because Nano Banana does not support transparent backgrounds)
    • Turn off scaling interpolation, use the scale tool to shrink the image. When scaled to a fixed proportion, the image pixels will look very neat (but there is also a certain probability of not finding this point)
    • Crop into 3 images. OK!

Tips

Reference Image

Providing AI with a reference image yields much higher quality than having AI generate out of thin air.

Create memory points with heart

You need to discover the character's traits. For example, the "Mage" coach included in the App doesn't give a thumbs up, but tips his hat. The God of Cookery holds up a sign.

When you put your heart into it, users will always notice.