importing transparent videos to Storyline
Mar 11, 2015
Heroes!
I am in need of your wisdom,
We created a drawing animation in after effects and we need to place it into our course in Storyline. We already have a background on our storyline so we made the background of our animation transparent.
But here is our dilemma, when we tried importing our animation but it shows a black background. We tried different file types such as GIF, FLV, and H.264 versions of our file but it still shows a black background instead of transparent one.
Please enlighten us in our plight. Thank you!
17 Replies
Luis, which version of Storyline are you using? FLV videos with alpha channel (transparent background) have worked for me in SL1, but I believe there is a known issue with SL2.
Hi Luis,
Brett is correct, this is a know issue in Storyline 2. You can see more here.
Hi Brett,
We are using Storyline 2. I guess we'll have to make a workaround for it in the mean time. Thank you!
Hi Emily,
Thank you for the heads up! I guess we'll make a workaround first and wait for the update. Thanks again!
Hi Luis,
I will post here when there is an update with a fix available.
Thank you Ms. Emily!
What is the options for video with transparency in other codecs? My After Effects version does not support FLV or F4V, apparently removed by Adobe a while ago. That leaves me with few options for video with transparency, which I need. Any advice?
Hi Soren!
Have you tried other options? Most of our users seem to be utilizing the FLV option.
FLV videos with alpha channel transparency are supported in Articulate Storyline's Flash and Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) output. See this article for a comparison of Flash, HTML5, and AMP features.
There was an issue in earlier builds of Storyline where alpha channel transparency wasn't working as expected in published courses. This issue was corrected in Update 5 for Storyline.
FLV is deprecated and no longer supported by Adobe, so in After Effects 2015 you cannot export to FLV. Which leaves me in a pickle as it seems the only other export option where Transparency is supported is QuickTime Animation with RGB+ with Alpha. If I import this mov file into Storyline 2, it displays transparency as black.
What is your plan to remedy this? I mean its Adobe screwing us all over, but not having access to transparent video in Storyline 2 is messing up everything at our end and we are out of good ideas right now :(
The workflow I am talking about is reproduced here:
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/quick-tip-exporting-with-alpha-channels-in-after-effects/
I am working with AE on a mac as our Windows machines do not support AE (stupid 32 bit limitation). It seems I can pick QuickTime ProRes 4442 RGB+Alpha as the only option really. Or QuickTime Animation with RGB+Alpha.
What video formats with Alpha channel is supported and displayed correctly by Storyline 2?
Hi Soren!
I would recommend sharing your thoughts in the form of a feature request for sure.
How are you viewing your published content. Please keep in mind that Alpha Channel Transparency is not supported in HTML5 as you can see here.
I've reached out to my team to see if they have further suggestions and hopefully the community will be able to chime in as well.
Thanks, yeah I know about HTML5 and transparent video. Unfortunately.
There is a way to make video transparency work with HTML 5
http://www.sciencelifeny.com/transparency/transparency.html#
However this method is difficult to work with effectively as you need to have two videos simultaneously, one with alpha and one with RGB.
But look at the future! When you think about it, having a video with transparency would be a nice replacement for using cartoon characters or stock photos of people pointing.
I agree Soren :) Between technology changing and the skills of our community - I am continually 'wowed' :)
Has anyone solved the import issue when using Adobe products and their lack of support for FLV's as I am trying to import a transparent video into Storyline with no luck.
Hi Ben,
What issue are you having?
FLV videos with alpha channel transparency are supported in Articulate Storyline's Flash and Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) output.
Can you let me know more about the version of Storyline you're using too?
After Affects does not support FLV videos. What can we export it as to have transparent background with our animations. I have Storyline 2. Must I update to Storyline 3 for this to work?
Hi Stacey,
I'm not familiar with After Effects - but perhaps there is a way to convert those videos into FLV files. FLV files with transparency are supported in Storyline 2 as noted here.
You'll see all the supported video file formats for Storyline 2 in this tutorial. Can you export After Effects to any of those types?
Hey Ben,
Have you had any luck with this? I'm trying to create a video in GoAnimate, edit out the background in Premiere and import it into Storyline 3 but I'm stuck with a black background currently. Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
--Jes
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