It’s easy to see why e-learning developers are excited about the animations in Articulate Storyline 2. A little animation magic sprinkled in just the right places can take your e-learning project to the next level. To help you make the most of the newly enhanced animation features, I’ll walk you through the basics of working with animations in Storyline 2.

Working with Entrance and Exit Animations

Let’s start with the Entrance and Exit Animations tabs. As the names suggest, the function of the entrance and exit animations are to animate objects onto and off of the screen. To add an entrance or exit animation, simply select the object on your slide, and then choose the type of animation you would like to apply. Let’s look at an example.  

Suppose you want to have a rectangle fade onto the screen at the one-second mark and then fade off the screen at the six-second mark. You simply:

  • Select the rectangle on the slide
  • Adjust the beginning and end points of your rectangle on the timeline so that the rectangle begins at 1s and ends at 6s.

  • Click the Animations tab.
  • Apply the “Fade” entrance animation and the “Fade” exit animation.

  • Adjust the duration and effect options.

Save Time with the Animation Painter in Storyline 2

Just to the left of the entrance and exit animations is the Animation Painter. This feature is a real time-saver because you can apply the animation settings from one object to others.

Let’s say that in our previous example, you have the animations (duration and effects) set for the rectangle, and you want to apply those same animation settings to a series of other objects. Simple! Just select the rectangle, click the Animation Painter icon, and click another object to apply the settings. And if you double-click the Animation Painter, you’ll be able to click multiple other objects and apply the same animation settings. Handy, right?

Applying Slide and Slide Layer Transitions in Storyline 2

If you click on the Transitions tab, you’ll see that Storyline 2 offers a ton of transition options that you can apply to slides as well as slide layers.

To apply a transition to a slide in story view, simply select the slide and then choose the transition you want to add. To do the same in slide view, select the base layer of the slide and then pick your transition. Personally, I think it’s faster to go to story view, select numerous slides, and then apply a transition to all of them at once.

To apply a transition to a slide layer, just select a particular slide layer and then choose the transition you want to apply. With layer transitions, you can apply a different transition to each slide layer, which gives you a lot of flexibility to customize them.

You can customize your transitions further by changing the duration and effect options, provided your transition has that feature.

Motion Paths

The newest feature to Storyline 2 is motion path animations. Motion paths let you control when and how an object moves on the screen. You just apply a motion path and then use the Move trigger to decide when your object should animate.

I have to tell you, motion paths are really cool and warrant some special attention. To learn more, be sure to check out these two articles on working with motion paths and their triggers. The first is an intro post on motion paths and the second is the key to working with motion path triggers.

If you’d like to try out these cool animations but don’t have Articulate software, go ahead and download a free 30-day trial. And don’t forget to come back to E-learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. Questions? Comments? Please share them below!

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