animation order goes all out of whack when published

Dec 22, 2011

Hi Everybody,

I am making a training module and have made a bunch of animations to explain how to use the menu bar which inculdes arrows and instructions.  I have ordered these with timings and delays in the animation panel, and they all work great when previewed in the animation pane or through Articulate preview.

When I publish (to cd - I haven't moved it to LMS yet) the order of the animations goes wrong. It's not all of them but some arrows will pop-up out of order or a text box will show at the wrong time. I can't figure out what is going on since all the timings are great in preview and there's not much I can do about it once it's published.

Any help would be appreciated - perhaps there is a way to lock the timings in somehow.

6 Replies
Peter Anderson

Hi James!

30 frames per second is the only supported frame rate at which you can include synchronized annotations. If your recorded annotations do not appear when you expected them to, it is likely due to the frames per second in Presentation Options -> Publish. To fix your annotations:

  1. Go to Presentations -> Publish.
  2. Change Publish slides at X frames per second to 30.
  3. Click OK.

If that doesn't resolve the issue, please feel free to Create an Articulate Presenter Package and upload the zip file to us so our support engineers can have a close look. You can submit your case here:

http://upload.articulate.com/

Please include the url for this thread along with all pertinent information. And once you receive a case number, please record it here so I can follow it personally. Thanks!

James Brandwood

Unfortunately the frame rate was already set at 30.

I have made a package and uploaded it - It really is a werid fault, I have tried changing around the annimations and even spreading them across a couple of slides but all that does is change which annimation goes wrong.

Also I noticed that the animations go right on the animation panel and review through PowerPoint but not when you preview by Articulate or publish it.

The case number is 00259537

Peter Anderson

Hi James! 

Just wanted to follow up and see if the solution that our support staff sent you was helpful. For others who may be experiencing similar issues, here is that solution:

If you are experiencing issues with your animations, a good place to start would be to refer to this blog entry here: 

http://www.articulate.com/blog/to-click-or-not-to-click/ 

I suggest re-establishing the animations in your slide following the tips from the article above. 

While Presenter supports the vast majority of PowerPoint animations, it does not support them all. For a list of supported animations, please see: 

Presenter '09: 
http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/?p=400 

You can refer to our online documentation regarding syncing your animation timings with your audio here: 

Presenter '09: 
http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/?p=87 
http://www.articulate.com/community/tutorials09/presenter09/Record_narration/player.html 

I hope this helps. 

James Brandwood

Support has been ok - although from the links I have mostly only learnt that lots of other people have the same problem and that animations are really only stable if you use "on click" and sync them with your audio - I'm guessing in my case where there is no audio that I just sync to no sound.

Perhaps I will go try the sync feature but I find it odd that a feature like an animation pane is being ignored when it is so easy to just drag and drop and set timings using it.

Really it just sounds like an extra step and I might as well continue using Captivate to create introductions to courses and import it as flash  which I also do for recording on-screen demonstrations (This was the first time I attempted to use Articlate to create an introduction). Really this lack of functionality with PowerPoint is disapointing since PowerPoint like ease-of-use is the main reason i use Articulte over Captivate.

Oh BTW how do you get the progress bar in this presentation

http://www.articulate.com/community/tutorials09/presenter09/Record_narration/player.html

into your presentations - I'm not really a fan of the standard one for Articulate. 

Steve Gannon

James,

One thing to check is for a hidden animated object in PowerPoint's selection pane. If you animate an object and then later, using the selection pane, hide that layer, PowerPoint knows how to deal with that but Presenter seems to get confused. So be sure to either remove any animations from hidden objects in the selection pane or just delete that hidden object.

As to the main problem you're experiencing...With Previous/After Previous-with-delay settings not being reflected properly upon publishing, yeah, that's simply a fact of life. You're probably seeing some animations take longer to complete than they're supposed to, and the next animation in the sequence starting before the prior one finishes...that sort of thing. Articulate Support, in so many words, let me know this morning that's just the way it is unfortunately.

Steve Gannon

GanTek Multimedia

James Brandwood

Thanks for your input Steve.

I've come to the same conclusion, that when you have animations that need to be sequenced and appear and disapear or use a mix of previous/after then you are better off using Animation Sync.

In the current module I am making the first slide has the buttons/tabs that float-in in sequence using only "after previous" and all 6 animations work everytime. The next slide explains how to navigate the module and has arrows and text animating in and out and uses delays and a variety of different animation types (all suppported). This is the slide where things go out of sync and as I mentioned earlier trying to change the order around or fix it only makes somewhere else in the sequence of animation go wrong.

I did play around with the Sync Animations feature yesterday and am glad to report that the second slide previews and publishes correctly doing it that way. It seems a little bit disfunctional having to go in and out of Sync Animations to add or modify animation effects and I would prefer an animation pane to make it easier to edit but as is, it is a basic and easy to use way to sequence animations.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.