Animated GIF not working properly?

Apr 04, 2019

I can not get my animated GIF to play if I chose to not loop when creating it.

I created one from the same file that loops, and another that does not loop. The one that loops plays properly in Storyline, however the one that does not loop will not play correctly, it shows up as an image without the transparency present.

Has anyone else had this problem or know how to deal with it?

Thanks.

7 Replies
Joe Shultheis

I just read similar issues and was dumbfounded to here it is not considered a high enough impact feature to deal with on the development team. That ability would open up a world of possibilities to users who want animations that they used to be able to do in Flash easily. 

We are currently converting 200+ courses into HTML5 because in 2020 Flash will be removed from all our browsers by our IT department in the government sector. We created a bajillion interesting animations in Flash that are just not possible in Storyline or the other big ticket software used for eLearning.  HOWEVER, by creating animated GIFs from the sequence of frames from any of these animations allows us to achieve the same look and level of intricacy desire in our animations. 

Seems GIFs work if they are set to loop when created but not if set to only play once. That would be a game changer for me.

I am required to jump between SL and the other big name software because certain features are not available in each, but this would allow me to be one step closer to always using SL.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Joe,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing what you are seeing with your gif file. This is a bit different than I've seen reported before, but we have seen reports of high-resolution GIF files displaying as static images within Storyline 360.

Could you reduce the resolution or quality of the GIF file to see if that alleviates the issue you're currently seeing?

If so, I'll be sure to add this conversation to the report as we track this issue and we can notify you of any updates as well.

Terry Thomas

Hi @LeslieMcKerchie ... i've been combing posts and i think you just touched on something that is our problem.  The problem seems specific to IE11 (everything worked ok in Chrome) however, it seems SL3 does play a part in this.

The GIF in question seems to be pretty high-res

  • when the SL3 course loads in Chrome, the GIF animation works
  • when the same course loads in IE11, the GIF appears as a static image
  • however, if i preview the GIF by itself in IE11, the animation does work

So IE11 is capable of playing it, so somehow SL3 is involved?  (but not Chrome.. weird combination)

Does any of this sound like it's related to the issue you mentioned, and where do i go from here?

Thanx Leslie,

   Terry

Lauren Connelly

Hello Terry!

I'm happy to help! That's right, gifs in high resolution are the culprit here. We are noticing this in both Chrome and IE when the gif is in high resolution. Smaller gifs are displaying properly in both Chrome and IE.

We've created a bug report so that we can continue tracking the impact of this bug. We recommend using smaller gifs in Storyline 360 and Storyline 3 to stay clear of display issues.

I've added your comments to our bug reports, so we'll make sure to update this discussion when we have news to share!