Anyone out there creating animations in Flash and bringing them into Storyline? Or using something else to do it? If so, what are you using?
My supervisor has asked me to look into learning Flash or similar. Is it still worth learning Flash with things moving to HTML 5? If not, what is worth learning these days?
Thanks for your help! Hope this is the right forum for this one.
Storyline is fairly limited in its animation capabilities. To be able to do complex motions or animating something along a path is not possible in Storyline. As far as desktops and laptops, I don't think support for flash is ever going to go away (at least anytime soon). But if you content is going on mobile devices or will be access by them then don't bother with flash. The only tool that I can think of where you can develop a eLearning course with complex animations/interactions that will be completely mobile friendly is Adobe Edge Animate. It isn't too hard to learn the basics, but it will involve some javascript if you want to learn to do anything complex as far as interactions go. (BTW Adobe Edge is free right now)
There are a few tools out there that might be helpful. I'm leaning away from Flash, myself. That doesn't mean I won't use Flash if the requirements, resources, and audience all match up. But it's not a future friendly default. Here are a few alternatives:
1) Go with a video. Storyline offers an efficient compressor. I typically get a 65%-95% size reduction on imported videos when published. The bonus with this method, you can use your video artifacts in other things pretty easily and it's cross-platform. You can use Powerpoint or Keynote if that's what you have on-hand. Keynote is really hand for many types of animation (MagicMove is indispensable). Powerpoint offers its own strengths.
2) Use a desktop animation tool built for the task (most will output video and / or Flash). Anime Studio has a bit of a learning curve but it's pretty powerful once you get a handle on it. The cheaper version of Anime Studio is around $40. About $120 for the pro version.
3) Use a tablet device. Not sure about Android but iOS offers some decent tools for building animations and outputting them to video files. I like ExplainEverything.
4) Use an HTML5 animation tool. These will be limited in what they can accomplish when compared with video or Flash animation tools but they are getting better. If you're on a Mac, Hype from Tumult is outstanding. Adobe Edge is decent but it's unfinished (I think it's an MVP strategy for testing out small slices of functionality) when compared to Hype. MotionArtist just released from Smith Micro. This tool offers some really neat features and will also output to either video or HTML5. **Word of warning: HTML5 won't run at all in older browsers.
5) "Get your hand code on" and import stuff as a Web object. There are quite a few libraries around that support a range of transitions and animations. One of my favorites is http://www.greensock.com/gsap-js/. **Advantage to the greensock library, most of the animation properties will work on newer AND older browsers. Downside is you need to handcode it
6) Go low tech and use a device or laptop web camera to capture full or stop motion animation. Frameographer from Studio Neat is a great little app. Get some toys (Legos), sketch out your own props, or simply use a whiteboard and the sky is the limit
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Storyline is fairly limited in its animation capabilities. To be able to do complex motions or animating something along a path is not possible in Storyline. As far as desktops and laptops, I don't think support for flash is ever going to go away (at least anytime soon). But if you content is going on mobile devices or will be access by them then don't bother with flash. The only tool that I can think of where you can develop a eLearning course with complex animations/interactions that will be completely mobile friendly is Adobe Edge Animate. It isn't too hard to learn the basics, but it will involve some javascript if you want to learn to do anything complex as far as interactions go. (BTW Adobe Edge is free right now)
There are a few tools out there that might be helpful. I'm leaning away from Flash, myself. That doesn't mean I won't use Flash if the requirements, resources, and audience all match up. But it's not a future friendly default. Here are a few alternatives:
1) Go with a video. Storyline offers an efficient compressor. I typically get a 65%-95% size reduction on imported videos when published. The bonus with this method, you can use your video artifacts in other things pretty easily and it's cross-platform. You can use Powerpoint or Keynote if that's what you have on-hand. Keynote is really hand for many types of animation (MagicMove is indispensable). Powerpoint offers its own strengths.
2) Use a desktop animation tool built for the task (most will output video and / or Flash). Anime Studio has a bit of a learning curve but it's pretty powerful once you get a handle on it. The cheaper version of Anime Studio is around $40. About $120 for the pro version.
3) Use a tablet device. Not sure about Android but iOS offers some decent tools for building animations and outputting them to video files. I like ExplainEverything.
4) Use an HTML5 animation tool. These will be limited in what they can accomplish when compared with video or Flash animation tools but they are getting better. If you're on a Mac, Hype from Tumult is outstanding. Adobe Edge is decent but it's unfinished (I think it's an MVP strategy for testing out small slices of functionality) when compared to Hype. MotionArtist just released from Smith Micro. This tool offers some really neat features and will also output to either video or HTML5. **Word of warning: HTML5 won't run at all in older browsers.
5) "Get your hand code on" and import stuff as a Web object. There are quite a few libraries around that support a range of transitions and animations. One of my favorites is http://www.greensock.com/gsap-js/. **Advantage to the greensock library, most of the animation properties will work on newer AND older browsers. Downside is you need to handcode it
6) Go low tech and use a device or laptop web camera to capture full or stop motion animation. Frameographer from Studio Neat is a great little app. Get some toys (Legos), sketch out your own props, or simply use a whiteboard and the sky is the limit
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