Fade animation on change of state?

Nov 07, 2012

I didn't find this question discussed using a search so....

Is it possible to add a fade animation to a character or object that is changing states?

27 Replies
pete nichols

hi, ive been playing with this tonight, you can create a trigger that will change the state of a graphic then edit the new state next to your timeline right clik the on graphic for 'format picture', select picture and there are a bunch of options that include fading the second state.

a problem im having with this is that the new state appears on the layer its linked to :( 

Mel Ruth

I found the same problem with state changes, that's why I end up just using another instance of the character/element in my timeline with the desired change and then apply whatever entrance or exit animation that I want.  I very rarely use state changes for exactly that reason, because the sudden cut is so stark.  I have suggested to Articulate about adding animations to state changes as a new feature - you should do the same, as they said the more requests they get, the more likely they are to add it in.

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro

Hi Phil,

Can you clarify about this? Because for me this doesn't work. That is, I can't get an animation to apply to a state change for photographic characters.

  • Let's say I insert Christian, looking at his watch.
  • Then Edit states, add a "point to watch state" and insert that pose.
  • Still in edit states, make sure point to watch state is active
  • Click Animations tab, any animation --- looking good; animation is there
  • Click on Done editing states. Still looking good. Animation appears to be there while Christian is active.
  • Click outside Christian and I see "more +" dimmed in the animation area

Set up the offstage trigger and preview the slide.

Christian doesn't "animate" when his state is changed.

Now, I can animate Christian's original position, but not any state changes.

I remember submitting this many months ago as a feature request. If I can actually achieve it, can you please provide more detail?

TIA

Phil Mayor

I think there is an argument for more animations within states also for masking within states e.g. animations are only visible within the state.

A neat trick is to use this effect with the  the fly in animation within the hover state, you can get some nifty peep in effects if you start with your object a bit off the slide and on the hover state increase the size of the object (make it longer)

Jerson  Campos

This might be a little advance, but you could possibly use an animated gif or swf file for animating the change state. I've been thinking of ways to implement this method. Something like when a user hovers over an image the image comes alive and starts ...well being animated.  If I have time today I'll try to post a demo to show you what I mean.

Rebecca Fleisch Cordeiro

Looking forward to the demo, Jerson. And to some good sources of animated gifs.

Masking within states. What a great idea, Phil. I could've used that recently.

Fly in animation, within the hover state, off the slide, increase the size. Talk about eclectic! Will see if I can get that to work.

Lee Millard

Sorry to dig this conversation back up, but I've found a few threads on adding animations to states and am not finding any viable solutions in them.

Basically I want to add a Fly in animation to an object that is partially off-screen when it's hovered over so the entire object will slide in. I change the state of the object (or group of objects in this case) to hover and add the entrance animations to these objects in the Edit States area but there is no animation, just a sudden change. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

Lisa Anderson

Hi All,

Stumbled on this thread and it raised a question.  Is adding an animation to one of the object's state only available in SL1?  In SL2 it doesn't appear to have that option.  When in edit states on a object, select new state, while it's active select animation tab, nothing is available to animate.  Am I missing something?

Thanks.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Lee,

I was taking a look at your file and following the steps Phil had mentioned at the top of this thread, and got it to work for a portion of it - but than the file started to behave a little wonky. I've only got it working so far on the rectangle for the next section - but when I continue following the steps the slide started to behave oddly - can you confirm that you're working on files as described here? 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Lee,

Thanks for sharing the updated file and confirming the additional element of working locally. I looked again and couldn't get the hover to fly in as well and thought it may be something to do with the object not having two animations  but I also wonder if something changed since Phil's post in SL1 as that was some time ago. 

Is there potential to upgrade to SL2? The motion paths would handle this nicely.