Inserting Video with Transparency

Aug 04, 2023

Hello all,

Goal: I'm attempting to insert a video with a transparent background into a lesson so that a "speaker" can overlay on top of, or next to assets on the slide.

Result: The transparent background of my .mov video file is lost and takes on a brown color (see 'published' attachment)

Steps I took:

Exported an animation video from Articulate with a green background (see 'video search' attachment)
Imported video to Adobe Premiere
Use the "Ultra Key" effect to remove the green background. (see 'ultra key' attachment)
Exported video in the Quicktime format, using the "Apple ProRes 4444 XQ with Alpha" (see 'adobe export presets' attachment)
Inserted the export back into Storyline - but transparency was lost. (see 'published' attachment)

Any creative minds out there that have some ideas on how to accomplish this?

7 Replies

Jürgen Schoenemeyer

9 months ago08/05/23 at 6:35 am (UTC)

storyline uses mp4 (h264) as video format and mp4 don't support transparency at all

Eric Santos
Staff

9 months ago08/07/23 at 4:36 pm (UTC)

Hi Cory,

Thanks for reaching out! Jürgen's right, transparent videos are not yet supported in Storyline 360. It's not currently on our feature roadmap, but I'll be sure to update this discussion if our team decides to reroute.

Tomas Blazauskas

9 months ago08/09/23 at 5:40 am (UTC)

It is likely doable.

1. You need to export to WEBM format and not MOV format because MOV files are mostly unsupported by browsers.

2. You'll need to replace the converted video file in the published folder with the originally exported one, by giving the same name (including .mp4 extension).

I could try to do it, if you like, but later :)

Jürgen Schoenemeyer

9 months ago08/09/23 at 7:34 am (UTC)

>1. You need to export to WEBM format and not MOV format because MOV files are mostly >unsupported by browsers.

unfortunately Apple iOS does not support support WEBM
if you use Safari on macOS you need Safari 16 (available for macOS 12/13/14)

Tomas Blazauskas

9 months ago08/09/23 at 8:10 am (UTC)

Ok then - we can try to replace the converted mp4 file with your mov file, preserving the same name.

Ashley Hatrick

2 months ago03/04/24 at 11:59 am (UTC)

Hi there, is this on the roadmap yet? I can see the first request for this was 7 years ago in other posts. I think enough people have asked for this now for it to be implemented? Thanks :)

2 months ago03/05/24 at 2:27 pm (UTC)

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for following up on this feature request. Engineering is currently investigating how to implement support for videos with transparency. We'll update this post with any changes, and you'll be among the first to know. Stay tuned!