Is there a way to align the endpoint of the duration of an object?
Jun 17, 2013
I noticed that there are a variety of ways to set the starting point of an object's duration on the timeline--hitting "alight to playhead" or "Alight to cuepoint"--but I don't see any similar way to set the endpoint. When I hit a spot on the timeline where I want an object to end, I have to open up the timing on that object, and just do the math of subtracting the timeline location from the starting point to find the duration, and entering the duration.
Is there any way to simply specify the endpoint of an object's appearance similar to how you specify the starting point?
Some background. I find that with the math tutorials that I set up, it's easier to enter all of the numbers and equations as textboxes first, then record my narration, and sync the object appearances to the narration.
This means that I don't know when an object will start or end when I set it up.
Setting the starting point is easy as I go along. I just play the narration, stop it whenever I want something to start, and alight the starting point to the playhead. But I can't do that with the ending point.
While I could scroll to the end of the timeline, grab the end of the object, and drag it back, that would take a while, and so doing the math is quicker. But an ending function like the starting functions would be much quicker still.
Is there anything like that?
John
27 Replies
This is a GREAT question. Could someone please venture an answer? If this is not available it should be!! I spend so much time getting to the end of the timeline to drag back the end of an object to the playhead!
Hi Daniel!
Dragging the end of the object or setting the timing for the object are the two options that you have as you can see in this tutorial.
You are welcome to share your thoughts with our product development team here.
I have been hoping for this option for years! It would save so much time and make for more precise animations.
Thanks for chiming in, Kristen! It's helpful to know how in-demand this feature is.
The fact that I can't just right click and say end at play head is a huge miss I am constantly wasting time dragging the end line to where I want it in the slide.
I appreciate you sharing how you would like to see this feature in the UI, Andrew. I've added this thought to the feature request.
I wanted to share some information about how we manage these feature requests as that may be helpful.
This conversation is attached so that any updates can be shared here.
Hello I was just about to ask the same question, when I found this discussion. I am requesting party for this feature !
Ditto, would love to see this as an added feature. Spend LOTS of time dragging ends of items back to where I want them to fade out. Thank you.
Hi I can't find the Timing window - how do I access that?
Hey there, Laurel!
To launch the Timing window, simply right-click on an object on the timeline. This is where you can specify the start time and duration of the object (in seconds).
Let me know if that helps!
Please make "end at playhead" standard Articulate!
Hi all!
I am jumping into this discussion to share that we just released Storyline 360 (Build 3.63.27628.0) which includes changes to the timeline.
New: Create slides faster with time-saving upgrades to the timeline. Multi-select objects and move them all at once. Choose where pasted objects appear in the stacking order or even paste them into an existing group. Align objects to the playhead or vice versa. And when the timeline is too long, you can instantly reset it to five seconds or shorten it to the object with the longest duration.
Now all you need to do is update Storyline 360 in your Articulate 360 desktop app!
If you have additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out in this discussion or in a support case.
Storyline 360 (and Articulate 360 in general) is great and I certainly appreciate all of the features including these newest enhancements. It is by far the leader in the field. And the wonderful and responsive staff are great too. I am surprised however that the one feature that is being asked for in this string that started 9 years ago wasn't included in any of the wonderful upgrades. I too found myself dragging the end of an object way too much before finding that timing window but even calculating seconds seems silly sometimes and am surprised the option to move object end to playhead never showed up in that right mouse click menu. Or am I missing it somewhere else?
Agreed. Please make this a feature!
I find it really hard to believe that this feature has not been added after 7 years of people asking. It's such a basic feature I'm surprised it wasn't in the original build. I will make a feature request. Everyone who wants this please do so too! I don't want to know how many hours of my life I've wasted dragging that stupid object end to where I want from the end of the timeline or figuring out the timing.
has this feature ever been added? I still struggle with aligning something that is at the end of an animation.
Hello Alex,
Happy to help!
Would you mind clarifying which feature do you need in Storyline 360 so I can check if its something that's currently available? If you need to align an object to the end of the timeline, you can take the duration of an object, subtract that from the total timeline length, and then add a cue point so you can move the object exactly to the end of the timeline.
Additionally, you can also check out this article if you'd like to know more about using cue points to fine tune your animations:
If you're looking for a different feature, please share more details and I'll be glad to confirm its availability for you!
Hi. Yes.
I did a motion path animation of an object moving from the right to the left of the screen. I want to align a copy of the same object to the object where it ends up after the motion path animation.
There is no easy way to do this. You can only see the beginning. When I try to run the animation on the timeline and stop it at the end so I can align the copy, the object jumps back to it's start point instead of staying at its end point.
This has been a problem for years and I'm so surprised that it's not resolved. I used to be able to do this with Director and also with Flash, but I've never been able to do this with Storyline.
Currently, I have to preview the slide, pause it when the animation ends, take a screenshot, try to align that screenshot to the stage and then align the copy of the object to where the screenshot shows that the original object's animation ends. And then tweak over and over so that it finally looks smooth instead of jumping around.
I thought I could work around this with state changes, but the different states have to include the position, which is difficult to capture.
Thanks.
Bonjour,
Bien que je puisse utiliser l'option "minutage" dans les propriétés (clic droit) des objets sur la timeline pour définir un temps de fin (bien pratique quand une timeline dure quelques minutes), plusieurs objets n'ont pas cette option de minutage (surtout des icones issus de la banque SL).
Savez-vous quel est le problème et comment le régler?
Merci, :-)
Hello Alain,
Happy to help!
The timing option is only available for singular objects, and icons from Content Library 360 are added as a group, which is why you don't see this option available. Try replacing the icons in your slides with illustrations instead as a workaround. Illustrations are added as images which means the timing option will be available for these files.
Merci de votre réponse Jose,
je ne savais pas que cette distinction pouvait avoir un impact.
Jose, votre réponse m'a donné une idée (qui fonctionne bien :-) :
Ça accélère grandement mon travail, car j'ai des projets qui durent plusieurs minutes (4 à 8 minutes) et qui contiennent une centaine d'icons chaque.
Merci encore Jose! :-D
It may be too late for A. Alex, but there is a solution for anybody else that has the same problem.
Select the Animation tab.
Motion paths will show, and you can click the end (red) dot on the motion path in question. Go to Format, and the X and Y coordinates of the size and endpoint of the animation will show. Even if it takes some experimentation, using those coordinates as a starting point makes it pretty simple to align the object to the animation endpoint.
This post was removed by the author
Hi Walt,
Thanks for this suggestion. I will try that the next time this comes up. I used my own workaround as described above and it's just a big ol' pain to deal with.