Layers for animation

Jul 21, 2023

Luka Peters
By Luka Peters

Hello fellow learning designers

I am new to storyline and have the impression that I haven't yet fully understood the workings of layers with triggers.

This is my use case: I want 2 persons to present themselves to the learner, then turn to each other to shake hands.

I have three layers on one slide: 
Layer 1: Persons introduce them to the learner
Layer 2: Persons just stand there for a short moment
Layer 3: Persons are shaking hand with each other

Each layer is configured in a way that the other layers are not shown. Each layer has a trigger referring to a specific time on the timeline. 

Yet, when previewing the slide only the first layer is shown and nothing else happens. What do I do wrong?

4 Replies
Tommi Ojala
9 months ago07/21/23 at 9:33 am (UTC)

Each Layer has its own triggers and timeline. By the looks of it you have just assumed that all the layers operate on a single timeline, but that is not the case.

 So you will need some sort of "Show Layer 1" trigger on the base layer in order to move to that Layer.

But all that might easier to do if the character animations would be done in different States in base layer instead of different layers. You would get all the objects to the same timeline, and might easier the adjust the animations that way.

EDIT: Then again, with layers you can easily make one section in between longer, and following layers keep their animation timings automatically, so layers do have benefits too here.

Eric Santos
9 months ago07/21/23 at 4:56 pm (UTC)

Hi Luka,

I'm happy to share some insights into this as well! Tommi is correct that the timeline of the base layer is distinct from the timeline of the layers. Based on this principle, I made some revisions to the file, which included adding triggers on the base layer and the Vortsellung 2 layer to show the next layer when the timeline ends. You can find these changes in the attached file. Please let me know if you have any questions.

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