Newbie, can't get layers to show

Hi Chris, so my understanding of what you are trying to do is as follows:

You have a slide (base) and with 2 layers which you call top layer and middle layer.

1. You want the top layer to appear as soon as the timeline of the base layer starts. - so to do this you have a slide trigger which says to show layer "top" when the timeline starts - this is correct.

2. You don't need the trigger to hide the top layer when the timeline reaches 8 sec on the base layer - so remove that. You don't need it because you have the properties set on  your layers to hide other layers.

3. On the top slide layer - add a trigger to show the middle layer when the timeline reaches 8 seconds. This will open the middle layer and close the top layer. Make sure the first animation of your middle layer starts as 0 secs so that you don't get an 8 second delay before it starts. 

Nancy, thank you. So the layer Timelines are absolute to the layer, not relative to the slide - the relative times for each layer are handled through triggers. I'm used to working in Captivate, where that is not the case, but now that you've explained that, I moved the second layer to 0 on its Timeline and the objects to their 2 second durations and start times, and I was indeed able to get the slide to run as I expected.

With respect to your 3rd point - I could assign the trigger to show the middle layer to either the base layer/slide or the top layer, and the result would be the same, correct? If that is correct, is there a preferred or recommended configuration? I could see reasons for both ways - applying it at the base layer/slide lets you see all of your layer timings in one place, applying it at the preceding layer lets you see the "relativity" between the slides.

Either way, thanks again, this is very appreciated!

Hi Chris and welcome to Heroes! It looks like Nancy was able to help you out here - just let us know if you need any further assistance. Sounds like you're well on your way now :)

Hi Chris.

With respect to your "with respect to your..." question...

Just a heads up - If your top layer has the setting to pause the base layer, then you would not be able to put the Show Middle Layer trigger in the base layer, as the base layer timeline would stop running when  the top layer opens.

Chris

Chris, thanks very much. In this instance, I'm not pausing the base layer, but your heads up is appreciated and duly noted.

Thanks again.

Since you are not pausing the base layer, you could put the trigger to show the middle layer on the base. There is no preferred method of configuration as long as it works 😁

Nancy, thanks again. Now that I'm an expert in this area ;-), I think I'd actually recommend to people that they apply the trigger at the preceding layer as a standard. That way, they don't have to worry about whether or not they're pausing the base layer. But your point is well taken - so long as it works, from a technical perspective one is no better or worse than the other.

Alyssa, Nancy definitely did help me out, and Chris Cole's information was very helpful as well.

That said, I'd like to make a suggestion that the tutorial videos include a video on how timelines work - not how to use the Timeline features (there's already a very good tutorial on that) but how to configure them for separate layers, determining the impact to the overall slide Timeline if you want to pause the base layer, how to set trigger start times and layer Timeline start times (e.g., in this example the Show Layer trigger Timeline start values were set relative to the base slide layer, but the  start times of the Timelines for each of the layers themselves was always set to 0 seconds), etc.

I had absolutely no idea that the layer Timelines needed to start at 0 seconds, independent of when I wanted them to actually Show and Hide. Even now, knowing how it works, I would not describe it as intuitive - and to be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad design, just not a particularly intuitive one - and a tutorial on managing multiple Timelines within a single slide would have been very helpful. I may actually be using layers in a somewhat unusual or uncommon way, but even if that's the case, I bet a lot of users would probably start thinking of other ways to manage presentations if they thought about using this approach.

And that said, I do want to reiterate - overall, I'm really loving Storyline. It definitely does make creating interactive eLearning material simple and fun. Thanks!

That's an excellent suggestion for a video tutorial, Chris.  I'll certainly pass that along. So glad you're loving Storyline! It's such a powerful tool, isn't it? It's always great to hear success stories. Best of luck to you on the rest of your project!

That is what I do. 

(Storyline 3)

1. I started out with a simple extra layer with grouped objects, properties Hide other slide layers unchecked), which didn't show in preview (slide, scene, or project).
2. I then, after reading about some quirks with grouping and layers, ungrouped and moved to top of timeline, and still didn't show.  I've created a trigger to show when the timeline starts.)  
3. I finally about gave up trying to use layers, so the original slide with target is now all on base layer, but I can't give up, so created another project with test slide with 2 extra layers--each one with a character to be triggered by timeline starting.  And they won't show.
4. Please don't make me revert to Captivate, which I thought was more complex, but...

Hi there Lisa! I'm happy to help you sort this out. Thanks for including your file, by the way. That's really helpful.

So taking a look at your file, I see you have a blank base layer with 2 slide layers. On each slide layer, you have one character--one male and one female. I don't see that you have any triggers in the trigger panel, other than triggers to jump to the next slide.

What did you have in mind as your goal for this slide? If you can give me a bit more information on what you want it to do, I can point you in the right direction!