Orient Shape to Path option in Storyline 360

Nov 10, 2016

I have a simple, looped motion path animation (curve) with the 'Orient Shape to Path' option enabled. See here. The first time around the object behaves as expected. But for subsequent cycles of the animation, the object starts to 'drift', as if it adds rotation in every cycle. This doesn't happen when I jumpToSlide at the end of the timeline (instead of triggering the motion path animation again when animation completes). Is this a bug?

15 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

HI Michael,

I checked with the Desktop engineers on this one, as I was a bit stumped, and they said it looks like it's keeping the rotation from the end of the motion path and then starting the loop with an already rotated state. Based on that it seems to be expected, although I hope to never be on that flight! As a way around it, they suggested looking at having a short motion path off screen to get it reoriented before it starts over. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Michael,

Alright, sorry for the delay on this one -I had to take off early for a wedding, but our developers looked again at this and shared an updated copy (attached) and he shared:

The key is to add a second motion path that is also relative and oriented to motion path. This one need to turn the plane back to the starting orientation, so it is curved, and goes from the angle at the end of the first motion path to the angle at the start of it.

Alternatively, he could redraw the curve for the main motion path so that it ends and begins with the same angle (straight horizontal).

Kyle Buckel

Is there a better solution to this issue at this point?

I have 6 arrows on a slide that need to show a path of travel. They play fine when I play the slide in SL3, but I ran into the rotation issue while previewing the course. They need to loop continuously once they appear on the slide with no interruptions (so I can't use the blank slide method) and need to continue to loop after the timeline ends (so looping layers is not an option). they do not run off the slide so I cannot reorient them with a different motion path. I attached a story file with the animations copied over but the narration and other proprietary assets removed. I think it still illustrates the issue I'm facing. 

I'm stumped. The only thing I can think is to remove the loop and copy the arrows with the motion path over and over and push the timeline out far beyond when the narration ends so that they keep playing if the learner doesn't hit the next button right away. This does not seem like the right way to do it though. 

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