Remove background on Character Animator imported to Storyline 360

Jun 28, 2021

Amit Goel
By Amit Goel

Hello, 

I've been at this a few days and looked at several threads, but I can't figure it out.  

I am just learning Adobe Character Animator and I'd like to add the animations to my Storyline 360 projects.  Ultimately, I'd like to start using After Effects and Illustrator (after I learn those programs) in conjunction with my animations.  

However, I am already experiencing a problem.  Every time I use Adobe Media Encoder to publish a Character Animator project as mp4 or QuickTime and import it to Storyline, the background comes out as black.  I tried to import as both a video file and as a web object with the same result.  There seems to be a background function in Character Animator (image below), but no matter what I try, the Storyline image still has a black background. 

 

I'd like to have a transparent background to my Character Animator projects so that I can create other, more dynamic backgrounds in Storyline and After Effects/Illustrator.  

Someone suggested to me that there is no way to remove the black background on a Character Animator project for import to Storyline 360, but I find it hard to believe something so simple is impossible to do.  

Can anyone help, please?  

 

4 Replies
Maria Costa-Stienstra
almost 3 years ago06/29/21 at 2:08 pm (UTC)

Hi, Amit.

I'm hopeful other community members who have used Character Animator can chime in with workarounds for you, but I wanted to share some initial information.

When you export a video from Character Animator, your only option for alpha is Quicktime (.mov format).

Screen Shot 2021-06-29 at 9.53.56 AM 2021-06-29 at 10.07.00 AM

Storyline 360 supports MP4 videos natively and converts other videos to MP4, which is why your background becomes black (my understanding is that MP4 does not support alpha channel).

Have you attempted to export as an animated GIF instead?

Amit Goel
almost 3 years ago06/29/21 at 5:46 pm (UTC)

Hi Marla, 

Thank you for the response.  

I can export as an Animated GIF, but I believe GIFs don't support sound, so this is a no-go.  

I tried a few different formats including MP4, Quicktime, Windows Media, Animated GIF.  

Every one returns a black background when I try to import to SL 360.  I tend to think the issue is in Storyline because every format returns the same background even when I specify a transparent background.  

I even removed the background in Photoshop and then tried importing to Storyline.  The black background reappeared.  

I can recolor the entire image in PPT or Storyline, but then that recolors the ENTIRE image, the little guy in the center doing the talking AND the background. 

I'll continue to experiment, but right now I'm really at a loss as to why I can't simply make the background transparent and import to Storyline.  

Amit

Amit Goel
almost 3 years ago06/29/21 at 10:50 pm (UTC)

UPDATE:  I figured it out!  If anyone is interested, I pasted the link below of the video I used to figure out how to change the background.  Once the Character Animator was washed through Camtasia, I published it and then imported the MP4 into Storyline 360.  Now the background is gone!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALqEM_BNq7w

 

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