SL2 Motion path relative start points - Hit and Miss

Nobody experienced this? No fixes or workarounds? Thanks.

Hi Steve. I haven't experienced this directly but I can imagine what is happening because of the inability to have exact starting and end points for motion paths. This is just another example of why this is such an important feature. For workarounds, some have suggested adding hidden shapes that you can try to have your motion snap to. It may work for you but is still a poor substitute for just being able to input start and end coordinates to a path (IMHO).

I would suggest you send a feature request.

Thanks Brett. Yes, I was considering sending a feature request. I'm quite disappointed at this as it was one of the features I justified my upgrade expenditure on. Darn. 

Hi Steve. Just been taking a look at Motion Paths as I attended a webinar last week, and thought I'd give it a go today to see how easy they were to build. I built a left to right bouncing smiley face bouncing onto different coloured boxes and it seemed to build ok, but as you say, the movement left & right (for me) over a period of time seems to move the face to a slightly higher position on the slide and away from the centre of the next box, and the face seemed to hover over the boxes rather than resting on them. I've attached the story for you to see. Did you raise a feature as suggested by Brett, do you want me to raise one too? Regards Mal

Hi Malcolm,

The more feature requests the better - that way our team is able to determine how many users would like to see a particular element and all ways in which they'd like it to work. 

Thanks for submitting one, and you can share the file as an example too! 

Hi Ashley. Thanks for your reply, sorry for the delay in getting back, been away from the office. I've submitted a feature request this morning, linking it to this discussion so that access to the attached story can be picked up. Regards Mal

Awesome Malcolm, no apologies necessary. Glad you were able to send along the request and please let us know if you need anything else. 

I added a feature request too. With a sample file and a link to this thread. 

Thanks Steve, great to share examples as well so thanks for attaching that. 

Hi Folks

I am having the same "straying from the path" issue.

I created the attached exactly how the demo video created the baseball diamond (using the "freeform" option), but I need my object to be moving in a straight line.

As you can see, by the end of the path, the object is significantly higher than where it started from. And I definitely built the path along a straight line because I followed a guide line.

I also tried creating the motion path by using the "line" option instead of the "freeform" option. But the same thing happens. It strays from the path the further along the path it gets. With each stop it gets a touch higher.

Is there a fix for this yet, does anyone know?

In its current state, I cannot give this to my client, even though a motion path that travels in a straight line with stops along the way is a critical part of the project. A simple ask for such fancy software, surely!

Is there any news on this issue? Thanks!

Hi Liz! I have no update on this request and would encourage you to submit yours as well. These requests go to our development team :)

Done. Thanks for your response Leslie.

Thanks Liz :)

I have seen this as well and it another huge flaw with Articulate Storylines motion paths.

I could go on but really, they couldn't include any way to accurately position starting and ending points for a motion path!

Have you tried selecting a motion path and then pressing Ctlr+Shift+Enter to specify its position and size. It's not perfect, but at least you get better control than eyeballing it.

Hi Tom! Looks like Michael is assisting you here and you are welcome to share your thoughts with our product development team here.

Yes I have tried that, and your right it's not perfect. In fact it's no help at all. It amazes me that this is even an issue. Here is how things should work. You create a motion path (arch) for your object (a circle shape). You want the object to move in an arch from the top left corner to the center of the screen.  So you select the start point of the motion path and move it to the upper left corner. Then you select the end point and move it to the center of the screen. Doesn't seem that that should be a difficult task. In fact the user should be able to right click either the start point or end point and enter the horizontal and vertical position he desires! I don't know how the programmers could have missed that option.

Thanks but no thanks Leslie. You really don't want me to share my thoughts with the development team! If they don't already know that this feature is an issue....

Tom. I sent a request to the development team about this, with a sample file, about 4 months ago. Storyline is a great rapid e-learning tool with a helpful community and development team. How many such companies actually post on forums? Adobe: no. Microsoft: no. Articulate: yes.

So with that in mind, your help in getting this small issue fixed by sending a polite request to the development team (like I did) would be helpful to all of us. And I must emphasise it is a small issue. Storyline is an e-learning tool, not an animation tool. 'Venting' about an issue is fine, we've all had our "I hate this app" moments (mine mostly with Adobe and Microsoft). But once the 'venting' is done with the issue still needs to be dealt with. The note to the Articulate developers is how. Thanks.

I found the attached solution after playing with the baseball diamond and relative start point examples. The baseball example is a workaround that uses layers to limit the movement. The relative start point example uses a variable to limit the movement within the slide. There is probably a way to use variables for the baseball example but I didn't have the time to work it through. Hope this helps.

Hi everyone! The motion path feature is indeed pretty neat, but the flaws presented here really need fixing. I'm surprised that they persist to this day, and in Articulate Storyline 3 at that! I wonder if the SL dev team has at least figured out the problem, like why the motion paths problems still persist.

What I keep noticing is that, every time I make a straight motion path and move the end point to either right angle left or right, the dotted line doesn't really make a straight path. If you look closer it becomes jagged at certain points--either going a bit downwards or upwards. This means the longer you extend the path, the farther away the object will move from its intended horizontal position.

I will submit a request ticket today, but can one of the staff inquire about the status of our requests? We will truly appreciate any news about this.

PS: I tried replicating the issue in SL3 demo version, so there's a possibility that in the unlocked version this motion path issue is already fixed. Can anyone confirm?

Hi Jeselle,

I see what you're describing with how the line looks while you're moving it, but once I release the end point the dotted lines appear straight again. Previewing the slide also shows it moving along the same straight path. I did a test of this in Storyline 3 - and the trial version is a full version of the software so they'll behave the same way.