Stopping sound on other layers

Mar 26, 2014

I have the base layer and two slide layers each with their own sound track and some text and graphics.
The slide layers are opened by hot spots on the base layer.
The slide layers are set up to stay open after being clicked - opening one does not hide the other.
But if sound is playing on a layer I want it to stop while the new layer sound plays so that there is no overlapping sound.

The Stop Media triggers in Storyline only let you stop a sound on the current layer. I can't seem to find a way to stop a sound playing on one of the slide layers from the base layer - it only sees the sound on the current timeline.

Does anyone have a fix for this? I checked other posts and only one person had this problem but no one had a solution.

39 Replies

Jen McIntosh

6 years ago02/14/18 at 2:30 pm (UTC)

Yeah, the issue here is that we need the other slide layers to be visible, not hidden. Pausing the base layer does nothing in that case, the audio from the other slide layers will still overlap each other. There have been plenty of great solutions posted so far in this thread—either by using variables, states, or triggers.

6 years ago04/12/18 at 7:43 pm (UTC)

This workaround worked well for me. Thanks!!

Leslie McKerchie
Staff

6 years ago04/12/18 at 7:49 pm (UTC)

Glad to hear it Laurel. Thanks for chiming in to share :)

Nina lebarovic

over 5 years ago08/30/18 at 10:06 pm (UTC)

I made a small quick example of how you can solve problem of playing audio on different layers without audio overlapping.

You can see the example here for classic player and here for modern player.

You can download .story file here.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
Staff

over 5 years ago08/31/18 at 12:38 pm (UTC)

Thanks, Nives - always good to see new ideas and more examples shared here.

over 5 years ago11/27/18 at 12:50 am (UTC)

What if I want to resume the audio from the previous slide layer clicked?

over 5 years ago11/27/18 at 2:54 pm (UTC)

Hi there, Rick. Do you have your layer properties set to pause the timeline of the base layer? That will ensure that each layer has its own timeline.

What are your triggers to show different layers and to hide them? When you leave a layer, the timeline of that layer pauses. When you revisit a layer, the timeline should resume, and the audio should play.

Let us know what you think!

almost 5 years ago06/11/19 at 12:30 pm (UTC)

It worked for me when the layer is not set to hide other layers

almost 5 years ago06/11/19 at 2:11 pm (UTC)

ray laurencelle

It worked for me when the layer is not set to hide other layers

Yes as stated previously by others in this thread, the issue is when the layers are visible, not hidden. When visible, pausing the base layer does nothing and the audio from the other slide layers will still overlap each other. There have been plenty of great solutions posted so far in this thread—either by using variables, states, or triggers.

almost 5 years ago06/20/19 at 2:17 pm (UTC)

Thanks, Peter! This solved my issue - and didn't require restructuring a lot of slides that we'd already built.

over 4 years ago10/10/19 at 8:14 pm (UTC)

Perfect thanks :-)

Julie Marsh

over 3 years ago10/09/20 at 2:50 am (UTC)

Thank you Michael Hinze!!

https://community.articulate.com/users/MichaelHinze

This worked perfectly. Took me a while to figure out that you had created a single variable, then allocated a number to each of the layer triggers, so that the audio on the layer only works when the allocated variable number is valid. Genius! and simple!

(i.e. on main slide: Two triggers per item: T1: when clicked show layer, T2: when clicked set to a specified variable value

then on the layer: Two triggers: T1: play audio if variable = to specified value T 2: stop audio not= to specified value)

I often use a diagram with clickable icons - these icons are linked to a layer with text and audio - which build into a 'poster' style diagram. I have 7 icons & layers on my current slide.... so having the audio play only when the icon is clicked, is a relief. Thank you, thank you, thank you - I spent hours hunting down this solution.