What a tricky but fun design challenge! I think Walt's suggestion of creating this in PowerPoint is a good one as it will let you take advantage of the Morph Transition. That feature is an animation powerhouse and it's quite similar to the Adobe XD auto-animate functionality used in the example you linked to.
That example file also had a good clue about how to do this quickly: as long as it moves fast you don't have to display every number accurately as the counter goes up. You just need each number place to animate faster than the one to the left of it to trick the eye.
And that clue led to the three files I've attached. The first two are GIFs of how this animation technique can turn out. The third is the PowerPoint file I created them in, so you can customize it if this approach works for you. Here's how I made it.
In PowerPoint start by creating a long text column with the numbers 0-9 repeating multiple times (4-5 times worked in my test). Set the first number of that column to where you want the number to display on the slide. Make as many copies of that column as you need number places and spread them across the slide to build out your fuel pump-like number display. Then adjust the number columns up or down slightly to your start number.
Next, you'll want to make a masking shape with a window cut out to show just the numbers you want to display—in this case, your arrow. Make a rectangle the size of the full slide (or wider than the slide in a case like this where the window will grow) and draw your window shape on top of it where you want the numbers to display. Then cut it out from the rectangle using Merge Shapes: Subtract. In the example file, you'll notice I cut the arrow window so it was the full length it needed to be at the end of the animation and moved some of the masking rectangle off-screen on Slide 1.
Now you'll start animating. Duplicate your slide. On your new Slide 2 turn on the Morph Transition and set its length to how long you want your animation to run (I used 7 seconds for the example GIFs). Then adjust each column up to display your final number. The trick to this is the farther to the right a number place is, the farther up you'll want to move your number column so that number looks like it's scrolling faster. This is why we repeated the 0-9 sequence multiple times. For a static window you can stop here, but since you wanted your arrow window to grow, move the masking rectangle on Slide 2 so the arrow window is at the final position you want it at.
Then just export your work as either a GIF or video, insert it on your Storyline 360 course, and you're all set!
I hope this works for your situation and let me know if you have any questions about the PowerPoint file.
Thank you so much for your suggestion. I think making this in PowerPo9nt and exporting as a gif will be the best option so we can have control over the colours and timing much more easily.
I will have a play with this in the next week or so.
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This might give you some ideas for the numbers.
Thank you, I thought it would be something like this. This is not going to be a simple fix. ;-)
I don't think it would be that hard using motion paths with one being not relative which would keep reseting it back to the start
If you envision the arrow growing in two dimensions, probably the easiest way would be to animate it in PowerPoint, and export it as a video.
Hi Tanya,
What a tricky but fun design challenge! I think Walt's suggestion of creating this in PowerPoint is a good one as it will let you take advantage of the Morph Transition. That feature is an animation powerhouse and it's quite similar to the Adobe XD auto-animate functionality used in the example you linked to.
That example file also had a good clue about how to do this quickly: as long as it moves fast you don't have to display every number accurately as the counter goes up. You just need each number place to animate faster than the one to the left of it to trick the eye.
And that clue led to the three files I've attached. The first two are GIFs of how this animation technique can turn out. The third is the PowerPoint file I created them in, so you can customize it if this approach works for you. Here's how I made it.
In PowerPoint start by creating a long text column with the numbers 0-9 repeating multiple times (4-5 times worked in my test). Set the first number of that column to where you want the number to display on the slide. Make as many copies of that column as you need number places and spread them across the slide to build out your fuel pump-like number display. Then adjust the number columns up or down slightly to your start number.
Next, you'll want to make a masking shape with a window cut out to show just the numbers you want to display—in this case, your arrow. Make a rectangle the size of the full slide (or wider than the slide in a case like this where the window will grow) and draw your window shape on top of it where you want the numbers to display. Then cut it out from the rectangle using Merge Shapes: Subtract. In the example file, you'll notice I cut the arrow window so it was the full length it needed to be at the end of the animation and moved some of the masking rectangle off-screen on Slide 1.
Now you'll start animating. Duplicate your slide. On your new Slide 2 turn on the Morph Transition and set its length to how long you want your animation to run (I used 7 seconds for the example GIFs). Then adjust each column up to display your final number. The trick to this is the farther to the right a number place is, the farther up you'll want to move your number column so that number looks like it's scrolling faster. This is why we repeated the 0-9 sequence multiple times. For a static window you can stop here, but since you wanted your arrow window to grow, move the masking rectangle on Slide 2 so the arrow window is at the final position you want it at.
Then just export your work as either a GIF or video, insert it on your Storyline 360 course, and you're all set!
I hope this works for your situation and let me know if you have any questions about the PowerPoint file.
Hi Bianca,
Thank you so much for your suggestion. I think making this in PowerPo9nt and exporting as a gif will be the best option so we can have control over the colours and timing much more easily.
I will have a play with this in the next week or so.
thank you, great suggestion.