I keep revisiting this over the years, looks like 360 hasn't addressed it either. Well, at least my search of the forum turns up zero results. I'm using Finalcut Pro, exporting a short clip using the codec Apple ProRes 4444. This codec provides alpha channel encoding but I still get a black background when importing into Storyline 360 v3.35.21017.0.
I can work around this but I was sure hoping that Storyline would support alpha channels by now...
George
I absolutely LOVE SL, I tried Captivate and it is clunky and almost unusable.
I will still ALWAYS use SL.
The transparent bg issues is an issue I would love to see resolved, it CAN be done.
This is how I work around it (having to use white bg):
http://www.e-serco.com/e-learning/story.html
You just have to be creative with how and where you place video for now!
SL still by far the best and, for me, the ONLY solution to designing eLearning environments.
You can also create a transparent gif. I do this regularly as Storyline 360 doesn't have a problem with transparent gifs. All you need to do is once you have the animation done (I use AE) and export it into Photoshop is ensure it never loops. That way it acts like a video with a transparent background.
Hi George,
Thanks for contacting us to share the types of videos you are working with and that you would like to use these in Storyline 360.
Our current support is specific to FLV videos with alpha channel transparency, but we are tracking a feature request for additional support. I've added this conversation to the report so that we can share any updates with you here.
Uh….didn’t I read that flash would not be supported by Articulate any longer? Or maybe it was something else….
Sincerely,
George Moureau
IT Director
PICC Excellence, Inc.
706 377 3360
Hi George,
You likely received the email our team sent out, about what's going to happen when Adobe discontinues support for Flash, and how that impacts the Articulate tools that use Flash. You can read more about it in this article.
In short, once Flash is no longer supported by Adobe, we'll also no longer be able to support items like the FLV videos.
Hi Ashley,
No problem with phasing out Flash, I haven’t used it in forever. I’ve switched to H264 codecs. Was just wishing Articulate had caught up with it and supported alpha channels.
Thanks for your response, good to hear from you again.
Sincerely,
George Moureau
IT Director
PICC Excellence, Inc.
706 377 3360
Transparent videos is a feature we've heard a bit about in the past, so I'll be following along if that increases as more folks transition away from Flash-based videos too. Will certainly keep you posted!
+1, this is something my org needs. Please add transparent video support.
Good luck! We’ve been asking for that for years….
Sincerely,
George Moureau
IT Director
PICC Excellence, Inc.
706 377 3360
Are there any updates to support video with alpha channel? This is a needed functionality in SL.
Hello Michael,
I'm just popping in here to let you know my teammate, Maria, responded to your question in this thread!
Come on guys, really? Storyline is NOT cheap, why would you not have such a basic feature???
video with alpha is not so simple, because of the html5 browser compatibility
Chrome/Firefox - VP9 (webm)
Safari - H265 (mp4) - not free to use
IE11 - nothing (but IE is dead)
you have to create two different videos and use <video>-Tag with fallback for the different browser
Jürgen
OK, so what's the problem?
I've accepted this as the way SL processes and packages programs. Honestly I do everything I need in After Effects, run the result through compressor (I'm a Mac user) then import the .mp4 into SL. There's no way SL will match the power of AE. The way they handle their playhead is awkward, and not having frame counters is tedious, so I think we've hit the wall on improvements that I'd be interested in to the SL engine.
SL is quirky but it's still one of the best tools for packaging products. I think the Publishing engine is pretty high-end with many good options to use. I'm a heavy user, along with other tools like AE and FinalCut, Auditon, etc. All in all, I'm satisfied with SL capabilities.
