Forum Discussion
Animation in Storyline through the Morph Transition
Some time ago, PowerPoint came out with a transition called Morph that literally morphs shapes, colors, strokes, graphics, etc. from one slide to the next. In other words, if you build a design on one slide, duplicate the slide, and make changes to the shapes on the second slide, the Morph transition will smoothly deform the shapes from the first slide to the next.
This transition is POWERFUL for animation. I feel that small animations of this kind are especially important for a product like Storyline. In a sense, the ability to build animations is one of the key features that I feel is missing from Storyline. If Articulate would consider adding the Morph transition to Storyline, it would allow users to animate the graphics on the screen with triggers, and I believe that would open up new worlds of possibility with Storyline.
Is this something you all would consider adding to Storyline?
Hello everyone, 🎉
I have some great news to share! We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 98, we’ve included essential fixes and new features. One of the new features we’ve included is:
- Engage learners with fluid transitions that seamlessly animate objects, shapes, and other content between slides.
Launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer to take advantage of this update, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You’ll find our step-by-step instructions here.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions.
263 Replies
Hi Tina and Julia,
We treat all replies, comments, and + 1's in these E-Learning Heroes Discussions as "feature requests" too. That way we're capturing the voice of our users across multiple input points and truly looking to have many diverse voices represented. We take each submission, comment, and reply seriously to understand the value it would bring to all our customers.
Given the continued conversations in this discussion, our team will be discussing this feature again. That's one of many steps in our process, but I hope it reaffirms that we're here and we're listening.
If there is anything else we can do to help, please let us know.
Totally agree Julia. So, do we need to bombard Articulate with a feature request for morph before they will take us seriously? The number of users impacted, I believe, would be every user - the vast majority of instructional designers would appreciate this, even if they're not aware of it yet!
Respectfully, I'd submit that you're not reaching a representative sample of your core users. Typically, the most vocal and/or the most aggravated are the people who take time to log on, find a board, locate a request link, etc., and then take time to post. That's a small percentage. Requesting the morph transition is rather akin to requesting indoor plumbing. If the 2 star hostel down the street (Powerpoint) has it, but the 4 star luxury chain (Articulate) doesn't, most people will just work around it until they find a way to pack up and move on. They are spending time finding out what software that amazing design they love was created in, and after enough of the same answer, they jump ship. Consider this board a canary in the coal mine rather than an pesky outlier, please.
Brett, it impacts EVERY user who has a Morph transition in their PowerPoint deck. Remember, that transition is more than just a wipe, fade or barn-doors. It's really used as a way to quickly and efficiently animate / transition things (motion, scale, color, transparency, typography, etc). People heavily use this transition. You just might not be hearing much from the users because they already know to prepare their work differently. It takes time to make noise.
Hi Everyone! - As Lead Customer Advocate at Articulate, my goal is to work directly with our product team to voice your needs. I take into account every insight shared in our E-Learning Heroes community, and evaluate 100+ feature requests every week.
I understand your passion for this feature and share the same enthusiasm when I bring requests to our team.
To add more context, the need for Morph Transitions has impacted a low number of users, and that contributes to the priority we give it. Industry trends, new ideas, and complexity of a feature also weigh in on our decision process, but none of these factors have managed to move this one past the items currently on our product roadmap.
I hope this glimpse into our feature process will help address any concerns.
@bjorgensen Good to hear some motivation about choices made on the development roadmap Bret. To improve visibility and clarity of the development product roadmap i would suggest creating a viewable list for all users here on the forum where all can see what is top priority and if ideas and things they request are already on that list...and possibly vote directly on items.
I can understand where you're coming from on the "metrics" side of things...but the other considerations to take is that a far more inferior product to Articulate is offering a feature that many of us use. It is us minorities that will drive and inspire the majority. So I would like the Articulate team to be encouraged that it would be a very helpful feature AND that if more people knew about this feature being available in Articulate they'd probably NOT use 3rd party for it.
I am sorry you do not see the need for morph. Your competition, iSpring, allows me to retain all of my morph transitions when creating courses in PPT thru their tool. I understand adding morph to Storyline could be difficult, but I do not understand how adding morph to Articulate 360 (presenter) would be hard. I have purchased iSpring just so I have access to Morph. With the recent release of iSpring Page (basically iSpring’s version of Articulate Rise), now when I compare iSpring to Articulate… the differentiator for me is morph. We rely primarily on Articulate 360 or RISE to create our courses, so losing access to Storyline does not hurt me at this point. I prefer to stay with Articulate… but the morph feature is a ‘must have” in my world and iSpring offers me that. So for now, unfortunately, I am switching to iSpring and will not be renewing with Articulate. If you have morph by the time my renewal date comes back around, I am hopeful to return.
https://www.ispringsolutions.com/blog/ispring-supports-the-amazing-morph-transition
https://www.ispringsolutions.com/ispring-page
And would it kill you (after this many years) to do a Mac version?
Thanks. I also think that Articulate might not truly understand WHY we like the Morph transition. It's not really about the "animation" per-se. It's about how much (and what kind of) animation we can get—for the least amount of TIME invested. It's SO EASY to use. I see all kinds of suggestions for complicated workarounds, but those people don't seem to understand. I want to make these transitions in PowerPoint, and I want them to remain intact in Storyline. I can get so much out of that transition. Articulate needs to take to heart that we often have to develop to multiple platforms. Articulate 360 is not a one-stop-shop. The relationship between what I do in PowerPoint and what I do in Storyline—is symbiotic. Articulate needs to be going where PowerPoint is going.
Very well said Patrick, I agree.
I think it either: it would require a larger chunk of DEV time than Articulate is willing to allocate, or the way their development architecture is set up, it might not actually be possible for them to execute.
Software companies never admit that they can't actually do something, so they rely on the PR technique of stating that they're choosing not to do it. I think that if they could do it cheaply enough, they'd have done it years ago. Unfortunately, it's now been five years. Perhaps it's time to reinvent the wheel and blow-up the old code and start anew. You've gotten a LOT of miles out of this code, Articulate!
I agree if they can revisit their priorities and I believe that they are listening to their customers it's just that Morph is not with a very high impact as we can proceed with alternatives. I visited their feature roadmap and I'm looking forward to those. Let's also consider their process as we all know that even in our own processes and business requirements we sometimes or most of the time prioritize things based on impact, need, time and effort. Take care everyone!
