ADDING MULTIPLE ANIMATIONS TO A STORYLINE 2 ELEMENTS TO CREATE DYNAMIC ELEARNING
Today I’d like to talk about a sneaky way to add multiple animations to a single element in a Storyline 2 eLearning course. By default, you’re only allowed to add a single animation to an element, but as with much in Storyline, you can get around the built-in limitations with a little trickery.
The secret to adding multiple animations in an eLearning course is to add a single object and to take advantage of the ‘Group’ feature of Storyline 2. Grouping allows you to add separate animations to the group as a whole, and to each element within it. Grouping groups is also possible, and you can keep up this Russian-doll-style grouping of groups ad infinitum. Just shift+click all the elements you want to group, right click on them and select ‘Group.’ You can now animate the group as a whole separately from its members.
If you have a bunch of things you’d like to multi-animate in an eLearning course, grouping them is easy, but what if you only have a single object, or you’ve combined your groups to the point there’s only one left – and you just have to add one more spin-and-grow to your beloved widget? Well then we go from a slightly hacky solution to one that’s just unforgivable. Don’t do this. Seriously, bad form. But if you need to, you can duplicate the widget, reposition it over itself (see this previous post for the best way to do this), then group the two identical widgets. Alternatively, you could make the second widget fully transparent. You can duplicate and recombine groups this way, too.
This will increase the size of your eLearning module, especially if you’re animating a high-res photo (or a Flash movie). So try not to do this, but if you someday have a need to add a ridiculous widget to your screen which fades in while swiveling, growing, bouncing and zooming all at the same time, and nobody can talk you out of it, know that it is possible.
