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TravisWhitworth
Participant
July 7, 2017
Question

Multiple Background audio

  • July 7, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 664 views

This has been quite bothersome. The background audio feature doesn't seem to have much that you can do to alter it. Either it's on or it isn't.

For most of my course the same background audio will loop. It's a self paced course, so there is no way to know how long a learner will stay on a slide or how many times they may need to go backward. Not to mention, the course is built in a sort of "choose your own adventure" branching style so it would seem background audio is the only option if I want audio to play seamlessly across slides

There is a sequence in the course where the music should ramp up as the adventure is coming to a climax. Once again, it's self paced so placing music on each slide will not sound very good because once the continue button appears everything will pause turning the music off, and when the next slide starts it will not match well with where the track ended on the previous slide.

So it seems that it would be best to be able to have multiple background tracks and to choose which track plays on which slides. Since this isn't an option, does anyone happen to know any work arounds?

Needs:

Allow background audio to loop through course

Stop original background audio to allow new background music to play through specific part of course

Go back to original background audio

Audio must be able to play continuously even while "continue" button is pausing the slide

Audio must be able to play seamlessly across slides

Obstacles:

Captivate doesn't allow switching of background audio

Adding audio to slide or object will cut off after moving to next slide

Self paced course so audio needs to be able to loop as learners will spend time differently in each slide

Thanks for the help

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

chuck_jones_1
chuck_jones_1
Inspiring
July 10, 2017

Hi Travis,

 

With the kind of control you want over the audio, have you tried using the various actions available to you? The two I'm thinking of are "Play Audio" and "Stop Triggered Audio." If you are in Captivate 9 or 10, you also have some additional actions that can help, such as "Delay Next Action by" - which means you can start playing one audio file, then have another audio file start 5 or 7 or however many seconds later.  And in Captivate 10, you can use the "While" action so that the music file you want to play will play while something is happening on the screen. I suspect you'll want your user's navigation path to control where the audio goes, so assigning those actions to the buttons may be helpful.

 

Regarding looping background audio, in cases where I've needed to do that, I've placed my audio file on the timeline, then added an advanced action at the end of the slide to return immediately to the beginning of that very slide.  You can't put an action to go to slide # directly, because you cannot have a slide point to itself.  But if you create an advanced action and tell it to go to the very same slide number you are currently on, that will work.

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

CHUCK JONES

Lilybiri
Lilybiri
Legend
July 10, 2017

Be careful, slide audio, object Audio, nor the Delay Next Actions time will

be paused by the pausing point of an interactive object like a button.

chuck_jones_1
chuck_jones_1
Inspiring
July 10, 2017

I agree with the slide audio statement. Even if everything else pauses on the slide because of a button, the audio goes on and on. I've been able to play audio or stop triggered audio (and generally both) through a button click, and I'll use those if I need greater control.  I've also been able to create an action that 1) play audio 1 (that is 7 seconds for example), then delay next action by (say 8 seconds), then 3) play audio 2. I use that technique with voice over very frequently.

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