Advanced interactions and custom effects

[SuzySu]

Me again,

I am still having problems with custom effects in advanced actions and even though this has been escalated to senior support within adobe - i have today been told that what i am trying to do is impossible.

I am starting to worry that what i am doing is incorrect and that what i want captivate to do is limited. i cant believe that it is but i just can not seem to get it to work - please help me i am tearing my hair out.

thanking you in advnace

[SuzySu]

oh i should say that the bars up the left hand side are buttons - when they are clicked 3 images are shown - i have attached an example of one of the images.

[Lilybiri]

I remember those screenshots, and if I would still accept files to debug (stopped doing that, feels not right to do all that for free, spent in the past so many hours debugging files), could have a look. I have been applying custom effects by advanced actions, so don't see immediately why this wouldn't work. But if the Adobe team says it is impossible, they should know the best (bit in doubt however).

Lilybiri

[Justenuf2bdangerous]

Lieve is right (big surprise there, right?) - there's no reason this shouldn't work. The only hang up I can see is that the effect is custom-made. Have you tried running this using a standard entrance effect to see if the action works that way?

Justenuf

[SuzySu]

Hi Lilybiri,

Thanks as always for your reply. I dont understand why it wont work, like you say you use custom effects in advnaced actions and they work - thats why i wondered if i had done them incorrectly. Justenuf - thanks for replying - the custom effects do work when i use them as a timed effect so thats why i am so unsure of why they dont work with the advanced action.

Do you think i should save them in a different directory? I dont think this would make any difference but i am running out of ideas of how to solve my problem...

[Justenuf2bdangerous]

Suzy:

Seems like it should have absolutely no effect on the action, so saving to a different directory will probably work.... Have you rebuilt the action in a blank project to see if the same glitch occurs?

Justenuf

[SuzySu]

yeah, I have rebuilt it several times, sometimes using different custom effects to see if there was a glitch with the custom effect i had saved... but no change really, the effect defaults to the standard 2 second duration to either stretch in fade in and unfortunately it just looks like powerpoint and not professional enough for my customer.  they hate how it looks at the moment so dont know really what to do...

[Justenuf2bdangerous]

Not sure what your level of resources are - my only other thought would be to build an animation of the content that performs the same effect as you've designed and have it run using the same action set sans effect. A heck of a lot of work to do something that should be as simple as setting your timing on the effects menu.

[SuzySu]

am i right in thinking then that no body else has used custom timing on effects in advanced actions - i dont think im being that revolutionary...

[Justenuf2bdangerous]

I just ran a simple version of your set up as seen on the screen using standard buttons and shapes and was able to set my timing without an issue, so I'm mystified at this point. Turning this one over to Lieve and her much greater expertise.

[Lilybiri]

Oh no, it is just because you cannot set timing nor motion paths in the Advanced actions that I had to create so many effects.

[Lilybiri]

I always save custom effects to the Custom subfolder, that is the easiest way to have them also available in other projects. Pretty sure that this cannot be the cause.

Suzy, I can try to rebuild here. Can you tell me:

• the exact details of the composed effect FadeStretch and its duration
• are the images the photos that come in? would recommend grouping them, so you can hide group and show one you want (one statement less)
• are all images hidden when you enter the slide?

Lilybiri

[SuzySu]

Hi Lilybiri,

thats what i thought - i cant believe that saving them in a folder can effect the effect!

the exact details are that the fade stretch starts with: initial alpha 0% final alpha 100% and the stretch is from the left with a duration of 0.5 seconds.

the images / words and background are all one image so that there are less items on the timeline

the bars are visible when you enter the slide but the image (red boxwith girl and text) are hidden and are shown as part of the advanced action when the bar is clicked

i hope this makes sense

[Lilybiri]

And Alpha change is at the same moment and with the same duration. I just try with images. I don't think you mean the slide background, but the background of the image, right?

Why did you create different effects for the other images? Are they different, and if yes what is the difference?

[SuzySu]

yes, sorry  - it all needs to happen in 0.5 seconds and yes, you are right - just the image background not the slide background

[Lilybiri]

I could reproduce your problem. I checked the XML-file, and there the duration is correctly set to 0.5secs.

When applying the custom effect time-based or using an interactive object, that duration is correct.

But discovered (was using CP7) that when applying a custom effect by advanced action, the duration for Stretch (and for several other effects) reverts to the custom duration and  even that it is independent of the duration of the object timeline, which is really strange. You can make the object duration as long or as short as you want, the duration of the effect is always the same when applied by advanced actions. Even if you use one of the default effects.

Will try to find out what happens... no solution for the moment, just discovered this. Would like to go back to 5 or  5.5 because I don't remember it was the case there, but that will be for later.

Lilybiri

[SuzySu]

thank you so much for your explanations - you seem to be much more knowledgable than the people that i have been talking to at adobe.

at least i am not going crazy or its not just my computer - will have to try and find a way round this - thank you for your help

[Lilybiri]

Try to explain what you want to do, maybe I can help.

I'm just a very exploring kind of user, perhaps you couldn't get the right person from the staff?

Lilybiri

[B-ace]

Found this thread since I have the same problem. Anyone found a solution or workaround for the 2 second thing?

[Lilybiri]

No, sorry, couldn't find any workaround.

[TLCMediaDesign]

Wouldn't it be possible to create several slides that accomplish what you want and have the buttons navigate to those slides? Blue transition slide, Green..., Red....

I think when you create the effect on the timeline it's creating a movieclip based on your parameters. When you do it with an applied effect the movieclip CP creates has a fixed time (60 frames).

[Lilybiri]

Strange, because it is not happening with time-triggered or button-triggered effects, only with effects applied by Advanced actions.