Interactive video elements

[mstischner]

Hi,

I want to do the following with captivate, but didn't find a way til now:

I want to produce video with interactive Elements. The video shall be played in full format and at certain points, interactive elements shall pop up upon the videoframe.

For example:

At one point there shall pop up several clickable buttons. Every button shall lead to a different additional content element.

Like this example (buttons in the upper left corner)

Click on one button shall open a Textbox upon the videoframe. The video shall stop til the user clicks on the textbox. Then the textbox shall dissapear and the video shall continue.

Other buttons shall work in the same way - with photograps/graphics or a second video as content.

Here an example with graphics content - the video shall stop when the graphic is opened (by clicking on the graphics button in the upper icon row), and when clicking on the graphic, the graphic shall dissapear and the video shall continue:

Til now, I only found out, that objects can be displayed a certain time, but not during a stopped video til the object is clicked again...

Maybe someone else can help me.

@ Adobe: if this really doesn't work in captivate 5.5, maybe in captivate 6??

Thanks and best regards

Markus

[AdityaKalania]

WIth Adobe Captivate you can use image buttons which can then show/hide objects.

Like in the example that you have shown, you can have a slide video running in the background, and then the image buttons can have advanced actions to pause the playback and show any other object.

With the help of these screenshots, I am guessing that it is something developed in Flash. We cannot have the same flash effects in captivate, but yes it can obviously do things that I have discussed here.

Let me know if you need more information for that.

Thanks

[mstischner]

Hi Aditya,

thanks for your answer.

Sounds interesting...

...how can I bring the image buttons to do the advanced actions you described?
I didn't found a way til now, for assigning a image button these actions:

1. pause the video

2. show a content element (textbox or picture or video or website in a own little window upon the paused video)

3. hide the content element again, when clickin on it and continue the main video (I guess, this has to be assigned rather to the content element than to the image button...)

I don't need the fully functionallity of flash with all the possible animations, but only the function in the way described...

...but - as mentioned, I didn't find a way to match my requirements...

If you have more information on that, as you wrote, I would be happy to hear more 🙂

Thanks

Markus

[AdityaKalania · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

I tried to create a test project.

I inserted a slide video, image and a button on the slide.

I created an advanced action - 'actionaction'.

How to create advanced action : Please check http://help.adobe.com/en_US/captivate/cp/using/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d119e9581fd8-8000.html

- click on Project menu and then select advanced action

- i created a conditional action

the 'IF' part of the action is

and the ELSE part of the action is

save this action.

I add action to the button : 'Execute Advanced action'

This pauses the playback for me, and show the image. and if i click the button again, it resumes the playback and hides the image.

Try this action on your computer.

if you need more information, let me know.

Thanks

[mstischner]

Hi Aditya,

thank you very much for your post. It helped me MASSIVELY!

I played around with advanced actions and found the right way to produce several interactive objects from which I dreamt in my nights 🙂

One thing I miss til now - maybe you know a solution for this problem too:

I want to open a second video in a little window upon the main video (and stop the main video - like in the Textbox example above) when clicking on a button. But when I want to bring a second video in the timeline, captivate says, that there is already a video in the timeline and I shall remove the first video before putting in the second...obviously captivate can't handle two videos in one slide.

Is there a way to handle two videos in the timeline, so that I can solve my problem?

Thanks
Markus

[RodWard]

When inserting video as slide video you can only have one video per slide.  If you use Insert > FLV or F4V file, then you can have more than one video on the same slide.  But you'll need to use skins on each video to allow the user to control playback.

[mstischner]

Hi Rod,

great! Thank you for your tipp.

Best

Markus

[AdityaKalania]

Hi Markus,

I think RodWard said everything here.

I was about to suggest you the same thing.

Thanks RodWard

[Erik Lord]

Do the buttons need to be on the video all the time? Or just at specific points?

If possible, I'd approach it by breaking up the video into segments.

Load the first video and have the proper buttons on top or to the side, appearing as appropriate.

When they interact with all buttons, move on to the next slide that shows the next clip in the video series.

Would that work for what you need?

[mstischner]

Hi Erik,

thanks for your answer.

The splitting of the video is a good idea in principle. But my requirement is to pause the main video when showing the content element (textbox or picture or video or website) upon the paused video.

If I would jump to the next video when clicking the button, the main video would not stop but disappear, if I understood captivate correctly...

Here you can watch the interactive video in action, from which I took the screenshots above:

http://heutejournalplus.zdf.de/

(This video is a variation of my requirements as there the content elements are covering the main video completely and open sometimes a new application. I don't need this...I only need a window upon the stopped main video which shows the wished content, and dissapears again when clicking on it.

But this video shows the idea of my aimed interactivity very well in principle)

Thanks

Markus

[Erik Lord]

I meant more...play the clip to the end and leave it on-screen, perhaps even with a playback bar.

Then AFTER they interact with the buttons, when those actions are complete, then move on to the next slide, that plays the next clip... Would that work for your situation?

[mstischner]

Hi Erik,

thanks again for your post.

Aditya solved my problem in the way I wanted...as you can read in my last comment.

Thanks for your help.

Markus