Persistent Animations In a Captivate Project

I know that all of us care a lot about the function of a computer-based training when building an e-Learning module.  I certainly do and I also care a lot about presentation.  Let's face it, if it looks like crap, people are gonna 'check out'.  So, my intent with a lot of the upcoming post are going to be foucused on some of the little things that will, hopefully, ease your pain as an e-Learning developer and help you make some really cool CBTs.


Let's begin with one of my favorite discoveries.  I wanted to make a CBT that had a persistent animated background.  The problem I was running into was my animation spanned the entire stage so, if I set the property to run for the length of the project, it placed it on top of everything.  Obviously this is a problem.  The other issue was, if I placed it as an object on the stage, it reacted with the playhead.  So, if I had a button that stopped the playhead, my animation froze.  Does any of this sound familiar?


I thought so.


Here's a very quick tutorial on what I did to overcome these issues and create a really cool GUI for my e-Learning module.  Most of this is done in Flash CS5.  I will also include an example to show the results.


Step 1: Import FLV file into Flash via File/Import/Import Video...
Step 2: Make sure that the video is imported as a Movie Clip - here's how:

• Locate your FLV file.
• Select Embed FLV option.
• Click NEXT.
• In the Embedding screen make sure to select Movie Clip (not Embedded)
• Click NEXT.
• Click FINISH.
• NOTE: if you want the backround to just continue looping, there's no need to write any ActionScript commands at all.

Step 3: Export movie to SWF via File/Export/Export Movie...
Step 4: Import the animation into your Captivate project.



That's it!  Pretty Simple.  

Thanks!

~ Chad Luke