by Kevin Siegel 
When I teach Camtasia, one of the activities that garners the largest "that's cool" factor is how easy it is to animate any object. During class, we not only animate an object, we get it to grow and rotate while it's flying around the screen. Sound awesome? Here's how to do it:
Insert an object onto the Camtasia stage (you can animate anything... in the image below I've added a rectangle callout, added a bit of text and positioned it in the middle of the stage).
Extend the playtime for the object so it sticks around for a bit (right-click the object on the Timeline and choose Duration). In the image below, I have extended the duration for my callout to 20 seconds.
Now for the fun part, to animate the object, position the playhead as far left on the Timeline as it will go.
Ensure the object you want to animate is selected and choose Tools > Visual Properties. On the Visual Properties panel, click the Add animation button.
On the Timeline, the selected object now sports a blue circle. The blue circle is an animation's starting point.
On the Stage, drag the object left to remove it temporarily from the stage.
On the Timeline, position the Playhead 5 or 10 seconds to the right of the first blue circle.
On the Timeline, the selected object now sports a blue circle. The blue circle is an animation's starting point.
On the Stage, drag the object left to remove it temporarily from the stage.
On the Timeline, position the Playhead 5 or 10 seconds to the right of the first blue circle.
On the Stage, ensure that the object is still selected and click the Add animation button on the Visual Properties panel to add a second blue circle to the Timeline.
On the Stage, drag the object to the middle of the Stage.
In the images below, I've added a third animation (and then, on the Stage, I dragged my object to a third position... and I resized and rotated it to boot... if you're following along, you can add as many or few animations to the Timeline as you like).
To test the animation, rewind the video and then click the Play button on the Video Preview playbar.
Go ahead, say it... that's pretty cool! If you'd like to see a video demonstration of adding animations to a Camtasia project, check out the IconLogic YouTube channel.
On the Stage, drag the object to the middle of the Stage.
In the images below, I've added a third animation (and then, on the Stage, I dragged my object to a third position... and I resized and rotated it to boot... if you're following along, you can add as many or few animations to the Timeline as you like).
To test the animation, rewind the video and then click the Play button on the Video Preview playbar.
Go ahead, say it... that's pretty cool! If you'd like to see a video demonstration of adding animations to a Camtasia project, check out the IconLogic YouTube channel.
***
If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn about Camtasia, Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you.
Comments