This first set of questions came from the people who attended the recent live online session about animations.  I hope you find this information useful.

Question:  In Brainshark does the first animation need to be set to on click? If it's set to on click does the person recording audio have to click on the mouse to see it?

Tibby:  No.  The first animation does not have to be set to on click it can be set to "With previous" or "After previous" This includes animations that you might like to put on the master slides as well.  If the first animation is set to "On click" then yes the person recording will have to click on the mouse to see it during the recording process.

Question:  Is the alignment tool something you put into your custom toolbar?

Tibby:  We recommend turning the alignment on for all presentations to help you with spacing on your presentations.  If you find it easier to access it from a custom toolbar then absolutely include it.

Question: What's the use of adding timing in PowerPoint if you have to add them again once it's converted to Brainshark?

Tibby:  Great question.  If you are using "On click" animations then do not add timings in PPT.  You will add them during recording and be able to modify them in Brainshark without having to modify and re-upload the PPT.  If you are using either "With previous" or "After previous" then the timings for these animations is coming from PPT and is not modifiable within Brainshark.

Question: So if there's narration and animations are coming up at different times, should Start be set as On Click or as After Previous?

Tibby: Using "On click" gives you the most flexibility and ease of use in terms of editing timings after the fact.  However, there are times when I want 3 objects to appear simultaneously and so I would either group them together as one object or assign a "With previous" action to the second and third animations so these all appear (or fade or wipe, etc..) at the same time.

Question: My question is for much more advanced considerations. Looking at his sample Brainshark with many fancy animations, they use copied and stacked objects, each with a few animations. Does he have any tricks for finding the right object in a stack for making changes?

Tibby:  Layered objects certainly present a challenge when you want to make modifications.  The only trick I am aware of is to tab through the objects to find the one I want to manage.  PPT 2007 comes with a feature called the Selection Pane that makes it easy to organize, find and manage objects on a slide. Richard did mention a plug in; I believe it is PPT Extreme that can help with this.

Question: I just watched one of the Brainshark trainings earlier today that said that Brainshark won't support Emphasis animations and will only do Exits if the Entrance is on the same slide. Is this still the case?

Tibby:  No, this is not the case and if you watch that same tutorial today you will not see that slide.  Brainshark supports Entrance, Emphasis, Exit and Motion Path animations.  In fact in the Animation Best Practices tutorial you will see, entrance, exit and motion path animations in Brainshark.

Question:  Does Brainshark support animated .gif files?

Tibby:  This is a little more complicated.  In order for the animated .gif to work you must have at least 1 animation active on the slide.   This can be any type of animation and need not be seen by the viewer.  If it is on-click then it has to have a timing set in Brainshark.  If it is with previous or after previous then it is already timed and you do not have to do anything more.  Watch the brief presentation below for an example of two slides with animated .gif objects in Brainshark.

Question:  Does Brainshark support PP Extreme?

Tibby:  PPT Xtreme is a product that helps you import images/photos into PPT from Photoshop.  The file you upload to Brainshark is a .ppt file and so there is no issue with this product and Brainshark.

Question:  Do you recommend any % for grow/shrink that works best?

Tibby:  The feature in PPT does not give you a lot of options.  The deciding factor is really the quality of the image.  We find that reducing to 50% and increasing to 150% usually produce the best results in terms of not degrading the image quality however this can vary based on the resolution quality of the original image.

Question:  Can you go over last point of making grouped into png?

Tibby:  He was referring to the ability to take multiple objects and create a single image file.  You can highlight multiple objects by holding the ctrl key down and selecting the objects and then right clicking on one of the highlighted objects to group them together.  Then you have a choice, you can either assign an animation to this new group of objects or you can click File>save as and save the group of objects as a single image file.  I suggest that you first group the objects and assign the animation.  If the images are problematic in appearance in PPT when you do this then take the next step and save the group as a new image and this should work.  Brainshark will support the animation action in either case.

Question:  The blue circles on this slide...did he create these in PPT? How do you create the Highlighting feature?

Tibby:  Yes, those circles are auto shapes available in PPT.  The highlighting feature is a combination of using auto shapes and manipulating color gradient and transparency.  These are also standard features in PPT.  You can access these features in the drawing toolbar usually located at the bottom of your screen while using PPT.

Question:  Is there support for Mac's keynote?

Tibby:  We do not support Keynote, but Keynote supports PPT and so all you have to do is use the conversion capability within Keynote to convert the file to a .ppt and them you can upload to Brainshark.

Question:  Can you loop animations for continuous play?

Tibby:  You can not use the repeat animation function, but you can copy and paste the same animation to achieve the repeating effect.

Question:   How can I determine if my screen shots are Jpeg, GIF or PNG?

Tibby:  Depending on the settings on the image too that you are using (we recommend SNAG-IT) you can right click on the image to check the properties or you can hit File>save as and see what file format it wants to be saved as which is usually and indicator of what it is.  IF you are unsure then your can save it as a .png file and insert it back into the slide.  We do recommend .png files because they are the most flexible in terms of supporting text and colors.  Generally speaking, .gif is a superior format for text based objects and .jpg for color based bit they both have weaknesses in the other area.

Question: It would be incredibly helpful if Brainshark allowed exit animation too...right now its only entrance so I have to layer pictures over each other or jump to another slide which doesn't look as smooth.

Tibby:  We do support exit animations today.

Question:  In order to make presentations more interactive is there a possibility of adding a function to branch slides (right now we can only branch a question, but it would be nice to have the ability to put up a question slide, if you answer one way you go to one slide, if you answer another way you go to another slide - I understand this is possible now, but then you get stuck...being able to branch slides would be very helpful. And to get really interactive - will there be a way (soon hopefully) we could make the slide itself interactive - being able to click on the slide itself (outside of a question slide) and directed somewhere.

Tibby:  These are both very creative enhancement requests.  I have sent them to our product manager.  Please keep the creative ideas coming.  We love to get product suggestions.

Question:  Thank you for putting together such a great topic for discussion. I believe it was the presentation featured that sold everyone.  Simply amazing.  The music piece as well as all the special effects would be of interest to me.  I am very proficient in PowerPoint, but this looks like it needs fancy software....but you're saying it doesn't....so I look forward to learning the features you used.   

Tibby:  Thank you so much for attending.  I thought it was Sharkerrific as well!  All the features you saw are standard PPT objects and animations.  On Customer Connection Online (CCO) (http://cco.brainshark.com/) you will find a tutorial on Animation Best Practices that should be helpful.  Background audio is a standard piece of functionality and you can find this explained in our tutorial about the Media Library also on CCO.

Thanks again for all of the Sharktastic questions.  I look forward to the chance to respond to more very soon!