[Xerte] Flash transparency

Fri Jul 16 08:31:54 BST 2010

Dear Ron and Mary Ann

Thanks for your responses, gives me something to think about for future projects.

Adam
---------------------------------------------------------
 Adam Read
 Learning Technologist
 University College Plymouth St Mark & St John

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 15 July 2010 19:30
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Flash transparency

As I've been doing some green screen tests for something else I  just did a quick test with a .flv exported from Premiere. You have to select the encode alpha channel option as detailed here http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/07/exporting_video_with_an_alpha.html so that the .flv includes the alpha channel. The problem is if you're using toolkits rather than xerte I doubt you can achieve what you want without changing some code. A couple of issues I can see...

1. if you import the .flv into the video page type in toolkits it should import ok and retain the transparency of the .flv but that page type has a white panel behind the clip so the benefit of the green screen is lost. You can hide that with code or remove it altogether by tweaking the model and to be honest I think wherever the white panel is included in different XOT page types there should be an optional property to hide it but I guess that could be something for a future release.

2. In the video page type you also get the controller by default with no option to turn it off so depending on what you're trying to achieve that may not be desirable.

3. Similar issues apply to swf's containing transparency e.g. the flash animation page and image and sound page contain the white panel. However you might be able to achieve what you want by using the column navigator page with an optional image property added - that also allows selection of a .swf but doesn't include the white panel so if the swf is transparent it looks as it should.

I guess to summarise both toolkits and xerte support transparency in .swf .flv and of course .png but it depends on what you're trying to achieve whether you can do this without changing code or by using xerte rather than XOT.

HTH
Ron

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Adam Read
Sent: 15 July 2010 09:25
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: [Xerte] Flash transparency

Just wondering whether Xerte Toolkits supports flash videos (or swfs) with transparent backgrounds? I was thinking of doing some green screen stuff for some upcoming projects.

FYI, I'm not using Xerte 3 yet.

Thanks, Adam
---------------------------------------------------------
 Adam Read
 Learning Technologist
 University College Plymouth St Mark & St John

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University College Plymouth St Mark &amp; St John,&nbsp; Derriford Road, Plymouth, PL6 8BH
Phone:&nbsp; 01752 636700 &nbsp; &nbsp; Web: &nbsp;www.ucpmarjon.ac.uk 
Principal: Professor Margaret Noble A Church of England College Founded in 1840 
University College Plymouth St Mark &amp; St John is a registered charity the trustee of which is a company limited by guarantee registered in England No. 986239 

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