I have a series of dashes - after each dash the hand disappears from the screen instantly and then reappears - it looks very unnatural.

Is there a way for the hand to exit / move off screen in the same way that it enters = ie visibly and smoothly. Or alternatively, stay on screen and move to the next item. I have tried using transition timing but the hand always just 'disappears' off the the screen.

for more control over the hand movements, you would need to make your own SVG images using inkscape or illustrator.

-mike (videoscribe user)

 

Thanks Mike - could you say a little more; I thought an SVG image is something that is drawn. 

How does that affect the hand moving in or out when writing a letter?

Or is there some advanced use of SVG as a hand?

maybe this tutorial will give you an idea how text can work in an SVG

Make Any Font, Text or Equation Draw Well (2016)

you will probably need to experiment with them a bit to really grasp the fine points.


-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

if you are just making dashes, though, you can use the pen or pencil tool in inkscape or illustrator to draw a series of dashes and save them as an SVG.

videoscribe will draw everything in the SVG without the hand leaving the screen in between lines.

-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

Ah - OK, with you Mike. That would certainly work in this case.

I was hoping there may be a more general solution. There are many times when a more natural approach would be for the hand to remain on screen - but I don't want to start creating complex SVGs to achieve this. I would have thought it was a reasonably basic feature not to have the hand instantaneously disappear after drawing an item.

So can we export the images created FROM VideoScribe into an Illustrator file..and then convert to SVG...so we can keep the hand in the screen?

 

Hi,

1) Any time an element is finished drawing, the hand will always leave the screen. There is no way to change that.

2) if you want videoscribe to draw several things without the hand leaving the screen in between things, you should combine those things into a single image or a single text element. If you cannot make a single text element due to "placement requirements", for example if you want text labels all around a diagram, you can make one SVG that contains all of the text labels. However, to make text draw well in an SVG, you may need to refer to the link I provided earlier. It's fairly easy, but sort of difficult to explain and you will probably need to do some experimentation to get the hang of it.  The trade off for having much more control over the way things work in videoscribe, is learning to use more tricks and tools.

3) Part of the original topic of this thread is "how can you make the hand move smoothly off of the canvas after an element is drawn instead of just disappearing. The answer is that you can use SVG images and you can include an extra transparent stroked path as the last line in your SVG that starts at your image and ends where the edge of the canvas is...for the hand to "draw" its way off of the canvas. Again, you will have to learn how SVGs work and do a little experimentatioon if you want that kind of extra control. Link: Make SVGs draw well (2015 update)

4) Unless this feature has changed, you can right-click library images that are on the canvas and export as SVG images. Images purchased from other users may not allow that due to licensing rules.

Hope that helps,
-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

Are there any development plans to have the hand move from one element to the next without first leaving the screen. The removal of the hand after completing each element seems so unnatural. I understand the concept of the work-around; combining the elements into a single svg file, however the tools to do that are not readily available from within your program, or am I missing something somewhere?

This is not something that we are actively working on at the moment but it is logged and will be considered for inclusion in a future version.