Chapter 2. Capturing the Slides

Now that you have a better understanding of the features of Captivate, it is time to explore the first step of the production process: capturing the slides. You will use this step when you need to teach software-related skills, such as the manipulation of an application, or to demonstrate how a website works.

This step can be compared to the filming of a movie. When filming a movie, the director wants to capture all the images, sequences, and shots he needs. In the movie industry, this raw material is called the rushes. When the filming is complete, the director goes back to the studio to start the postproduction process. It is during the postproduction step of the process that the final movie takes shape. Only the best rushes make their way to the movie theater while the others are discarded along the way. That being said, the postproduction phase can only be successful if the filming provides enough good quality material to create a great movie...

Choosing the right resolution for the project

Choosing the right resolution for capturing the slides is the first critical decision you have to make. You have to make it right because the size of the captured slides will play a critical role in the quality of the final movie.

Describing the problem

A typical Captivate project, such as the Encoder demonstration you experienced in Chapter 1, Getting Started with Adobe Captivate 8, involves taking screenshots of an actual piece of software. At the end of the process, the project will typically be published in Flash or HTML5 and placed on a web page. Most of the time, that web page displays many other page elements (such as logos, headers, footers, navigation bars, and so on) in addition to incorporating your Captivate movie. This can lead to a very delicate situation, as shown in the following image:

The preceding image shows the application you need to capture on the left. Let's pretend this application requires a minimal width of 1024...

Recording the first project

It is time to have a first hands-on experience of an actual recording session. Recording a Captivate project is a five-step process:

Preparing the application to record.
Rehearsing the scenario.
Resetting the application.
Recording the movie.
Previewing the rushes.

Let's review these steps one by one.

Preparing the application to record

For this exercise, the application you will record is Adobe Media Encoder CS6. This application is used to convert video and audio files in a wide range of formats. Adobe Media Encoder (AME) is included in the standard Captivate package; if you have Captivate (even the trial version), you also have AME.

First, you will reset the Captivate workspace and open AME by performing the following steps:

Open Captivate. If Captivate is already open, close all open files.
If needed, reset the Classic workspace using the Window | Workspace | Reset 'Classic' menu item.
Open AME. On Mac, it is situated in the /Applications/Adobe Media Encoder...

The inner working of the Captivate capture engine

The Captivate capture engine is based on static screenshots. Going back to the Adobe Media Encoder project, let's review what exactly happened when you clicked your mouse during the capture using the following steps:

Return to the Chapter02/encoderDemo_1_1024.cptx file.
Make sure that the first slide is selected in the Filmstrip panel.

The first slide shows the initial state of the application. When recording, you used your mouse to click on the Add Source icon of AME. When you clicked on this icon, Captivate launched a sequence of actions behind the scenes:

Captivate recorded the position of the mouse at the time of the click (using x and y coordinates).
Adobe Media Encoder executed the action.
When Adobe Media Encoder completed its action, Captivate took a second static screenshot to capture the new state of the application. This second screenshot is used as the background image of slide 2.

You then used your mouse a second time to double...

Controlling Captivate during the shooting session

Controlling Captivate during the recording session is quite a challenge for your operating system (Mac or Windows). Even though both Windows and Mac OS are multitasking operating systems (it means they can handle multiple applications running at the same time), there can only be one active application at any given time. The active application is the one you currently interact with, and therefore, is the one that currently listens to the keyboard, the mouse, and other input devices.

When recording with Captivate, there are two active applications: the application you capture and Captivate itself. You should be able to interact with both these applications, so they both share the same mouse and the same keyboard at the same time. That is a very unusual situation to deal with for an operating system.

By default, the mouse and the keyboard send their data to the application you record, except for a few keys and shortcuts that are wired to Captivate...

Exploring the preferences

In this section, you will explore the remaining recording preferences of Captivate. You will start by exploring the automatic recording modes.

Exploring the automatic recording modes

In the previous section, your first recording experience was based on the default preferences of Captivate. In order to take full control of the situation, you will explore and fine-tune the automatic recording modes before having a second try. Perform the following steps to explore the automatic recording modes:

On the left-hand side of the Preferences window, click on the Modes category under the Recording section.
At the top of the Preferences window, make sure the Mode drop-down list is set to Demonstration, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Preferences window currently displays the settings of the Demonstration recording mode you used during your first capture session. As expected, this recording mode adds Text Captions to the slides. It also shows the mouse and adds a Highlight...

Choosing the right resolution for the project

Choosing the right resolution for capturing the slides is the first critical decision you have to make. You have to make it right because the size of the captured slides will play a critical role in the quality of the final movie.

Describing the problem

A typical Captivate project, such as the Encoder demonstration you experienced in Chapter 1, Getting Started with Adobe Captivate 8, involves taking screenshots of an actual piece of software. At the end of the process, the project will typically be published in Flash or HTML5 and placed on a web page. Most of the time, that web page displays many other page elements (such as logos, headers, footers, navigation bars, and so on) in addition to incorporating your Captivate movie. This can lead to a very delicate situation, as shown in the following image:

The preceding image shows the application you need to capture on the left. Let's pretend this application requires a minimal width of 1024 pixels...

Recording the first project

It is time to have a first hands-on experience of an actual recording session. Recording a Captivate project is a five-step process:

Preparing the application to record.
Rehearsing the scenario.
Resetting the application.
Recording the movie.
Previewing the rushes.

Let's review these steps one by one.

Preparing the application to record

For this exercise, the application you will record is Adobe Media Encoder CS6. This application is used to convert video and audio files in a wide range of formats. Adobe Media Encoder (AME) is included in the standard Captivate package; if you have Captivate (even the trial version), you also have AME.

First, you will reset the Captivate workspace and open AME by performing the following steps:

Open Captivate. If Captivate is already open, close all open files.
If needed, reset the Classic workspace using the Window | Workspace | Reset 'Classic' menu item.
Open AME. On Mac, it is situated in the /Applications/Adobe Media Encoder CS6 folder...

The inner working of the Captivate capture engine

The Captivate capture engine is based on static screenshots. Going back to the Adobe Media Encoder project, let's review what exactly happened when you clicked your mouse during the capture using the following steps:

Return to the Chapter02/encoderDemo_1_1024.cptx file.
Make sure that the first slide is selected in the Filmstrip panel.

The first slide shows the initial state of the application. When recording, you used your mouse to click on the Add Source icon of AME. When you clicked on this icon, Captivate launched a sequence of actions behind the scenes:

Captivate recorded the position of the mouse at the time of the click (using x and y coordinates).
Adobe Media Encoder executed the action.
When Adobe Media Encoder completed its action, Captivate took a second static screenshot to capture the new state of the application. This second screenshot is used as the background image of slide 2.

You then used your mouse a second time to double-click...

Controlling Captivate during the shooting session

Controlling Captivate during the recording session is quite a challenge for your operating system (Mac or Windows). Even though both Windows and Mac OS are multitasking operating systems (it means they can handle multiple applications running at the same time), there can only be one active application at any given time. The active application is the one you currently interact with, and therefore, is the one that currently listens to the keyboard, the mouse, and other input devices.

When recording with Captivate, there are two active applications: the application you capture and Captivate itself. You should be able to interact with both these applications, so they both share the same mouse and the same keyboard at the same time. That is a very unusual situation to deal with for an operating system.

By default, the mouse and the keyboard send their data to the application you record, except for a few keys and shortcuts that are wired to Captivate...

Exploring the preferences

In this section, you will explore the remaining recording preferences of Captivate. You will start by exploring the automatic recording modes.

Exploring the automatic recording modes

In the previous section, your first recording experience was based on the default preferences of Captivate. In order to take full control of the situation, you will explore and fine-tune the automatic recording modes before having a second try. Perform the following steps to explore the automatic recording modes:

On the left-hand side of the Preferences window, click on the Modes category under the Recording section.
At the top of the Preferences window, make sure the Mode drop-down list is set to Demonstration, as shown in the following screenshot:
The Preferences window currently displays the settings of the Demonstration recording mode you used during your first capture session. As expected, this recording mode adds Text Captions to the slides. It also shows the mouse and adds a Highlight...

Recording the other versions of the project

It is now time to start another recording session. For this second experience, you will pursue the following objectives:

You will generate both the demonstration and simulation versions of the project in a single recording session.
At the end of the project, you will use an FMR to capture the yellowish bar showing the progress of the encoding process.

Before turning on the camera for the second time, here are some additional tips and tricks for successful capture:

Use the automatic recording modes whenever possible.
If you have to record fullscreen, reset your desktop to its default appearance, that is, remove your custom wallpaper, and turn off any custom color scheme, or mouse pointer sets. Your computer should look like any computer.
Turn off your screensaver.
Turn on the sound so that you can hear the camera shutter and the keystrokes. This will help you have better control over the recording process.
If you are not sure whether or not Captivate took...

Recording with System Audio

System Audio is the sound effects that originate from the application you capture or from your operating system. In the AME example, it is the chimes sound effect that is played when the encoding is finished. In this exercise, you will once again capture the sequence of actions described in the scenario; this time, Captivate will record the System Audio in addition to screenshots and mouse movements.

First, you should reset your applications to their original state:

Close AME if it is still open.
Reopen AME.
By restarting AME, you effectively reset the application to its default state.
Delete every .flv file that is situated in the video/MOV folder of the exercises.
The second step is to get Captivate ready for the capture session.
Return to Captivate, and use the File | Close All menu item to close all open files (if any).
Use the File | Record New Software Simulation menu item or the Software Simulation thumbnail situated on the New tab of the welcome screen to create...

The Video Demo recording mode

The Video Demo recording mode was introduced as a new feature of Captivate 6. It allows you to create a video file by shooting the onscreen actions. A Video Demo recording project is actually a big Full Motion Recording.

A Video Demo project is very different from the other projects you have worked on so far. Because a Video Demo project can only be published as an .mp4 video file, no interactive objects are possible in such a project. In other words, it can only be a demonstration. Because a Video Demo project is based on a single big video file, there is no slide and no Filmstrip panel in a Video Demo project. This makes Video Demo projects particularly suitable for upload to an online video hosting service such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Daily Motion.

In the next exercise, you will create a Video Demo version of Encoder Demonstration. The first operation to do is to reset your system: