Add Impact to Text with Video “Fills”

My last post demonstrated some effects that can be created by converting Text to Shapes. This short post will add a variation using video.

Here’s an example:

I placed a black Rectangle with a “cutout” in front of a video clip. The cutout is created using Merge Shapes to Subtract the Text from the Rectangle.  The font is Arial Black with Very Tight character spacing. The referenced post provides details.

Another post called “Motion Backgrounds” provides some details on acquiring and using videos from web sources and creating videos from PowerPoint animations.

Abstract videos or videos of natural “random” processes (fire, liquids, etc.) seem to work best for this application. I also use heavy fonts and tight character spacing to make the background video more obvious. You can experiment with lighter fonts and color changes to get more abstract effects; for example, changing the color of the fire video (see the Video Format ribbon) provides a different look.

Here’s another example:

Here the font is Bauhaus 93 with Normal character spacing. This video is labeled as “abstract” by the source.

You can create your own videos by creating a presentation with animations and Exporting it as a video. Here’s an example based on a PowerPoint animation I described in the Motion Backgrounds post:

The font is Cooper Black with spacing Condensed by 10 pts.

Of course, you know that you should be careful in using these kinds of effects – they can become distracting if overused or in the wrong settings.  

 

Create Effects by Converting Text to Shapes

I have entertained you with several posts on adding impact to important words in your presentations; you will find links to these in this handy archive post.

This post will explore some additional effects that you can create by  converting text to a Shape: specifically,  to a Freeform. I described this technique in an earlier post as a way to “fill” text with an image.

Basically, the idea is to use Merge Shapes to combine a Text object with  Shape (e,g,, a Rectangle); the result will be a Freeform version of the text that can be manipulated like any other Shape.

Here are the results of two useful Merge Shape options – Intersect and Subtract:

The black Text object is Merged with the blue Rectangle. The first example uses Intersect to create a Freeform version of the text. This object is shown in Edit Points mode to demonstrate the points and lines in the object. Note that there are more points in the result than you might expect.

The second example shows the result of Subtracting the Text from the Rectangle to produce a “cutout” version of the text. Select the Shape first, and then the Text before Subtracting.

Of course, since the results of this process are Shapes, you will have to go back to the original text if you want to change its content and convert again.

Here’s an example using the “cutout” effect created by the Subtract option:

The text (Stencil font) is Subtracted from the Rectangle. Shadow is applied to the result to add depth.

A similar “cutout” is used in this example:

The text is Arial Black and the character spacing is Condensed by 9.2 pts. I used tight spacing for several of these examples.

Animation adds more impact:

The animation is Grow combined with Exit Fade.

Note: the “still” example can also be created without converting using Text Fill but the animation cannot.

Here’s an example using the Intersect option:

The font is Gill Sans Nova Ultra Bold and the text spacing is Condensed by 12 pts. The Freeform is stretched slightly vertically. The “bite” is created by Subtracting a 24-Point Star.

Here’s a variation on this blog’s “logo:”

The font is Elephant and the points are created by Editing selected Points in the Freeform. Point editing is a little tricky so this kind of effect may require some careful work.

Note: A font is a licensed property so there may be implications in modifying it this way; if this is a concern, seek legal advice.

Here’s an animation using modified Shapes created from Text:

Here’s how this was made:

• The text is Arial Black italic with tight spacing.
• The text was intersected with a rectangle to create a Freeform.
• I drew a line (red) to indicate where I wanted the “slice” and oriented a Rectangle to the line and Subtracted it:

• I repeated the process for the lower part.
• For the animation, Short Line motion paths in opposite directions were added to each part:

 

Note: Motion paths are difficult to edit when they are close together; the end points have a habit of connecting to nearby points whether you want them to or not. This can usually be avoided by using high “zoom” settings when you edit the paths.

If you want to see more details, use the link below to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

powerpointy blog – text conversion and effects

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

“Posterizing” Photos

My post on Artistic Effects explored these Picture Formatting options and offered some advice on their use.  This post will look at the Cutout effect – PowerPoint’s name for an operation more commonly called “posterize”.

In general, posterization involves reducing the number of colors in an image; as a result, areas of more or less continuous color change are converted to areas or “bands” of a single color with sharp edges.  Here are some examples using the PowerPoint Cutout effect:

 The first example is a Rectangle filled with a vertical Gradient, converted to a JPG with the Cutout effect applied. The other examples are stock photography (JPGs).

Posterization can be an unwanted effect of digitizing or converting an image to a digital form with too few available colors. Designers use the effect deliberately to create simplified images that may suggest a vintage poster, modern art or a wood block print:

I like the simplifying effect of  posterization and it seems consistent with “flat” design. At least, it lends some distinction to otherwise boring stock photography.

The Cutout effect has two parameters (numeric options): Transparency and Number of Shades. Here’s an example using one of the JPG images with Transparency = 0% and Number of Shades = 1:

Clearly, the “Number of Shades” does not determine the number of separate colors in the resulting image; this image has at least 5 distinct colors. I have not found a description of exactly how this parameter works (no surprise here). But, after reviewing some general sources, I think it relates to the number of variations in each of the three RGB components, as a maximum. In any case, increasing the Number of Shades increases the number of  colors in the result.

The Transparency option controls the transparency of an overlay of the original image; a higher Transparency tends to soften the Cut Out effect. Here’s the same image with Transparency set to 40%:

NOTE: I don’t really want to soften the posterization effect in these examples.

By the way, you will get slightly different results for a PNG version of the image.

Here’s a colorized version (the order of the Recolor and Cutout operations doesn’t seem to matter):

If you convert the Cutout version to a JPG (Copy/Paste Special), you can apply an additional Artistic Effect (see my post on Artistic effects for notes on their idiosyncrasies). Here’s an added Watercolor Sponge effect:

You can also “vectorize” a picture to get posterization and have a little more control of the result. Vectorization converts bitmap images (PNG, JPG, etc.) to vector graphics which can be inserted into PowerPoint as Graphic objects. PowerPoint provides some tools for Graphics, including conversion to ordinary PowerPoint Shapes.

NOTE: In my post on shapes and more shapes, I extracted Shapes from converted bitmap images. I used an online tool called Vectorizer – I’ll use that tool here.

Here’s the Vectorizer result for one of my examples:

There are a number of parameters/options available; this example uses 6 colors, the “clipart” option, and “combine layers.” 

After downloading and inserting the SVG file from Vectorizer, I converted it to Shapes and ungrouped the image. This results in 6 Groups, corresponding to the 6 colors. These Groups are “layered” as shown here (I have added a blue outline to the top, lightest colored layer):

You can use the Selection Pane to access each layer:

Some notes:

• I have “collapsed” each layer/Group so that the individual components (Freeform Shapes) are not shown. This done by clicking on the small triangle at the left of each item. By the way, each Group contains hundreds of Shapes.
• In the Selection Pane, objects are ordered to reflect the front/back relationships (z-order). The front-most object is first in the list, etc.
• The back-most layer is not a group but a Rectangle.
• For some reason, the Groups have the same name (Graphic 2). You can re-name the groups manually in the Selection Pane if needed.

One advantage of this kind of “posterization” is that you can change the colors by selecting the corresponding layer and using Fill; here’s one variation:

The “separate layers” option organizes the layers in a different, slightly more intuitive way:

Here’s a color variation for this example (I changed only the fourth layer)::

You can also edit the layers; for this example, I deleted all but two layers and deleted some unwanted Shapes (the background is simply a blue rectangle):

NOTE: As I mentioned earlier, each layer contains hundreds of individual shapes; some are very tiny “speckles.” With my low-end hardware, some operations on the layers can take an inordinately long time. Using the Vectorizer “min area” option eliminates shapes below a certain size (pixels) – this is helpful in simplifying the resulting Graphic.

Here’s another example of creating a graphic element from an image:

The first image is the original. The second is the Vectorizer result with 4 colors; I also increased the “max area” parameter to eliminate some details. Third, the 4 layers are shown.

The final image is the extracted graphic; I eliminated the fourth (bottom) layer, edited the third layer to eliminate some unwanted blobs, and recolored the result.

A final thought: this is one of those posts that describes an interesting technique but, frankly, I’m not sure how useful or appropriate it is. You can experiment with posterizing and vectorizing images and draw your own conclusions. At least, it’s another trick in your bag.

PowerPoint Secrets: Animation with Crop and Morph

This post is about a surprising interaction between the Picture Crop tool and the Morph transition. I was inspired by a couple of posts from the PowerPoint Spice channel; the author calls it the “magic picture” effect and credits its “discovery” to the team at BrightCarbon. See the posts here and here.

Crop is usually used to select a part of a Picture as in this example:

Crop provides a “frame” that can be sized and moved to select a part of a Picture. Clicking outside the Picture completes the process, resulting in the selected part as a Picture. Here are some more notes on Crop:

• The default Shape associated with the cropping frame is a Rectangle; you can also use other shapes (a circle, for example). The crop options are available when you select Crop from the Picture Format ribbon.
• To move the cropping frame, you must select the outer boundary of the cropping frame between the adjustment handles. The red outline below indicates a clickable part of this boundary. This can be difficult for very small crops since this part of the boundary may not be visible.

• If you click and drag inside or outside the cropping frame, the Picture will move”under” the frame. If you are zoomed in, PowerPoint will move the view focus to track the Picture – this is sometimes confusing.
• You can extend or move the cropping frame outside the boundaries of the original Picture; this results in a Picture with an “empty” transparent area (the red Picture Outline has been added for clarity):

• Cropped images can be sized, rotated, etc., using the usual tools. The entire image is affected.
• If you apply Crop a second time, you will see that the original image still exists; you can adjust the cropping frame, for example.
  
• Use Compress Pictures with the Delete cropped area… option to permanently delete the area outside the crop boundaries.
• If you apply operators like Color, Artistic Effects or Transparency to a cropped image, the entire image is affected.

A complaint: the gray mask used during the Crop operation is too dark; it is difficult to see details while cropping.

The Morph transition animates certain changes from one slide to the next. For example, objects on a slide will move to their positions on a second slide. I explored the features and limitations of Morph in another post and applied the Morph transition to create 3-D rotations in this post.

Surprisingly, the Morph transition also animates changes in cropping frames!

NOTE: I say “surprising” because this may be an unintended feature. The only documentation I’ve found by Microsoft is a brief mention here.

The “PowerPoint Spice” posts cited above provide some examples. Here’s my version of one of those examples:

Each slide contains a color image and, behind, a grayscale version of the image. On the first slide, the color image is cropped to a Rectangle outside the original image on the left. On the second slide, the cropping frame is enlarged and moved:

The Morph transition moves and widens the color cropping frame to produce the effect.

This technique provides another way to highlight part of a complex image (see my popular post for other ways):

The cropped image is on both slides (outlined in white); it is enlarged slightly on the second slide. The greyscale version of the background is  on the second slide. A Morph transition provides the animation including the fading of the background image to gray:

This also another technique to help your audience understand a complex screen shot (see this post for more):

A cropped version (as well as the grayscale version) are on the second slide; again, Morph provides the animation:

Here’s an unusual entry “zoom” animation made using Crop and Morph:

A tiny hexagonal crop Appears on the first slide, immediately followed by a Morph transition to a slide with a larger crop.

By the way, the Hexagon Shape is not “regular” by default; that is, a shape with equal sides is not automatically created, even if you hold Ctrl/Shift while creating it. This is also true of some other polpptcrafter blog – crop and morphygons and stars. To get a regular Hexagon, adjust the size and length of the sides manually using a circle and angled lines as guides.

I hope this post has inspired you to experiment with Crops and Morphs to create some impactful effects. If you want to see more details, use the link below and click on the PowerPoint icon to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

pptcrafter blog – crop and morph

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If there are other topics you would like me to cover, add a comment. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

Enhancing Pictures with Animation

You can add impact to otherwise static images by adding animated elements. This is particularly effective when the elements appear to be embedded in the image.

Here’s an example using text:

This example uses techniques outlined in my post on putting text into pictures. Three layers are used – the original picture, the text and a fragment from the picture In Front of the text:

The fragment showing three of the smoke stacks is created using the Remove Background tools (more about that later). The animation is Wipe/Up/By character.

This version uses a Morph transition to create a 3D rotation (see this post for more on this technique):

This example is from the post on text:

Here are the layers:

A number of “holes” were created using the Remove Background tools to make the text partially visible during the first part of the animation. A larger space allows the entire text to appear at the end of the animation.

Here’s an example using a graphic as the animated element:

I Cropped the fragment to make it a little easier to use the Remove Background tools. The fragment is only as big as it needs to be to “mask” the animated element:

I think this technique works best when the animated element is obviously graphical rather than photographic. In this case, the use of a color graphic against the grayscale photo is effective.

Sometimes, you can add lighting effects to a picture:

Here’s how this example was made:

• I reduced the Brightness of the original image to -70%.
• I added a white circle with Soft Edges to suggest the moon.
• Four yellowish Rectangles with Soft Edges were placed over the window and animated with a quick Enter/Fade.

You can try this with a nighttime cityscape, illuminating windows in various buildings. In this excellent post, the author creates moving “lights” suggesting city traffic at night.

Here’s another example of a lighting effect:

The light effect uses a fragment of the original image. The fragment is created by placing a circle over the desired area of the image and using Merge Shapes/Intersect to “cut out” the fragment. The brightness of the fragment is increased to 80% and a soft edged transparent circle is grouped with it:

This effect could be applied to traffic lights, dashboards or to simulate blinking lights in a data center (or glowing animal eyes). In some cases, it’s easier to use Shapes for the lights rather than fragments of the original picture. Using Soft Edges and/or “halos” helps with the illusion.

This example simulates searchlights/laser beams in a night scene of a city skyline.

Some notes:

• The beams are elongated rectangles with Soft Edges.
• Each beam is Grouped with a large invisible circle so that it rotates around the lower end, rather than the center of the rectangle.
• Appear/Zoom and Spin animations are used.

This post provides other examples using light effects. You can also add fireworks to a skyline.

Some of the examples above use the Remove Background tools. Here are some tips on using this difficult feature:

• Select pictures that have distinct “edges” – sharp boundaries between colored areas.
• Some fine details (e.g., hair) can’t be effectively isolated from backgrounds.
• Use Crop or Merge Shapes/Intersect to provide a head start for the fragment. Sometimes, for a regularly shaped fragment, no further editing is required.
• When you are creating a fragment to overlay the original image, inadvertent “holes” are not a problem since they will be filled in by the background image.
• Work at high magnification to handle the details.
• Temporarily increasing the Contrast may help in isolating features although I haven’t experimented with this.
• Selecting another image may be better than struggling with the tools.

If you want to see more details, use the link below to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

pptcraft blog – animation with pictures

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

Simple Icon Animations

Animating an icon draws attention and adds impact. I’ve written several posts on icons and animation – this one will add simple animations to PowerPoint’s built-in Icons, available on the Insert Ribbon.

I like to animate icons on first appearance; here are a few ways to accomplish this:

• Applying an Entrance effect to the Icon: Wipes, Zooms, etc.
• Adding animated elements to an Icon.
• Decomposing an Icon into its parts by converting it to Shapes and animating some or all of the parts.
• In cases where the Icon does not separate into the parts you need, using Merge Shapes tools to create parts that can be animated.

Here are some examples of Entrance animation effects:

These animations all use the default timing. You can change an Icon’s Fill and Outline color but you can’t color individual elements without converting to to Shapes.

Occasionally, you can use two similar Icons:

In both of these examples, the Icons are colocated, and, after a short delay, the first version Disappears and the second Appears simultaneously.

Here are two examples where animated shapes have been added to the Icons:

For the traffic signal, three circles (red, yellow, green) have been placed in front of the Icon, and three gray circles have been placed in front of those. The gray circle over the red “light” Appears and the gray circle over the yellow light Disappears simultaneously. These steps repeat to “turn on” the green light.

A similar technique is used for the skyline Icon – black and yellow Rectangles are arranged behind the Icon’s “windows;” the black Rectangles disappear to reveal yellow rectangles to turn on the lights.

Here are some examples where the Icons have been converted to Shapes and separate parts have been animated:

• A Teeter animation has been applied to the (antique) phone’s handset. The Repeat option for the Teeter effect has been set to 2 to extend the duration of the effect.
• For the shower head, Wipe down animations have been added to the lines representing water. I also changed the Fill color of the parts.
• The Teeter effect has also been applied to the bodies of the figures in the celebration Icon.
• The bar graph Icon represents a decline (in sales, revenue, etc.). Each part has been animated (Wipes) separately.

Here are two examples where the I had to resort to Merge Shapes to isolate the parts:

In the case of the dog, the tail is not a separate part after conversion to Shape. I made two copies of the converted Icon and used Merge Shapes/Subtract to isolate the tail and the body. Here’s the process; I Subtracted the blue Rectangles:

I used the Spin effect to animate the tail; a circle has been grouped with the tail to cause the tail to rotate around its base. The circle has No Outline in the final animation.

The Spin animation is 15º Clockwise with Autoreverse, Repeated  three times.

Converting the flower pot Icon results in 16 shapes; the stems and the rim of the pot are a single shape:

I Grouped the flower parts and used Subtract to isolate the stems. Wipe Up animates the stems, followed by Zoom for the flower Groups.

I hope these examples inspire you to use animation in your presentations to add impact and control attention. Introduce objects and text in “chunks” to avoid overloading your audience.

If you want to see more details, use the link below to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

pptcrafter blog anim icons

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

Simple 3D Animation with Morph Transitions

In 2019, Microsoft introduced (in some versions) the capability to import “3D models” into Office documents, including PowerPoint. Users can resize, position and rotate these models and apply limited forms of animation. However, users cannot create or otherwise edit these 3D models in PowerPoint.

As Microsoft says, 3D models are “a new kind of clip art.” Unfortunately, this is not necessarily a good thing. You may have had trouble finding “clip art” that is consistent with a specific presentation style – color schemes along with a variety of more subtle style elements. And nothing says “non-professional” more than the inclusion of “cartoony” clip art in a presentation.

The capability to create a limited kind of 3D object in PowerPoint, based on the existing 2D shapes and text has been available since about 2007. (As far as I can tell, there is no relationship between this “native 3D” and “3D models.”) Standard animations apply to both native 3D objects and 3D models but these operate in the 2D plane of the slide.

The animation tools provided for 3D models provide specific sets of rotations and movements in 3D space but these do not apply to native 3D objects. However, the Morph transition (available since 2019) provides a way to move and rotate native 3D objects in 3D space. (Please see my post on the Morph transition for details and pitfalls.)

Here’s an example using a stacked pyramid created in PowerPoint:

Some notes:

• See my post on simple 3D graphics to learn how to create the sliced pyramid and other native 3D objects.
• Here’s the set up for the first animation:

• The first slide shows the bottom slice (a Rectangle with a Bevel) off the slide with an Isometric Left down rotation.
• The second slide is a duplication of the first with the blue slice moved to the center of the slide and with a Isometric Top up rotation.
• Adding the Morph transition to the second slide animates the motion and rotation of the slice.
• The text animation is Wipe from left After (no click).
• The second slide also includes the middle slice (orange) off-slide in preparation for the next transition.

Here’s an animation of text (this is a good application of this technique since it would be difficult/unlikely to find a 3D model to fit):

• The first slide contains a Arial Black text block with 3D Depth added.
• The text was first rotated to the Perspective Front preset followed by setting the Y-Rotation to 270° to make the text “lie down.”
• Perspective was also changed to 100% to emphasize the effect.

NOTE: Select Text options or Text effects for the rotations; otherwise you will be affecting the invisible Rectangle containing the text, not the text itself.

• I duplicated the slide, changed the Y-rotation to 20° and added the Morph transition.

NOTE: Morph requires that the object has 3D properties on both slides. You may need to add a small depth to an otherwise 2D object, for example.

In the pyramid animation above, I used a separate slide for each slice. Morph will work on several objects but the animations will occur simultaneously. This animation demonstrates how the timing works:

I set the duration of the Morph transition to 2.0 sec. Both “step” motions take 2 sec but each travels at a different speed since the distances differ.

You may notice that the motion accelerates and decelerates like the Smooth Start/Stop option available for motion paths; this is not an option for Morph. Because of this there will always be a slight apparent delay between Morphed slides (since this kind of motion comes to a complete stop).

The next examples suggest animation techniques you might try; here’s the first one:

• The saucer is a circle with a Round Convex Top Bevel and a Round Bottom Bevel. The height and width of the Bevels have been adjusted to get the UFO appearance.
• The rotation is Perspective Front with the Y-Rotation adjusted (along with the saucer’s position) on three slides.
• The heat ray is a semitransparent Triangle with a Wipe entrance and a Fade entrance.

Another example:

• The bottle is two Block Arcs with Depth added; the cap is a circle with Depth and a Bevel. The cap is also Picture-filled. The “pill” is a circle with Bevels (see this post on drawing spheres).

• All the parts are isometrically rotated.
• The pill animation is a hand-drawn Motion Path (see this post).

Here are some final thoughts:

• There are limitations to the kinds of native 3D objects that can be created.
• There are limitations to the kinds of animations that Morph can create. A serious limitation is that Morph does not work on Groups.
• I have used simple 3D Rotations in this post (mostly pre-sets.) I find it difficult to work with more complicated multi-axis rotations.

If you want to see more details, use the link below and click on the PowerPoint icon to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

pptcrafter blog – 3D animations

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

More Animated Text: Spelling it Out

I’ve written a couple of posts (here and here) about “kinetic typography” or animated text  – using animation to boost the impact of important words. This post is about a specific technique: “spelling out” text by animating it one character at a time.

NOTE: These animations involve several steps and should occur quickly. Most of the examples in this post are probably too slow for a presentation since I want you to see the details of the animations.

The easiest way to accomplish “spelling out” animation is to use the By letter option for animated text objects available on the Effect tab in the Effect options pane. (This post provides excruciating details on this option; you should take a look if you want to try this technique.)

Here are some examples:

• The first example uses Float Down/By letter with 10% Delay between letters.
• The second example is the same with 90% delay – this makes the individual letter animation clearer.
• The third example uses Stretch/Across with 37% delay.
• The last example is Peek in/From left with 100% delay.
• All of the examples are Ariel Bold font; chunkier fonts seem to work best.

If you think it is appropriate, sound effects can be added:

• The animation is Appear/By letter with 0.5 sec delay between letters.
• I have added one of PowerPoint’s six built-in sounds and used the Courier New font.
• I had some trouble creating the video for this post (sound lagged the animation). This may be due to my cheap hardware.

NOTE: You may find that this allusion escapes some of your audience; mechanical typewriters have nearly disappeared.

If you Fill the Text box, the background can be animated (or not) as the “attached shape.” The shape inherits the animation from the text:

Animating each character as a separate object opens up a lot more possibilities. Here’s an example:

• I used Britannic Bold font and grouped the “A” character with a separate Rectangle (more about this later) to form a “tile.”
• The “A” Appears first along with the “N” Back of it.
• A Right motion path moves the “N” to a new position. I removed the Smooth Start and End from the motion path and added a Bounce End.
• Once I was satisfied with the motion and timing, I Duplicated and positioned the tile, changed the letter, and repeated.

NOTE: If you Duplicate an object and position it without un- selecting it, the next Duplicate will repeat the relative positioning. This is useful for quickly and accurately creating rows or arrays of objects.

Using a separate Rectangle with a Text object deserves a digression:

• The size of a Text object (sometimes called a Text box) varies not only with the font size but also the font and usually with the specific character. Here are some examples (the red outlines show the actual boundaries of the objects):

• When you Group a text object with a Rectangle to make a “tile,” the text object can influence the size and shape of the result:

• The first array shows the text boxes (red outlined) and the Rectangles; the second array shows the grouped results. As you can see the tiles are larger than they appear; this will affect alignment of the tiles.
• Note that the green M tile is larger than the other green tiles. Usually, you will want all the tiles to be the same size; to assure this, make the Rectangle is at least as big as the largest letter (the “m” in most cases).
• You may need to use Center alignment on the text objects.

Here’s another animation:

Each character is grouped with a Rectangle to achieve a uniform size for the tiles. Each character is also grouped with a large circle, rotated, and positioned off the slide at the top:

The animation is Spin 90º Counterclockwise with a Bounce end. Again, once the effect was applied, I duplicated the group, changed the character, and positioned the duplicate several times. The timing is set so that the effects overlap.

Here’s a more complicated example:

This uses a motion path and a Spin effect to position the second and subsequent tiles. Here’s a slower animation for the “N” tile (the “A” tile has been made transparent for clarity):

• The “N” tile is in Back of the “A.” (By the way, the Selection pane is useful when objects overlap.)
• An Up motion path makes the “N” rise to the top of the “A.” Smooth Start and End have been removed.
• The “N” now Spins 180º to its final position. A circle (red) has been grouped with the “N” to set its center of rotation to the corner of the tile. The circle is invisible in the final version (No line).
• The Spin has a Bounce end.

In the final version, Appear was added to each tile just before the motion path so that the tiles don’t appear too early.

I had some trouble getting the tiles aligned properly, mostly because Snap to grid doesn’t apply to motion paths. At the end, I cheated a little by nudging each tile slightly so there wouldn’t be gaps between the tiles.

This animation “rolls in” the text:

Here’s the set up for this animation:

The “tiles” are Ovals with the text entered directly into the shape, rather than two objects as in the previous examples.

I used the “rolling wheel” technique (see this post) and calculated that the 1.4 in circle should roll 4.4 inches per revolution without “slipping.” I set up a ruler (yellow) corresponding to 3 revolutions to conveniently position the first tile off the slide to the right. I added the motion path ending at the target location (no Smooth start/end) and added Spin/Counterclockwise 360º with a Repeat of three.

Once this was done, I duplicated the tile, changed the character and positioned as shown, repeating for all the tiles.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that I added a large circle to each tile – this is my usual trick to set the center of rotation for the Spin effect. This clip shows why:

With the Spin animation, the center of rotation for the text object is not where it should be. That is, the object is symmetrical (1.4 in x 1.4 in) and the center of rotation should be at the geometric center. In fact, when you rotate the object manually, using the rotation handle. it rotates around the geometric center. The Spin animation calculates the position of the center of rotation incorrectly.

The workaround is to group the object with a larger circle, as shown.

You can combine animated text with other gadgets; here’s an example:

I converted the text in this example to Freeforms (Intersect the character with a Shape). This is the reason:

Here, there are text objects and the corresponding Freeform. The second text object has a red outline to show the actual size. The animation for each object is a Wipe Up with 4 sec duration. As you can see, the timing for the text object is different from the Freeform because the text object is larger. In particular, there is an apparent delay in the Wipe for the text object. Using a Freeform makes it easier to set the animation timing.

Here’s the animation pane:

The “stream” is a Rounded Rectangle that Stretches Down followed by the filling of the character T (Wipe Up), with a slight overlap of the Collapse Down of the stream object. Since part of the Collapse is hidden, the “depositor” motion overlaps it. Timing and overlap are important in this animation.

The font is Berlin Sans FB.

Another gadget example:

• The animation is Peek In/From Right for the “module; the character and a white Rounded Rectangle Dissolve In to suggest an LCD.
• Here’s how the parts are constructed:

• The parts of the module have 3D Bevels.

If you want to see more details, use the link below and click on the PowerPoint icon to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

pptcrafter blog – spelling it out

This file uses fonts that may not be installed on your system and PowerPoint may substitute other fonts. This may effect alignment, animation, and appearance of the text.

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

Creating Clouds in PowerPoint

You might use a cloud icon in your presentation to represent The Cloud (network-based storage and processing) or to represent “weather” conditions (a bright future or pending storms). Or, you might want more realistic clouds as a part of a cityscape or a natural scene.

For what it’s worth, a cloud symbol was first used to represent a communications network; the idea was that users of the network did not need to “see” inside the cloud (internal structure, routing, etc.) or know how it worked, but could present messages at its edge and expect that they would arrive undamaged at their destinations.

Cloud Icons

There are several sources of cloud icons; here are some examples:

The first example is the (only) built-in cloud Shape. The next three are PowerPoint Icons (on the Insert ribbon). The last two are SVG examples from a web source (free, in this case). My post on Shapes and More Shapes provides details on these and other methods to acquire Shapes and icons.

You can make your own cloud icons by combining simple Shapes:

The shape is made by using Merge Shapes/Union applied to a Rounded Rectangle and a few Ovals. The rain cloud is filled with gray and includes some rotated Teardrop shapes.

Readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of animation; I  like to add simple animations to the first appearance of an icon to capture the attention of the audience. Here are a couple of simple cloud animations:

I ungrouped the “download” icon to be able to select the arrow; I applied a short Down motion path with Autoreverse to the arrow shape. The lightning is a Freeform with a Wipe/Down/Rewind animation. See my post on animated icons for a lot more examples.

Simple Clouds

You may want a slightly more realistic cloud in an infograph or a simple illustration. Here are a couple of examples:

Both examples use a Union of Shapes and adds a white Fill. The bottom example uses the Cloud Shape Unioned  with another Cloud Shape, rotated. (You can create variations of Shapes by rotating and/or flipping them.)

Since clouds are usually shown illuminated from above, a “custom” Gradient Fill is used to provide the sky-colored shadow at the bottom. Here’s how the gradient is set up for these examples:

Using Gradient Fill “stops” to create a custom fill requires a little practice and experimentation; you’ll find a useful tutorial here.  Tip: you will probably need more stops than you think to control the color.

NOTE: You may be tempted to try 3d Bevels to add depth to your clouds; this doesn’t work very well at all.

I created several variants by Unioning rotated and flipped versions of the Cloud Shape and added them to an example from a post in my “flying” series:

I flattened the same clouds (more like “stratus” clouds), modified the shadows and sky color to gray tones and added them to another post from the “flying” series:

You can animate the clouds themselves; they should move very slowly (unless there’s a storm) and clouds in the foreground should move a little faster:

More “Realistic” Clouds

You can draw more realistic clouds using a lot of small, slightly varying cloud shapes. I started by making an array of these “cloudlets:”

There are 7 shapes (first column); the top two are the built-in Cloud Shape, with one rotated. The rest are Unions of Shapes and other Unions. All of the 7 cloudlets have Soft Edges (3 points)

Each column uses the 7 shapes with varying Gradient fill settings, ranging from light to dark (shades of white and the background sky blue color).

Here are a couple of clouds built by combining these cloudlets:

Some notes:

• I used photographs of cumulus clouds as models.
• I selected shapes “randomly” from the array and overlapped them slightly to form the cloud shape.
• I used shapes from the lightest group for the top of the cloud, using the darker variants lower in the cloud.
• The first cloud does not use the darkest variants; the second cloud does not use the lightest variants.
• I sometimes adjusted the size and proportion of a shape to get the look I wanted.
• I used Front/Back positioning to “mix” the shapes.
• The blue background was sampled from a photograph using the Eyedropper; the gradients use shades of this blue.

There are a lot of different types of clouds; here’s an attempt to create “cirrus” (feathery) clouds using the same techniques:

The elements are created by Merging Ovals and adding Soft edges and varying transparency:

Actually, clouds slowly change as well as move (like a slow motion explosion); here’s an animation to attempt to mimic this:

This uses about 20 “cloudlets” with varying motion paths (slightly different lengths and angles) with simultaneous varying Grow/Shrink effects.

Final Thoughts

powerpointy-blog-cloudsDownload

• This technique of using a lot of small “random” shapes is useful in creating natural/chaotic images (e.g., explosions and foliage).
• You can experiment with different cloud types, sky conditions and colors (e.g., sunset) and varying foregrounds.
• You can avoid all this and acquire images and videos of clouds.
• Or, you can buy a fan brush.

If you want to see more details, use the link below and click on the PowerPoint icon to download a free “source” PowerPoint file containing these projects:

powerpointy blog – clouds

See this page for more on downloading files.

If you have questions, praise or complaints, please add a comment below. If you appreciate my efforts, liking or following this blog might be a good idea.

PowerPoint Secrets: Pattern and Texture Fills

This post examines two of the Shape or Text Fill options: Picture or texture fill and Pattern fill.

There are a few reasons you might want to use a texture or pattern fill:

• To mimic a real material; for example, you could use a “granite” or “marble” texture to create a headstone.
• To reinforce the impact of text: using a “concrete” fill for the word “solid.” See this post for examples of Picture-filled text.
• To establish a feel or mood; for example, I used some “grunge” textures as backgrounds in a project that characterized some PowerPoint users as low-life abusers.
• For “design” purposes; for example, templates often use a texture as a Slide background. This is a way to add a visual element and avoid the usual flat backgrounds. Often, an abstract texture is used to add interest without distracting from the slide contents.

Built-in Pattern Fills

In PowerPoint, a Pattern Fill is a repetitive array of lines, dots or other small features; here are some examples:

There are 48 available Patterns.

You can select colors for the Background and for the feature (Foreground); here are some examples using the Large Grid Pattern:

For some of the finer Patterns, the feature detail tends to disappear and a colored texture results; here’s an example using the Dots -40% Pattern with blue background and orange foreground:

NOTE: The object has been converted to PNG for display here – the conversion creates some artifacts that are not in the original.

Pattern fills have a couple of peculiar properties. In particular the Fill spacing and orientation does not change when the object is rotated, re-sized or point-edited (see my post on backgrounds for details).

Also, Pattern Fill keeps the  same spacing when zoomed or in Slide Show mode.

The upshot is that pattern fills may not give you what you expect, even in Slide show mode (where it counts).

You can convert pattern-filled shapes to images (PNG, JPG) so that they behave normally but the resolution of the converted fill may not be adequate.

Built-in Textures

PowerPoint provides 24 built-in textures. These are photos of “natural” surfaces – marble, wood grain, etc.

These are actually options in the Picture/Text Fill menu and are treated identically to Pictures.

NOTE: I find that the Picture Fill process can be clumsy and requires a lot of fiddling – I much prefer Intersecting a Shape with a Picture. This post provides details.

Other Texture Sources

Can’t find what you want among the built-in textures? Fear not, there are millions of texture images on the web, many of them free. Here are some examples from freestocktextures.com:

The first texture might be used to create a fence or other structure. The second is a “grunge” texture and the final one is an “abstract” texture. Most textures are “natural” (e.g., wood grain, leaves, water, etc.) but some are a result of graphic or photographic effects.

You can use these images with Picture fill or use Intersect.

Here’s how I used a “grunge” texture as a Slide background for a project:

Textures are also available from Insert/Online Pictures with “texture” as the search term:

There are a couple of other texture examples in my post on Slide Backgrounds.

DIY Patterns and Textures

“Patterns” are regular arrays of simple shapes. You can easily create your own patterns by duplicating a Shape or Graphic and adding a background. Here are some examples:

The first example is simply duplicated Ovals with a Rectangle as background. The other two use PowerPoint Icons as the repeated elements. The first is a network Icon from the communications group and the second uses a leaf.

Making these repetitive patterns is relatively easy using Snap to grid and a feature of the Duplicate tool. I documented the Duplicate feature in an earlier post; here’s what I said:

Duplicate has a bonus feature; it can be used to create a series of equally spaced, aligned objects:

• • Duplicate the original object.
  • Without deselecting, adjust the duplicate to a desired spacing or position.
  • Again, without deselecting, Duplicate the duplicate – it will appear in the same relative position.
  • Without deselecting, continue Duplicating.

Here’s the process:

You can also use Drawing Guides and the Arrange options to help align and space objects (see this post).

You can apply this technique with images and shapes – here’s a pattern of gradient-filled triangles:

Convert these textures to Pictures (Paste Special) to use them as fills.

NOTE: These patterns contain hundreds of objects; PowerPoint may slow down as a result. Converting to image will reduce memory requirements and avoid performance problems.

Color options are ways to modify an existing texture; here’s the abstract texture in grayscale:

You can also use Artistic Effects to create textures; here’s a gradient filled rectangle and two versions with Watercolor Sponge and Cement effects:

Here are examples of Artistic Effects applied to a built-in texture (Paper bag texture with Light Screen and Watercolor Sponge):

My post on artistic effects might be helpful.

You can find textures everywhere; here’s a sample from Google Maps:

Final Thoughts

• The peculiarities of the built-in Patterns limit their usefulness.
• Pattern and Texture fill are redundant; both these functions can be accomplished by Picture Fill (or Intersect).
• Take care. Textures can be distracting and can reduce legibility, especially when used as slide backgrounds.