Intro to Animation
Mr. Boudman
Developing Real Time Animation with PowerPoint
Want to dazzle your audience with your presentations? A touch of animation can go a long way toward
getting your point across. This article will explain how to do it with one of the most popular pieces of
presentation software, Microsoft's PowerPoint.
You've no doubt already heard of MS PowerPoint, a Microsoft program that will enable us to create
presentations in the form of slide shows.
As of the time this lesson was written, the latest version of PowerPoint was PowerPoint 2007, although many
still use PowerPoint 2002. This tutorial has been written to accommodate both PowerPoint 2002 and 2007
users.
One of the best presentations that can be made for your audience involves creating animation. Animation
gives life to your discussion, especially if you are discussing manufacturing processes, teaching kids and
explaining complex ideas. Without animation, explaining the processes can be difficult and leave your
audience confused during and after your presentation.
This tutorial attempts to create real life animation using PowerPoint. It is not as difficult as it sounds; even
a beginner can create simple animations.
Basic Steps to Create Animation
In order to create animation using Microsoft PowerPoint, you need to meet the following requirements.
Step 1. Create a basic sketch plan. Make sure to sketch your process on a piece of paper before drawing
it in PowerPoint. This will help you simplify your animation and make it more user-friendly. It will also make
it easy for you to create animation. It is essential that during the sketch plan, you ensure that the objects
can be drawn in PowerPoint using basic auto shape objects (see below).
Step 2. Draw those items in MS PowerPoint. Now that you have drawn those rough objects that you
would like to animate on a piece of paper, it is time to draw them in PowerPoint.
Drawing can take a lot of time. It is important to utilize various PowerPoint auto shape tools to come up with
your design. To make it three-dimensional, you can select 3D objects such as a cube or cylinder. It is
important to realize that to minimize the time spent in drawing, you can make the graphics consist of only
basic auto shape objects, such as cubes and cylinders for three-dimensional objects, or squares and circles
for two-dimensional ones.
Developing Real Time Animation with PowerPoint - Drawing Objects
As with any animation techniques, even the complex ones used by Walt Disney and Pixar for movies, the
basic concept is to break the animation steps taken from the sketch plan into what I call "animation frames."
Animation frames, to make an impact on your audience, must be realistic and logically arranged.
For example, suppose I would like to illustrate a "dancing robot with a magnetic hand" animation for my
kindergarten school presentation (see the end of this tutorial for the sample download). I can break it down
into four unique looping frames of animation:
It is logically sequenced in a way that it can be easily understood by my audience.
Note that the objects I'm animating are drawn from simple shapes such as the Cube, Cylinder, Square and
Smiley from MS PowerPoint.
This is the limitation of MS PowerPoint Graphics; it cannot be used to animate complex and real life objects.
Each frame represents one slide in PowerPoint. So if you have four unique looping frames, you should also
be making four slides to draw it.
Developing Real Time Animation with PowerPoint - Customizing PowerPoint for Animation
If you are not familiar with how MS PowerPoint works when it comes to making animation, keep
reading. The first thing that you need to do is create a new presentation by going to File -> New. By default,
PowerPoint gives you the first slide. You can then start drawing in it, and then if you need another slide you
can go to "Insert -> New Slide." You can then start drawing the second frame. Continue until you are done.
It is important to have the "Drawing" and "Auto shape" toolbars enabled. If by accident you cannot find
those toolbars at the bottom, simply click View -> Toolbars, and then the following should be checked:
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Standard
Formatting
Drawing
Task plane
Then on the bottom you should see the Auto shape and drawing toolbars, which you can use to create
graphics. See screen shot below:
When you are finished drawing your frames in the PowerPoint slides, you can start setting it for animation
by clicking Slide Show -> Slide Transition, and then under "Modify Transition" you will be able to change the
following (depending on your application):
Speed: The three choices available are [SLOW], [MEDIUM] and [FAST]. One of the down sides to
PowerPoint is that even though you set it to "Slow," the transition still goes very fast. I have not found an
option to slow this down in PowerPoint 2002, except for duplicating frames in such a way that the
transition becomes slower (see details below).
Sound: This is customizable; if you need sound, you can set this. Otherwise, set it to "No Sound."
Advancing Slides: Under "Advance Slide," uncheck "On mouse click" and then check "Automatically after."
This will enable PowerPoint to start the animation right away after the animation file is open.
In MS PowerPoint, the recommended file format to be used for animation is .PPS, or it is called "PowerPoint
Show." To make your animation in .PPS format, you have to go to File -> Save as type -> PowerPoint show.
Some amateurs or first timers will have a hard time finding out how to edit an existing PowerPoint show file.
To edit, simply open PowerPoint, and then go to File -> Open the PowerPoint file.
To set up the show, go to Slide Show -> Set up Show -> and then, depending on the applications of your
animation, you can use the settings below as the default:
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Check "Presented by a Speaker"
Under Show options "Loop Continuously until ESC." This will enable PowerPoint to play it
continuously unless the ESC key is pressed.
Under "Show slides" select "All."
For details please see the screen shot below:
It is also suggested that you enable the hardware graphics acceleration mode for the best viewing experience.
Developing Real Time Animation with PowerPoint - Layout and Finalizing the Animation
As I said earlier, the "SLOW" speed for slide transition is still fast. So the best strategy is to duplicate slides.
For example, a single unique frame can be duplicated four times (on four slides). Thus, when the animation
file is open, the slides will then appear to be played more slowly because PowerPoint will play a certain
single unique frame four times:
Below is a screen shot of how the four unique frames (from the first example above) are being duplicated a
total of 20 times (four times each unique scene) to slow down the transition in the overall animation:
It is very possible to create animation with PowerPoint. In this project, you learned at least three very
important lessons. First, PowerPoint cannot create real life and complex graphics, since we are limited to
using Auto shapes and basic 2D/3D figures. Second, you learned how to save the file under PowerPoint
Show, and how to set up the animation so that is ready for your audience. Finally, you learned that
animation is highly customizable in PowerPoint, and that with simple auto shapes, a beautiful animation can
be created.