looking for advice

[Giant_Eagle]

Good afternoon everyone,

I was looking for some advice on how to animate some clipart to make it look like a head nodding yes. Any hints, tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rick Springer

[Jeanette]

Hi Rick One easy way would be to insert a piece of free Microsoft clipart, ungroup it, and then group just the elements that make up the head of one of the characters. Then apply the PowerPoint emphasis animation called "Spin" to that grouped item.

Here's a screencast showing how:
Screenr - @jeanettebrooks: Animating an elearning character in #PowerPoint / #Articulate Presenter to make his head nod

And the PowerPoint file is attached in case that's helpful.

[Jeanette]

Oh, I also forgot to mention a couple of things about the animations:

• Each movement needs to be applied separately, since Presenter doesn't support the "repeat" option on animations.
• The "teeter" emphasis animation would seem to be more efficient for the nodding motion, but when published, the teeter effect causes some changes to the color of the animated objects. That's why I used the "spin" animation in the demo instead.
• If you end up using a lot of ungrouped/regrouped clip art items on your slides like in this example, it's a good idea to save out each grouped item as a PNG and then bring it back in as an image. This cuts down on publishing time (see this tutorial for more info)... plus if you're using images in PPT 2007 instead of grouped objects, you can easily reapply the animation work to other images by just swapping out the image files.

Hope that helps!

[LauraSuccess]

Hey Jeannette, great lesson on doing nodding. I was trying to do the opposite, 'say no', and it just doesn't look right. I used a 3d rotate version of her head and appeared/disappeared between the two. Sort of gets it but again not very well.

Any suggestions?

PS: I tried to upload the file but it says invalid even though it is a pptx.

Thanks,Laura

[Jeanette]

Hey Laura! Yeah, I think the "no" gesture would be a little more challenging, but depending on the image you're using, maybe you could do this with simple fade-out/fade-in effects. i.e., if you had an image of the person's head turned slightly to the left, and another image slightly to the right, you could alternate between the two with fades, and it would simulate movement. Have you already chosen images for your characters? Do you have any flexibility in that area?

[LauraSuccess]

Hey Jeanette,

Thanks for the suggestion. I am not stuck on having one certain one. I do like the lady at the podium I have been using but I could change. The image turning their head to left and right is where I am stuck because to do that it makes them look flat. But the fade in, fade out would probably work great once I can figure out the way to show the left right part.

Thanks for your help. I love watching your videos and learning from you.

Laura

[Jeanette]

Aw, thanks for your kind words! Is your podium lady from the Microsoft clip art? Some of their clip art is part of what they call a "Style" - a group of similar-looking images. I wonder if you could find similar characters within the same style, and maybe slice & dice the images to come up with a rightward/leftward facing version of the character you're using...

[Jeanette]

Another option would be to look into something like CrazyTalk - have you seen their stuff?
Pretty neat. You could create a character and insert it into your presentation.
CrazyTalk - Facial Animation Creator
YouTube - CrazyTalk6 Demo - Face Profiles

[Jeanette]

In fact here's a demo where Dave Moxon added Crazy Talk output to Quizmaker: Create A Video Hotspot Question In Quizmaker ’09 - Dave Moxon's Articulate eLearning Blog