People Animation
By: Geetesh Bajaj
Date Created: December 30th 2008
Last Updated: March 2nd 2009
This sample presentation shows you how you can use motion path animations in PowerPoint on ungrouped vector objects to create a very effective introduction or section slide.
In this example, we used a vector image we sourced from iStockphoto -- we wish to thank Tina Riedner from iStockphoto for permission to use this sample vector image to demonstrate this technique.
Figure 1 shows you the original vector image of a group of silhouetted people in Adobe Illustrator -- you can buy a license for the same image at iStockphoto if you want to follow this part of the tutorial.
Figure 1: Original vector in Adobe Illustrator
We then ungrouped all the people to individual persons, and exported each of them as EMF graphics from within Adobe Illustrator. Although we used Illustrator, you can achieve the same results even with other similar programs like Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer, CorelDRAW, Xara Xtreme, etc.
Figure 2 shows the several ungrouped, individual people silhouettes that we exported as individual EMF graphics.
Figure 2: Exported individual EMF graphics
Although the original iStockphoto graphic had nine people, we ended up using just seven of them.
We then assembled all these people on a PowerPoint slide using the Insert | Picture | From File option. PowerPoint 2007 users can do the same by choosing the Insert tab of the Ribbon, then clicking the Picture button.
Figure 3 shows how all the assembled silhouette people look.
Figure 3: Assembled silhouette
We then added motion path animations to all the individual silhouette people graphics. Learn more about motion paths in the Animations section of our Learning PowerPoint series.
You can also download the sample PowerPoint file for this animation technique here.
We then made changes to the fill, outline, and transparency attributes of the silhouette people, and created a few more slide variations, as you can see in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Slide variations
Want to see the actual animated effect without downloading the PowerPoint file? Just view the SlideBoom movie below that we created from the PowerPoint presentation.
Click above to view on Slideboom
