Snow Effect
By: Shawn Toh
Date Created: April 10th 2006
Last Updated: March 2nd 2009
Shawn
Toh started creating PowerPoint presentations since
secondary school and his interest in PowerPoint animations
kept growing. Shawn loves to do advanced animation tricks
using PowerPoint.
Shawn is a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for
PowerPoint as well as certified a Microsoft Office Specialist
(MOS PowerPoint). He is an active member in the PowerPoint
newsgroup communities (nickname: tohlz) and runs the PowerPoint
Heaven site.
Visit Shawn Toh's site here...
In this article, I'll show you how you can create a snowfall effect using nothing else apart from PowerPoint's own tools - download the sample presentation here...
- To start off, you will need to make the
snow.
Even before that, the background must be adjusted. Create a new slide in a new or existing presentation, and choose Format | Background. This brings up the Format Background dialog box that you can see in the screenshot below.
Click on the dropdown menu and select a dark background, preferably black. If a black swatch is not available, click the More Colors options and choose a suitable color. Click Apply to get back to the slide.
- With the dark background ready, it's now
time to create the snow. In PowerPoint's Drawing toolbar, select
the oval AutoShape.
Tip: If the Drawing toolbar is not visible, choose View | Toolbars | Drawing.
- Hold down the Shift key and start drawing
so that you end up with a perfect circle rather than an oval.
Resize the circle as required, while making sure the circle
is not too big (see screenshot).
- Double-click the circle to summon the Format
AutoShape dialog box (see screenshot below). In the Colors
and Lines tab, under the Fill section, click on the Color
dropdown menu and select Fill Effects.
- This will bring up the Fill Effects dialog
box - make sure that you have selected the Gradient tab. Under
Colors section, select One color and change Color 1 to White.
Under Shading Styles section, select From center. This will change the white circle into a white-gray gradient circle as seen in the sample picture.
- But this is not what we want. We will
need to remove the gray portion so that the gradient fades
from white to transparent. To achieve that, adjust the "To:" under
Transparency section as 100%. This will make the gray completely
transparent (see screenshot to match settings). Click OK to
get back to your slide.
- Now, move over to the Line section in
the Format AutoShape dialog box (see screenshot). Under Line
Color dropdown menu, select No Line. Click OK and your first
drop of snow is ready!
- Next, select the snow and click Ctrl +
D to duplicate it - repeat this 20 or more times to create
more instances of snow. Drag all
the snow off to above the slide area and distribute them evenly
as shown in the figure below. You do not need to align them
horizontally.
- Now is the time to start with the animations.
Select all the snow instances and choose Slide Show | Custom
Animation. This will activate the Custom Animation task pane.
Click Add Effect | Exit | Fly Out. If the Fly Out option is not available, click the More Effects option to bring up the Add Exit Effect dialog box - you'll find Fly Out in the Basic category.
Ensure that the first effect has "Start:" as On Click, and the rest of the effects have "Start:" as With Previous. Also check that the Fly Out direction for all the snow instances is set to "To Bottom".
- Click on the first effect in the Custom
Animation task pane. Hold down Shift key and scroll down to
select the last effect. This will allow you to highlight/ select
all the effects. Right click on the effects and select Timing
to bring up the Fly Out dialog box (see screenshot)
Set the Repeat to Until End of Slide. Click OK.
- You can now play around with the speed. Set the first effect to Very Slow, second to 6 Seconds, third to 7 seconds, fourth to 8 seconds and fifth to 9 seconds. Repeat the speed settings to rest of the effects. By doing so, the snow will not be falling at the same speed. This will also make the effect more realistic.
