Introduction
In this second video of the 3-part series, I will show intermediate settings that allow you to apply specific controls to your animations like speed and length along with using the Animation Pane.
Specifically, it covers intermediate animation techniques such as adjusting timings of animations, applying multiple animations to an object, using the animation pane, and applying an on click trigger.
Adjusting Start, Duration, and Delay
Once you’ve added an animation to an object, often the next step is modifying the timing of the animation. To the far right on the animation tab, there are three timing settings: Start, Duration, and Delay.
Modifying Start
The Start timing determines how the animation will start. The default is On Click. So when you click your mouse the animation begins.
The next option is With Previous. The object with this setting will animate at the same time as the previous animation. In this example the Triangle animates with the circle.
The third start setting is After Previous. Here an object animates after the previous animation is complete. In this example the triangle animates once the circle animation is done.
Changing Duration
The next timing is the Duration or speed of the animation. The default setting is typically Very Fast at half a second (0.5). You can use the up and down arrows to speed up or slow down the animation by quarter intervals. Or you can type in the duration.
In this example, you can see the Triangle fly in is much slower than the previous examples. As a side note, the duration can’t be changed for some animations.
Adding Delay
The last timing is Delay. This a slightly more advanced setting and this setting delays the start of an animation. The default setting is zero. Meaning there is no delay. In the example, the Triangle is set to start after previous with a one second delay.
Applying Multiple Animations
Now that you know how to modify a single animation, we can move on to apply multiple animations to one object. As I mentioned in Video 1 of this 3-part series, clicking a different animation in the gallery replaces the previous animation.
In this example, I will set the object to fly-in, pulse, and then fly-out. Do do this, I select the object. I choose the Fly in animation. Then I click the Add Animation button. Choose Pulse as an emphasis. I'll add the third animation, clicking the Add animation button and then choosing Fly-out. And the Preview shows what that will look like.
In Video 1 of this series, I demonstrated the Animation Painter, when you have multiple animations, this option comes in handy.
Using the Animation Pane
Once you start adding multiple animations to objects, using the Animation Pane can help you keep track. To display the pane either click the Animations Pane button or click one of the animation indicators by an object.
From the animation pane, you can see the order of the animations. They are listed from beginning to end. A mouse means it is an On Click start animation. No icon means that it is set to With Previous. And a clock indicates that the Start is After Previous.
The color of the star indicates the type of effect: green for enter, yellow for emphasis, and red for exit. If you can’t see color very well, the lines Indicate whether it is an Enter, an Emphasis, or an Exit.
If you want to change the order of the animations, you can use the up and down arrows. Or just drag and drop. You can select more than one by holding down the Shift key and then moving them all at the same time.
Deleting animations from the Animation Pane is quite easy. Select the animation and press the Delete key.
The animation pane also shows the timeline of the animations. The placement of the bar on the timeline indicates when the animation begins and end. You can drag and drop the bar to change the delay. You can resize the bar to change the duration of the animation.
Effects and Timing Dialog Box
When you mouse over or select an animation, To the far right of each animation is a small down arrow. Clicking the arrow provides options to show more settings for the effects and timings. Let’s take a look.
You will notice there are three tabs Effect, Timing, and Text Animation The added options in the Effects tab, is that you can add a Dim after animation setting. I usually apply this to content that I have as part of a list. So, when I am done discussing one bullet point, I dim that option and then display the next option.
If you don’t want to apply an exit animation, you can also make content disappear right after the animation or hide on the next mouse click.
The Timing tab, provides the same options as on the Animation tab for Start, Duration, and Delay.
You can also add a repeat loop. You can set specific times or until the next animation or until the end of the slide show. The speed of the animation will determine how the effect looks such as a rapid pulse or slow flash.
The trigger setting lets you set an On Click to a specific object. When you click the object with your mouse, it activates the animation for a different object. This differs from a typical On Click animation because the object itself must be clicked for the animation to work.
To do this, apply each animation to the specific object Then select the animation in animation pane Click the trigger button in the Animations tab and choose the object from the menu options Repeat this process for each object.
Renaming objects in the Selection Pane helps if you have several objects to trigger. One reason I like this option, is because it allows me to animate in any order.
Conclusion
With all of the examples so far, I’ve worked with shapes and other objects. In Part 3 of this video animation series, I will discuss some considerations for animating text and show how to use morph and 3D objects in your animations.
