How To Make Animation in PowerPoint Tutorial

Beginners, who are interested in How To Make Animation in PowerPoint, then let me first discuss the effects used in this presentation and then you can decide that either you can create this animation in the version of PowerPoint you have on your system. When I was about to write this post, the Easy Method of Creating Animated Scene in PowerPoint video tutorial on my Youtube Channel is trending Number One and soon going to reach 100K views.

Animation Effects Used in the Presentation

So, Readers – only 3 animation effects have been used in this presentation. Surprised!

Flash Once
Motion Path
Spin
For Walking Character, we used Flash Once and Motion Path.
For Leafs, we used Spin and Motion Path.

The most important and beautiful part of this presentation is the Walk Cycle, which looks very realistic and you should thank the Flash Once effect for this.

Note: Flash Once animation effect is not available in 2010 and later versions but you can continue reading as you will also learn a trick to get the Flash Once in 2013 and 2016 as well.
Download Walk Cycle Presentation from link below and use Animation Painter to duplicate

The idea behind this animation is simple. We are using 9 different walk-pose pictures of the same character; having a different Walk Pose in each of the pictures. They can also be called 9 different Frames. Movie Projectors in theaters use the same technique. You might have noticed this banner appearing when a movie starts:

Central Board of Film Certification — Length 4397 Mts in 18 Reels

You can notice the length of the Movie Reel. Do you know what this is? That is the length of the total number of frames playing in a Movie Reel.

The standard length of a 35 mm film reel is 1,000 feet (305 m), which runs approximately 11 minutes for the sound film (24 frames per second) and about 15 minutes for the silent film at the more-or-less standard speed of 16 frames per second

So, the point is: when you watch a movie in the theater, you are actually seeing around 25 frames (or you can say 25 different pictures) changing on-screen in 1 second and that is what Projectors are made for. Remember that Flip Book:

When you see a lot of pictures within a short time period then the delay between your eyes getting information and your mind processing the data creates an illusion of Motion. However, all the motions passing on the screen are just pictures and nothing else but still, it feels like you are watching a video.

More Information About Animation Effects

As I always said that you must be a good Graphics Designer if you want to do some serious animation stuff inside PowerPoint. So, this presentation is an example that why you should have some knowledge of designing things on computers.

To create these kinds of Realistic Animations in PowerPoint, not just the walking animation but anything that comes to your mind. See, the following example:

Walk Cycle Animation Example — Walk Cycle Example

So, if you need to try this animation in PowerPoint then you first need to draw this picture many times having a different pose in each picture in any graphic designing application like CorelDraw, or Adobe Illustrator, or you can learn How to Use Shape / Drawing Tools in PowerPoint and see what you can come up with!

As I am not so good designer so I just Google for Walk Cycle Poses PNG and downloaded this character having 9 different poses. PNG to tell Google to look for PNG file types as they mostly have a transparent background (or you can click on Tools – Colors – Transparent while looking for Images in Google) and that is the most important point you need to remember. You just can’t drop any picture on top of other objects on the slide. Look at the following pictures:

Normal and Transparent Pictures — Left Picture is Transparent
Right having a White Background

So, a picture not having a transparent background will hide the other objects in the background because of having white or any other color in the picture itself.

Once you have everything in place then it’s time to apply the animations. Here are the steps:

Step 1 – Understanding the Flash Once effect in PowerPoint

9 Different Walk Poses Pictures of the same character with Transparent Background

The idea behind creating a realistic animation walk cycle or any other realistic animation is to use and understand the Flash Once effectively. As in this example, we are displaying 9 pictures of the character within 0.90 seconds Duration. We have to apply the effect on each individual picture and there will be a Delay of 0.10 Seconds between each picture flashing on the screen.

But that doesn’t mean that each picture will be shown for a duration of 0.90 seconds. That is not the way Flash Once behaves. When you apply this effect to an object then the default duration of flashing the object on screen will be approximately 0.10 seconds and the object will remain invisible for the next 0.80 seconds.

In the presentation attached below, we are also repeating the effect 10 times on every picture. There is also a Delay Timing of 0.10 seconds from the 2nd picture to the 9th picture. See the screenshot below:

PowerPoint Animation Pane with Flash Once — 9 Times Flash Once and 9 Times Motion Path
Delay Timing of 0.10 Seconds in Flash Once from 2nd to 9th picture.

Animated Walk Cycle PowerPoint — Realistic Walk Cycle in PowerPoint

So, the first frame will Flash on the screen for 0.10 seconds (even if the duration is 0.90 seconds but that is how Flash Once works) and will remain hidden for the next 0.80 seconds. During the slideshow, the next frame will appear at 0.20 seconds (because of delay timings of 0.10 between each picture), the third frame will appear at 0.30 seconds, and so on.

As we are repeating this effect on all the pictures 10 times then the first frame will again appear when it completes the 0.90 seconds duration but during the slideshow, all the frames will show up for 0.10 seconds and will remain hidden for the next 0.80 seconds within one loop of a total 0.90 seconds.

So this loop of Flash Once animation, showing 9 pictures within 0.90 seconds will create a walking loop for the character.

Step 2 – Applying Flash Once Effect

You might also need to read this article that How to Use Flash Once Animation Effect in PowerPoint 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019 because Flash Once is not available in later versions than 2007.

For the time, download and open my presentation from the link below and then select one of the character pictures having the Flash Once (my PPT also has the Right Motion Path on each picture) effect, and then from the Animations tab click Animation Painter once.

Now, switch to your PPT and then click on the object to which you want to apply the Flash Once effect. That is the only way to get the Flash Once in later versions of PowerPoint. Repeat the same steps for each object to which you want to apply the effect.

Delay and Duration Timings in PowerPoint — Delay Timings of 0.10 Seconds will be applied from the 2nd Picture to the 9th Picture only.

Once all the pictures have the Flash Once effect then it is time to set the duration and delay timings. The default duration will be 0.10 seconds because you are replicating the effect from my presentation into yours using Animation Painter. You only need to check and change the Delay Timings which should be 0.10 seconds.

After setting the Duration and Delay timings, place all the pictures at the place from where you want the character to start walking you can do this by selecting all the pictures then clicking Align drop-down button from the Format tab and choosing Align Center and again applying Align Middle, so each picture will appear on top of each other. Now, select all the pictures again and place them in the desired location.

Alignment Options - Format Tab in PowerPoint — Select All Pictures and apply Align Command From Format Tab

After applying alignment options, pictures will look like this on top of each other.

Align Center and Align Middle PowerPoint commands — 9 Pictures on Top of each other at the same position.

See the Slideshow to know if everything is working fine.

It is time to move the character forward because he is presently walking in the same position on the slide. To apply a forward motion to the character, you can either apply the Motion Path to the character or you can move the background.

It will be easy for you to move the character instead of the background. To move the character forward, you can apply the Motion Path. As you can see in the presentation that there are no Delay Timings between the motion paths and all have the same duration.

When you will see the Slideshow, all 9 pictures will start moving together but you will only see one picture in a time for 0.10 seconds. The second picture will appear after a 0.10 delay but the second picture will be at a different place because of the motion path and then the third picture and so on, which finally will make a Walk Cycle.

You can add more objects to the scene like a Background, Leafs, and Butterflies to make it more attractive. You can Google for Animated Background Pictures and Leafs. Remember to use the Transparent Leaves and you can apply a Custom Motion Path to the Leafs whereas the background will remain still.

That is all I have to say about the Flash Once animation effect in PowerPoint.

I hope you got The Teacher Point.