PowerPoint: 3D Effects
Published on 6th April 2006
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, and illustrating your presentation can help your audience understand, provide something more interesting to look at and reinforce the impact of your message as well. By adding 3D effects your illustrations can look even more professional and powerful.
We will start by reminding you how to draw a basic shape (an arrow, say) and then how to apply a 3D style.
Drawing a Block Arrow
- Make sure you are in the slide which you want to illustrate.
- Find the Drawing Toolbar (usually at the bottom of the screen) and click the Autoshapes button.
- From the Autoshapes menu pick, for example, Block Arrows.
- From the sub-menu, click the basic arrow shape you want.
- Move the mouse onto the slide and drag across the area where you want the arrow to go.
- You should now have the arrow on your slide. You should be able to see white circles at each corner, so you can resize the shape. You should also see a green circle, which enables you to rotate the shape and yellow diamonds, which enable you to control exactly what the shape looks like. Experiment with these by dragging the green circle and yellow diamonds to see what they do.
Applying a 3D Style
- Select the shape you want to make 3D.
- At the right-hand end of the Drawing toolbar you'll find a button called 3D Style. Click this to get a menu of styles to choose from. Click the style you want to apply to your shape.
- The shape will now look like a 3 dimensional object. Experiment with different styles using the same button again.
Fine Tuning the 3D Effect
In later versions of PowerPoint you can also fine tune the 3D Style as follows:
- Select the shape you want to work with.
- Click the 3D Style button and choose 3D Settings.
- You should now be able to see the 3D Settings toolbar. Experiment with the different buttons that control the four tilt directions, the thickness of the shape, the direction you are looking from, the lighting and surface effect. The last button allows you to choose the colour of the shape.