13. Demystifying 3D
In This Chapter
Welcome to a release of Office with amazing 3D support.
The PowerPoint team at Microsoft spent a great deal of time and effort trying to establish PowerPoint 2007 with twenty-first century graphics, and allowing for 3D effects is a large step in the right direction. With this chapter, we show you how to make vivid, immersive content that depicts your information in a new eye-popping manner.
First, we provide you with a short example of how powerful this is just to give you a little taste of how easy it is. Then take a look at our list of what you can and cannot apply 3D effects to. We then go on to show you how to rotate your content so that any 3D effects you apply can actually be seen because the default view of the 3D objects might not be taken from the best angle. And finally, you’ll get a tour through the various formatting you can use to add that third dimension and make your content more realistic.
3D Example
Let’s jump right in and walk through an example of making a sphere—something that could easily impress, yet takes little effort.
First things first: We’re going to make a sphere out of a circle by adding the third dimension.
1. Insert a circle into your presentation. To make the math easier, make sure that the circle is 4” by 4” by going to the Drawing Tools Format tab and entering 4 into the height and width fields, as shown in Figure 13.1.
Figure 13.1 We have inserted a circle of size 4” by 4"—you will see why later when we create a sphere.
2. Next, open the Format Shape dialog by right-clicking on the circle and choosing Format Shape.
3. Then, click on the 3D Rotation button on the left side. We’re trying to change the rotation of the object so that when we change it and make it 3D, we can actually see the results.
4. Click the Presets button and click on an example that you think will give you a good view of the object. We like Off Axis 1 Top (on the third row, middle column of our Parallel section of the presets, as shown in Figure 13.2) because it enables you to see the side of an object.
Figure 13.2 Rotation is key when dealing with 3D objects because you need to be able to see what your changes do. Off Axis 1 Top enables you to see the side of an object, which is helpful when you’re trying to make a sphere.
5. Now let’s actually make this circle 3D. Click on the 3D Format button on the left of the Format Shape dialog, and then click on the drop-down next to Top. Select the first row and first column entry from the gallery under Bevel, which is labeled Circle, as shown in Figure 13.3. Repeat the process for the Bottom selection.
Figure 13.3 Add a Bevel to the top and bottom of a circle to make it a sphere.
6. Enter 150 into the Top and the Bottom settings’ Width and Height boxes. This is a number we came up with using trial and error. A lot of times, you can depend on this to work best.
Note
At this point, don’t worry if your sphere is moved down in the workspace, as shown in Figure 13.4. This is supposed to happen because a bottom was added to the shape. We will move it back up in the next few steps.
Figure 13.4 Remove the outline of your shape, or it will cause your sphere to look strange.
We still have a couple of problems to deal with. For one thing, you can see a band in the middle of the shape because, by default, when you insert a circle, it has a blue fill with a darker blue outline. When you take this, rotate it, and then add 3D as we just did, the outline is still there. So let’s get rid of it and make the sphere all one color (unless you want a band of color going around your sphere).
1. Click on Line Color on the left side of the Format Shape dialog.
2. From the Color drop-down, select the same color as your shape fill. By default, you want Blue, Accent 1, as shown in Figure 13.4.
Tip
Alternatively, you could click on No Fill from the Line Color options in the Format Shape dialog.
You can notice that the sphere is shifted down a bit, so to raise it up, go to the 3D Rotation options in the Format Shape dialog and enter 150 into the Distance from Ground box at the bottom. Doing so makes your sphere centered and similar to the one shown in Figure 13.5.
Figure 13.5 A finished sphere.
And that’s it! While it might have seemed difficult at first, it definitely gets easier with time. Remember, use trial and error to figure out the exact details of the height and width of the top and bottom of your 3D object, and also take advantage of the presets because you can actually see what those might look like rather than fumbling around in the dark guessing at sizes.
What Can Be 3D?
Now that you have seen an example of 3D in action, you need to know what types of objects can be affected by your 3D effects and rotations. If you find yourself wanting to add a little flare to your objects, consider sending it on a trip down the 3D rendering pipeline. This list might show you that you can add 3D effects to objects that you never thought possible.
You can add 3D effects to the following (see Figure 13.6):
- Shapes
- Grouped Shapes
- Pictures
- Charts (and elements)
- SmartArt (and elements)
- Text and WordArt
Figure 13.6 Examples of 3D objects and objects that must remain in 2D.
The following must remain in 2D (see Figure 13.6):
- OLE objects
- Tables
- Movies
3D Rotation Explained
Now that we have walked you through a simple example, let’s discuss in depth the two tools you have that apply to 3D: Rotation and Formatting.
Typically, we would explain in detail the 3D Formatting tab in the Format Shape dialog first because it appears on top of the 3D Rotation tab (see Figure 13.7), but things are a little different in this case.
Figure 13.7 The 3D Rotation tab in the Format Shape dialog. Refer back to this when reading the rest of this section.
Imagine trying to shave your name on the back of your head without using any mirrors. That’s the same feeling you get when applying 3D Formatting by using the default 3D Rotation. Sure, you might notice a slight change here or there, but the default view is from a bird’s-eye top-down view, which shows you nothing if you modify the bottom of your shape.
After you rotate your object, seeing the effects of applying 3D Formatting will help you immensely.
Preset Rotations
Twenty-five preset rotations exist to help you get an idea of some good rotations. These presets should cover most of the common scenarios you will need to view your 3D objects; if not, you can certainly customize the rotations yourself later on.
For now, let’s take a look at the presets, which are split up into three different categories: Parallel, Perspective, and Oblique (refer to Figure 13.2).
The best uses of the presets are to experiment and take advantage of Live Preview to see what works for you. The presets are meant to give you a breadth of options to choose from without making you specify the exact rotation you want. Providing a custom rotation is explained in the next section.
Notice that the icon shows you graphically what the rotation will do, but for a more detailed description, you can hover your mouse over the icon.
Custom Rotations
If you are not satisfied with the preset 3D rotations, here is your chance to customize the rotation yourself.
Notice that there are two ways to enter a rotation: You can enter a number into the degrees box or you can click on the two opposing rotators to the right of them. Now notice that there is a rotation angle for each axis, allowing for full 3D rotation.
Note
The rotation only happens once; it is not like an animation that will keep spinning.
Rotation in each of the three axes results in a different view. Let’s see how each axis affects a shape.
1. First, insert a shape and type some text so that we can distinguish the front from the back of the shape; we used a cloud in Figure 13.8.
Figure 13.8 A brand new cloud shape ready to be rotated in 3D.
2. Next, let’s play with the x-axis rotation. Enter 180 degrees and notice that the text has flipped on the x-axis (see Figure 13.9). Feel free to click on the Left and Right buttons next to the x-axis rotation input to incrementally rotate the object and get an idea of what kind of rotation this actually is.
Figure 13.9 The cloud is rotated on the x-axis (left to right) 180 degrees, resulting in flipped text.
Note
We are using terminology located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_space, which describes Cartesian geometry and the Coordinate axes: x, y, and z.
3. Now, reset your shape either by clicking on the Reset button or by entering 0 in the x-axis rotation field again. Next, we play with the y-axis rotation—again by entering 180 into the field and noticing that the shape and text have flipped upside down on the y-axis. The key thing to remember is the axis you enter the number into determines which axis the shape is rotated on. See Figure 13.10 for the result of the flipped shape and text on the y-axis.
Figure 13.10 The cloud is rotated on the y-axis (up to down) 180 degrees, resulting in upside down text.
4. Again, reset your shape so that there is no rotation, and let’s see what the z-axis rotation looks like. Enter 180 degrees into the field next to Z (see what it looks like in Figure 13.11). This shows text flipped and upside down, but another way to look at this is to see it as a clockwise rotation because the z-axis is clockwise/counterclockwise.
Figure 13.11 The cloud is rotated on the z-axis (clockwise, counterclockwise) 180 degrees, resulting in upside down and flipped text.
For more information regarding rotation about the three axes, read about the 4x4 Transformation Matrix here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_matrix.
Text and 3D Objects
By default, the text on your objects gets rotated with the rest of the shape, as if it were written on the actual surface.
For example, in Figure 13.12, we have a sphere that has been rotated 305, 4.2, 36.6 degrees in the x, y, and z axes, respectively; as you can see, the text cannot be seen because of the rotation we have on the sphere.
Figure 13.12 The Keep Text Flat option reverts your text back to its second dimension in case it becomes unreadable, as in this example, where the rotation causes the text to move to the other side of the shape.
If you don’t want this to happen and would rather see the text in 2D as it was before any 3D formatting, check the Keep Text Flat box (seen in Figure 13.12), and it separates the text from the object.
This is a good idea, especially when you want the bottom or side of a 3D object to be shown, but you want the text to remain visible.
Object Position
This is another complicated one. In the 3D world, there is a concept of a “ground.” By default, with no rotation applied, you are looking top down on the object, which is sitting on the ground.
The complicated part is when you apply a rotation. You need to either keep track of the new ground yourself, or just increase the Distance from Ground setting in the 3D Rotation section of the Format Shape dialog and see what happens to your object.
We used this setting previously (shown in Figure 13.5) to center our object after having added top and bottom halves to our circle, which was lying flat on the ground.
Reset
If you find that you don’t like the rotation you’ve applied and you want to start from scratch, click Reset, and you are sent back to the 2D shape with the original fill and line.
Using 3D Formatting Effectively
Now that you can actually see the changes you can make, let’s see what you can do to your shapes to bring them into the third dimension.
Figure 13.13 shows you how the dialog is laid out for the next few sections, so refer back to it if you need help remembering what parts of the dialog look like.
Figure 13.13 The 3-D Format dialog.
Let’s walk through a few examples showing what each part of the dialog actually does.
First, let’s start with a plain shape, as seen in Figure 13.14; then we will apply different formatting in each of the following sections. Assume that we reset the shape in between each section.
Figure 13.14 The guinea pig shape we will use to experiment with different 3D formatting elements.
How do you take a 2D shape and make it 3D? Well, it’s not that easy. One way to do it is to split it up into the top and bottom parts. This is how the dialog is split up.
This means that your shape is still there, but all you are doing is adding stuff on top of it and below it.
Bevel
The bevel you select will determine what “body” you add—meaning that if you select a certain bevel, the shape of the 3D body you add will be different from others and will be made of diverse materials.
A set of 12 preset bevel types are offered to sculpt your shape. After you have a bevel applied, you can modify the height and width of the bevel by using the modifiers on the right.
With our original shape in Figure 13.14, let’s first apply a 3D rotation so that we can see what Bevel actually does.
1. From the 3-D Rotation section of the Format Shape dialog, click on Presets, select Isometric Right Up, and the result should be similar to what’s shown in Figure 13.15.
Figure 13.15 Our example from 13.14 with a rotation applied so that we can play with Bevel.
2. Next, let’s add a top and bottom bevel (Circle Bevel is the top left bevel in the presets) and change the height and width of both top and bottom to be 40. The result is shown in Figure 13.16.
Figure 13.16 The result of adding bevel to our sample shape in Figure 13.15.
Depth
If you want to add a little girth to your object, consider adding some depth by increasing the Depth value. Select a color; you automatically add a 6-point depth. Notice that the area between the top and bottom of your 3D object has increased.
This is the area between the top and bottom of your 3D object.
For example, if we start with our rotated shape in Figure 13.15 and apply a depth of 40, Figure 13.17 shows what we get.
Figure 13.17 The result of adding depth to our sample shape in Figure 13.16.
Contour
You can think of the contour as the 3D equivalent of the outline. If you have added a depth to your 3D object, adding a contour modifies the outline on the depth. Just like the Depth dialog, you have a choice of color and an extent. By selecting a color, a default point of 1 will be applied, which looks small. The larger contour you add, the thicker the outline of the depth will be.
Continuing with our previous example from “Depth,” if we keep our shape that has some depth and add a contour of size 5, the resulting shape looks like Figure 13.18.
Figure 13.18 The result of adding contour (outline of the depth) to our sample shape in Figure 13.17.
Surface
Now that the physical attributes of the 3D object have been set, let’s take a look at some more fine-grained customizations you can add, such as changing the material or lighting.
Material
Eleven different materials can make up your 3D objects (see Figure 13.19). We suggest playing around with them to see what looks good with your presentation. Also, a good strategy is to try something out, and then click Undo if you do not like it. Because the Format Shape dialog is modeless, you don’t have to worry about bringing it back up each time you do and undo.
Figure 13.19 Try applying some various materials and seeing what you like. Our favorite is the Wireframe, which makes all objects look pretty neat.
To continue with our example, let’s add a Clear Material to our shape from the “Contour” example in Figure 13.19. The result is what you see in Figure 13.20.
Figure 13.20 The Clear Material applied to our contoured shape from Figure 13.19. The surface changes to be semitransparent.
Lighting
The preset lightings are useful for putting your 3D objects into a real scene and making them look as though they exist in the real world.
It really adds the shimmer on the objects that you see because of the reflection of the light that bounces off the object.
The lightings are separated into Neutral, Warm, Cool, and Special (see Figure 13.21); once again, we cannot tell you which will look good in your presentation. Just try a few out, and undo if you find yourself looking at something really ugly.
Figure 13.21 The various lighting schemes.
Continuing with our example, let’s add the Flat Lighting to our shape with the Clear Material from the preceding exercise and also give it a 200 degree angle. Notice in Figure 13.22 that there’s a bright spot on the depth of the shape because of the lighting.
Figure 13.22 Lighting is applied to our shape with depth and a Clear Material from Figure 13.20. Notice the bright spot that can be controlled via the angle of the lighting.
Angle
Although this is entirely obvious, we have to note that the angle is associated with the lighting and determines where the light comes from. The example shown in Figure 13.22 displays what the lighting controls, and it can be helpful when moving bright spots on the shape.
Here’s what happens when the angle is changed to 270: Notice how the bright spot on the depth of the shape has changed, and also the face of the smiley is now very bright and reflecting the light into your view of the shape in Figure 13.23.
Figure 13.23 Changing the angle from Figure 13.22 results in the shape having a different bright spot, as well as the face of the shape changing to be bright, as if it were reflecting the lighting directly into our eyes.
Reset
If you’re unhappy with what you’ve done and want to revert back to your original 2D object, click the Reset button.
Caution
Be careful: If you click the Reset button, you lose your 3D rotation in addition to any 3D formatting, because it is set back to the 2D shape.
Be Careful!
It is very easy to go overboard with 3D. Please take time and evaluate whether you need to add 3D to objects before you go making use of your new abilities.
Why? It Looks So Pretty!
An individual object made 3D might look good, but when mixed with other objects that are not 3D, it might clash and stand out like a sore thumb. Look at Figure 13.24 and see how a perfectly normal slide was ruined by making one object 3D and going overboard with adding additional shapes.
Figure 13.24 Choose wisely when you want to use 3D.
In this example, because the sun is 3D but other shapes are not, something looks amiss. Why don’t the other shapes have shadows? Where is the light coming from? These are questions confused viewers notice.
Be Consistent
In addition to being consistent within one slide, you must also consider all slides in your presentation. If you are giving a presentation that is all 2D except for one slide, it will definitely stand out, but maybe not in a good way. It might just look tacky.
At the end of the day, you must consider all factors before deciding to use 3D. Some presentations will benefit from it, but many will not. It’s important to use good style judgment.
Note
If you’re familiar with graphics, it’s also important to consider the vanishing point when introducing 3D into a scene. If the shadows don’t match up, or the 3D objects do not look as though they could physically exist in the real world, then chances are it won’t look good in your presentation.