Vector Drawing with PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 is not the best tool for vector illustration. It's a presentation program, and that's what it's intended for. However, the surprising thing is that it's passably good at both. It can export to .pdf, .png, .gif, .jgp, and as I recently learned, to video formats like .wmv.

PowerPoint has many of the features of more powerful vector editors like Adobe Illustrator, the problem is that they're pretty well hidden. You want a pen tool? Home > Drawing > Autoshape Panel > Curve. It's right under the text boxes and block arrows that people use for creating normal presentations.

The Illustrator Pencil tool is in the same panel in PowerPoint, but it's called Scribble. I get the feeling that some of these drawing tools arose by accident. For example, there's a tool that lets you draw straight lines connected by corner points when you click the screen, but turns into something like the scribble tool when you click and hold. I can't imagine the application for that in an illustration, but it makes sense if you're trying to connect two unusually placed points of data in a presentation.

And once you've drawn a shape, the editing tools available are incredible. You can edit anchor points, arrange the shape order, select grouping options, and just look at the shape format menu.

Every conveivable effect you could think to apply is in that left bar, and they're actually pretty well fleshed out in terms of variability. It even has raster editing options (Everything in the left bar from Picture Corrections down to Crop).

And because everything is drawn in vector, any necessary touch-ups can be done in other programs. You can save your design as a .pdf in PowerPoint and open it in Illustrator. Or, most surprising to me, you can just copy your selection from PowerPoint and paste right into a waiting artboard in Illustrator.

Where PowerPoint differs from drawing programs like Illustrator is its focus on presentations. In some areas, this causes drawbacks. There are no blob brush tools or pathfinder selections. Pattern fills are very limited, and text cannot be converted to shapes. However, because it's a presentation software, it brings with it something new: a library of animation effects and an audio recorder.

Here's a short thing I made to test the animation abilities of PowerPoint.

It's sloppy, but it gets the point across. In addition to regular movement paths, a number of slide transition animations can be applied to shapes. And all of it can be edited on a functional and precise timeline. Here's the timeline from the above animation.

I only recently started using the Adobe suite as part of my schoolwork, and I'm amazed at some of the capabilities of those programs. There is no doubt in my mind that Illustrator is better for professional design than PowerPoint. But as a veteran PowerPointer, there are some features I've grown used to that I feel are missing in Illustrator. Namely, the Format Painter and enclosed selections.

The Format painter is a tool in PowerPoint that lets you highlight an object and transfer all its format to a new shape. For example, let's say you have a rectangle with a 6-point dashed gradient line, two directions of drop shadow, and a 16° diagonal 3D rotation and you want all that on a circle. Just click the rectangle, click the Format Painter, and click the circle. Done. Maybe I've overlooked something, but I have yet to find that feature in Illustrator. The closest I can find is the Eyedropper tool, but so far as I can tell it only applies the fill color.

Enclosed selections were probably the biggest shock to my system. In PowerPoint, if you want a bunch of shapes selected at once, you drag the selection box to surround the shapes. This lets you select details within a large object.

Here's the selection process in PowerPoint:

And here it is in Illustrator:

Illustrator doesn't have an option to select only the shapes enclosed. Instead, everything the selection box touches is selected. So in this particular instance, instead of clicking and dragging once to make my selection, I would have to shift click nine times to select only the circles (or just deselect the rectangle, but that isn't always feasible). It's annoying, is all. Especially on projects with a higher amount of detail. Something on this sort of scale, for example.

If I want to do a quick, simple project, most times I'll still go to PowerPoint, just because it's an environment I'm more familiar with. The title banner of this site was made in PowerPoint. I'm sure that over time I'll become more accustomed to the Adobe suite. I sure hope I'll become more accustomed to it. That is one of the things I'm looking to get out of my Intro to Illustrator class, anyway.

That's all for today, folks! Tune in next week for another exciting look at the world of drawing programs, where we'll take a look at how Microsoft Paint is totally comparable to Adobe PhotoShop! (We won't and it isn't.)

See you then!

Right as Rain

Click here for context.

The ring meant to support all the upper parts of the ribs was just a twisted and mangled piece of wire when I found it. I've replaced it with some string for now, and I plan to get a proper ring in place as soon as I can find a sturdy but flexible length of metal wire that'll work. But for the time being, this ol' guy is back in action.

Gestalt Week! Day 7

And with that, Gestalt Week is over! I have nothing more to say on the subject!

My Undead Umbrella

Five years ago I was in a Boy Scout summer camp for my annual visit. Summer camp is one of those things that I remember fondly now, but at the time I couldn't stand it. In fact, it wouldn't be until two years later that I would step into a car to leave camp for the last time and declare, "someday I'll probably want to come back to this place. But right now, all I want is to leave." It always took place at the height of July when temperatures were extreme and insects were everywhere. There wasn't much to do if you didn't make a hobby for yourself. Mine involved weaving hammocks and walls from ropes, most days. It was slow and temporary work, in that by the end of it all the ropes would be untangled and stored back in the plastic tub the troop had designated for ropes. But it kept me busy and provided some comfort and novelty at the time.

There was a dumpster not far from the staff lodging. On my way back from the mess hall one day, I noticed a shapeless mass of black canvas leaning against the dumpster's side. I went to investigate and found an old golf umbrella. It had a number of loose stretchers, and the velcro closing strap was worn to uselessness. But I had never seen anything like it. It was tall, almost as tall as me. Until that moment I had never seen an umbrella made before the rise of collapsable, foldable, fit-in-your-purse-and-pocket umbrellas. This umbrella had a firm wooden handle and a solid metal end. What I had in my hands was a weather-proof walking stick. I took it back to camp and located a needle and some string.

It didn't rain that summer. It was an odd disappointment, one that came from a place of pride. I had finished what repairs I could within the first day of its rescue, and was more than pleased with my inelegant but sturdy sewing. It astounded me that anyone would throw away such a noble tool for such a minor defect.

I took it home with me and got the velcro replaced with a small snap. I took it out on every overcast occation. In my mind it commanded respect, having that vast shield overhead in the rain and that sturdy rod under my arm after the storm. Even when closed it had a certain air of dignity to it: it didn't conveniently fold itself out of the way. Its handle hooked it in place on the edge of chairs and tables, always close at hand. It came with me and kept me dry in New York when I was in culinary college and in Florida when I was an intern.

Of course, with as much use as it got, further repairs were needed on occation. I have no idea how old it was before it found its way to the dumpster where we met, but every so often the canvas would pull away from the tips or a stretcher would bend out of place. I've redone that original summer camp stitching several times, each time sure that it would hold. I've had an occation or two where the whole thing would turn inside out in a strong wind and be reduced to a damp sack of loose metal rods until I could get it home to a sewing kit. Given the five years I've had this umbrella, it's been the longest-running maintenece project I've ever undertaken. That's the sort of involvement that instills ownership. I wove into place the string that binds the canvas. I've bent the stretchers into place. It's my umbrella, every piece of it.

It rained all day today. I took my old friend out for a walk each time I needed to find a new building for a new class. It stood vigil over my backpack, raindrops dripping occationally onto the carpet. The day went by as normal. It was late. I was stepping out of my last class of the day, the rain had died down to a sprinkle. I stepped outside and pressed the bottom spring in. The runner rised up the tube, spreading the cloth taut as it went. It clicked onto the top spring and locked into place. Then it kept going. Before I knew what had happened, I was holding in my hands the umbrella pictured at the top of the page. To my knowledge this is the worst condition it's ever been in. Ribs and stretchers are falling everywhere. The canvas is hanging by a borrowed thread.

It could be said that this umbrella has served me well beyond its capacity, and that all it wants now is a peaceful death. I say that it wanted a peaceful death five years ago when I pulled it out of a dumpster. I didn't indulge it then, and I certainly won't indulge it now.

Repairs are once again underway.

POWERPOINT CAN EXPORT TO VIDEO

POWERPOINT CAN EXPORT TO VIDEO

POWERPOINT CAN EXPORT TO VIDEO

POWERPOINT CAN EXPORT TO VIDEO

Why did nobody tell me about this!? I've known about timing and narration recordings for a while, but I never used them much because they still required the viewer to open it in PowerPoint. But just File > Save & Send > Create a Video and bam. It's a .wmv file. Playable in darn near any and every video player known to man.

Here's a presentation on calcium I did in culinary school. It's an old educational film stylistically based on the brilliant parody series Look Around You, which itself is stylistically based on old educational films. And it's on YouTube. Because that's a thing I can do now.

I've used PowerPoint forever. I ran a t-shirt design business for two years off nothing but vector designs made in PowerPoint 2007. It is mind-blowing to me that I'm only just now learning this.

Gestalt Week! Day 6

About one out of every five posts on this blog is about gestalt. It's a pretty basic design principle. We're done learning about it in school. I don't want this to be that blog that talks about gestalt all the time. In the future I should do some better week-long series.

This one is lines.

The Creative Process

The Contest

The Original Sketch

It's done! I'm finished with my entry in the calendar contest. It's been submitted and everything! And as promised, I'm going to walk you through my personal design process. Let's get started!

Step One



We start with the basic shape of our subjects. The enderman is a tall, slender fellow, while the snow golem is short and bulky. For our purposes, a triangle will be the best shape for the job.

Step Two

Double-click the shape to correct the angles. We now have an outline that'll serve as the basis of our foreground.

Step Three

You know, snowfellow looks a little too nervous. Select and triple click the eyes and pull the anger gradient all the way up. Press the select key to apply the changes.

Step Four

Much better! 

Step Five

Now it's time to add the color. Right click, select "add color," and pick "fancy" from the drop-down menu.

Step Six

Make sure your content awareness fill is turned to "Medium Well" in the settings, otherwise it loses that cartoony look. Now it's time to work on the background.

Step Seven

We'll be doing the background much like the foreground. Once again, draw out the basic shape...

Step Eight

...and double-click to correct angles.

Step Nine

Right click the background and color fancy again. As you can see, this is an integral part of the design process.

Step Ten

Since there are a lot of shapes to fill with a large pallet of color, this process will take a little longer to render than the first time. Be patient, the end result is worth it.

Step Eleven

So we've got a snow golem trying to hit a wily enderman. We need to show that he's been trying and failing for a while. Bring down the top bar, select "effects," and highlight the "snow filter" option. Strike the select key three times to begin the "Lots of Snowballs that Missed their Target" filter.

Step Twelve

 And here's the finished product! Ctrl+S to save, ⌘+P to print, and Ѫ+4 to frame.

So now we just wait until February 8th to see if this gets selected for the finals. If it does, it'll go to public voting. I'll be sure to post the links to all that when they become available.

The deadline's still a while off and multiple entries are permitted, so I might do another one if I get any new ideas. This one came together really well, and with any luck, it'll go far.

I've got a really good feeling about this.

Gestalt Week! Day 5

My instructor doesn't like arrows. He thinks they're a cheap way to draw attention to something, a universal symbol that serves as a shortcut when legitimate methods would work equally as well.

So I made him this.

It's gonna be a good school year.

Gestalt Week! Day 4

In case anyone was wondering, I made all these for extra credit. It just occurred to me that I was tagging all of these "school" without ever really explaining why.

It's difficult to find things to say about this after a few days.

Banana.

Quit Teleporting!

The Contest

 

 

Contest update time! I scrapped the ravine. The joke I was going to add (long, painful fall) wouldn't have fit on the landscape, so it came between redesigning the whole thing for a pretty stupid joke or starting from scratch.

So here are the characters in our newest design, a nervous Snow Golem and the silly Enderman taunting him. The scene is based on the interaction between the characters in the game: snow golems will try to throw snowballs at any hostile mobs, and endermen teleport out of the way of any projectiles, including snowballs. This leads to a game of cat and mouse which can last for hours if left unchecked.

I'll keep you posted on the design process.