Watch the video below to learn 3 interesting ways to use the 3D tools in PowerPoint:
Video Transcript
hi I'm Ramgopal from Presentation-Process.com. In the short training course I'm going to teach you three PowerPoint 3d tricks in three minutes the three things you're going to learn our first this 3d ball second this 3d platformer and third this 3d text.
Aren't they beautiful?
Well it doesn't take more than three minutes for you to learn each of these techniques I may take a little longer just to ensure that you understand the techniques thoroughly so let us jump right in and understand the first of the 3 3d tricks.
3D Trick 1: Easy 3D Glossy Ball
The first step is to go to the Home tab in PowerPoint ribbon and under auto shapes we are going to pick up the tool called Oval tool in the basic shapes. So click on it and hold the shift button down as you draw a circle. Holding the shift button down ensures that your oval turns out as a perfect circle. The next step is to go to shape fill and fill it with red color instead of the default blue color and then let us go to shape outline and say no outline.
So far it's quite easy isn't it? The next step is to know the diameter of the circle so I am going to click on the circle go to the format tab in PowerPoint ribbon and see the height and width. Here as you can see height and width are matching because it's a circle and we are going to change this number from 2.16 to just 2. I'll tell you why because you're going to do a bit of calculation to create the sphere and having a round number really helps.
The next step is to right click and go to format shape and go to the effects option here the effect that I am going to apply is under 3d format and I am going to apply a top bevel and the bevel is circle and the same is the case with bottom level the bevel is circle, Now if you remember I said we are going to do some calculation. If you remember the height and width are 2 inches each now we are going to multiply this number with 36. 36 is the number that you need to enter for the width height for the top and bottom levels for each of the inches so 2 into 36 is equal to 72. So I am going to say 72 for width 72 for height and the same is the case for the bottom bevel as well and as soon as I finish that my 3d circle is ready.
Now I can embellish this the way I want for example if I want to add a reflection all I need to do is to select this go to shape effects which is one of the options in the Home tab in PowerPoint ribbon go to reflection and add reflection. Isn't this beautiful?
It is that simple to create a 3d sphere now let us go to the next trick which is about creating this beautiful 3d platform...
Trick 2: 3D Platform
Let us go to a new slide the first step is to create a rectangle. So I am going to draw a rectangle next I am going to right-click and go to format shape and go to the effects option. The first thing I'm going to do is to work with 3d rotation so let me go to 3d rotation option here and choose one of the ready-made presets and the preset that I have is under perspective and it is called as perspective relaxed. As soon as I click on it you can see that the rectangle is already slanted on the ground.
The next step is to add some top bevel to the shape so let us go to 3d format go to top bevel option and choose one of the presets. The preset I am going to choose in this case is this one called as convex. Now all that is left for me to complete this picture is to add some depth so in this case I am going to add 30 as the depth and there it is my 3d rectangle has transformed itself into a beautiful 3d platform.
I can always go ahead and change the color to my liking and go to shape outline and say no outline. Now I have a beautiful platform on which I can keep anything maybe something like these beautiful icons or a picture or a text or any such thing that I have already created I can keep on top of this.
Let us do one thing let us go to the previous 3d sphere that I got let us copy this and let us place this right on top of the 3d platform to complete this beautiful 3d platform. Isn't this beautiful?
Now the last technique that you're going to learn in this course is how to create this beautiful 3d text.
Trick 3: 3D Text Effect
So let us go to a new slide and let us go to the text box and let us type in some text here. So I am going to type something called business and let me choose a bolder font like say Arial black and let us really increase the size of this to say 96 points.
I want to have a lighter color for the font because only then you would be able to clearly see the 3d effects. So let me choose a lighter font color maybe something like this and that's beautiful. Maybe I can increase the font size a bit more as well now that our text is ready.
It is time to apply 3d effect to this one so we are going to select the text right click and go to format shape and this time we are going to work with text options. So let us go to text options here and click on the text effects. We always work with 3d rotation first before we go to 3d format so let us go to 3d rotation option. One of the presets that I am going to use and the perspective is this one called as perspective contrasting left. So click on it as soon as you do that you can see that there is a certain angle that is applied to this beautiful text.
Next I am going to make this Z rotation as 0 because it is slightly slanted which I don't really like so I'm going to take that as 0 and now we have a perfectly positioned text.
Now that we have got this in order the next step is to go to 3d format and apply some bevel and depth. The bevel that I am going to add to this one is this one called as the circle bevel. Now already you can see a beautiful effect applied to this text. Then I'm going to add some depth maybe something like say 25 would be just right. So now I have already got my beautiful 3d text. Maybe if I want I can increase the font size so you can clearly see this effect. Maybe I can reduce it slightly so it fits beautifully inside the text area inside the slide area.
If I want I can always apply some reflection like I go here and add some reflection and the text is perfectly ready. It is this easy to create 3d text in PowerPoint.
Now let us quickly go to the slide sorter view and review what we have learnt. The 3 things you learnt to create today are 3d ball,00 3d platform and 3d text. These three simple design elements have enormous amount of use. For example if I go here and if I have this one ready already then I can always change the text to something else likes a text and you will have the effect already shown here if you want to write your name you can always do that. Say in my case I'm going to say Ramgopal and my 3d text is already ready. So you've already got this in place. Now let us go to the 3d platform we just created and see how that can be used. Here we have the 3d platform and a beautiful 3d sphere on it. Now let us say I want to use this to talk about three steps in a process all you need to do is to hold my control button down as I move this to a new location and that creates a copy and I'm going to hold the ctrl button down and I move this to another location and I have another copy. Now I can write my text on top of this and I have my three factors diagram ready.
So the number of ways in which you can use the three simple things you learn today is enormous it is only limited by your creativity. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed learning these three simple 3d techniques in this video. So now go ahead and watch this video multiple times this time with PowerPoint open so you can follow my instructions every time I give you a new instruction you pause the video and try to replicate it in your own PowerPoint program.
Thanks a lot for watching the video and happy presenting