Looking for a couple of ideas...

Hi Brian,

You didn't say what kind of project you're working on, but you shoud take a look at Prezi.com 

It's free online, and it basically lets you draw a mind map on a huge canvas using images, text, and freehand drawings.  Once your mind map is done, you can set-up frames that will zoom in on different parts of the mind map, giving you that camera movement feeling you want to capture.  I even think you can publish Prezi to swf and insert it into presenter, though I haven't tried it yet.

Like I said, it definately has that moving camera feel.

ADM 

Hi Brian,

Here's a link to the Nancy Duarte slide effect that Gina was mentioning http://blog.duarte.com/2009/07/unique-storyboard-method-receipt-tape/

Unfortunately, the push transitions are not supported by Articulate.  You could try animating effects off the slides.

Linda

Hi Brian

Here is a quick example I threw together based on Gina and Linda's suggestions which might be of use for inspiration. There is a cool tool that I got from one of Tom's posts that showswhere in image will be at the end of a motion path, really useful for that creating that continuous effect. Also the animation painter in PPT 2010 helps keep the motion paths consistent .

Blair

I love this community!  Thank you for sharing all of these great ideas

@Gina and Linda - I love the flow of Nancy's presentation, thank you so much for sharing it.  I actually just put together a short proof of concept based on this approach and the steering committee loved it!  (woohoo!)

@ADM - I've got to check out presi, someone else has suggested that it would be good to use.  Thanks for the tip

@Blair - I totally forgot about Tom's motion path tool, and thanks for sharing the quick example.  I really like how smooth the flow is from slide to slide.  Definitely going to use that (thanks again!)

Neat ideas here! For the hand-drawn effect, it's pretty fun & easy to use your own sketched images with simple animations like fades & motion paths, and sync them to your narration. Here are two examples: https://player.vimeo.com/video/204871713 and https://player.vimeo.com/video/145574560

Those were done with just PowerPoint files, played as a slideshow while recording with Screenr.

The PowerPoint files are attached in case anyone can use them.

I had tried the same thing in presenter using motion paths and basic animations... A bit difficult for complex drawings.. but otherwise its a simple but nice idea...

Attached is the presentation... (pardon the cut hand..)

Nice effect, Sayuj! Thanks for sharing!

Definitely a greate idea. Always cool to see what is out there.

Jeanette - how did you create your graphics? Do you have a drawing pad for your computer?

Hi David - well that was a few years ago, and for those graphics I used a pretty scrappy approach:  a white piece of paper & Sharpie markers and than scanned the result & cropped as needed. Nowadays it's easy and quick to do it on an ipad though. I have an app called SketchBook that is really fun to use, and very intuitive. There is a free version and a pro version; the pro version is only five bucks.

Jeanette - I was going to say, you could see the pressure variances and other analog indicators in the marker streaks, so I was curious what hard/software you were using to achieve that effect. I guess the answer is "fiber and ink".     Great job! BTW, you're a good artist! :)

Your analog approach got me thinking...

Another approach to this could be using stop-motion photography: draw a little bit on the whiteboard, take a photo. Draw a little more, take a photo. Then import each photo onto it's own slide. You'd have to deal with the challenges of stop-motion photography (secure camera fixture, controlled lighting, etc.), but it's an "old-school" way to achieve the same effect.

So many awesome contributions. Thanks guys!

Natalia, agreed, I have been amazed at the responses and the creativity!

I feel silly asking this question. I downloaded the files you've all generously uploaded but how do you view them?

Hello Marty!  Most of the resources are in powerpoint format (pptx), but the resources that Jeanette uploaded were zipped, so you'll have to use a zip utility to unpack them before you can view them.  I used a really cool free utility called 7 zip to unzip them: http://www.7-zip.org/

hope this helps!

Thanks Brian. I guess my mind is still in park from the weekend. All the files are XML not pptx.

Marty, which version of ppt are you using currently?  If you're on an older version you may have to install an update to make the newer ppt files compatible

I'm using 2007. All I see are XML files. I'm confused.

Weird...  I'm not sure I've ever ran across that problem with pptx files, and can't find anything when I do a google search related to it.

Just tried downloading one of the files again and it still opens up as a pptx file for me with no issues.

It may be a long shot, but if you're in the office you may try downloading one of them after you get home, from a different computer or different network and see if you still have trouble?

Hey Marty - you're browser might be changing the extension when you save it. Try right-clicking the attachment on each post, choose Save As, and then once the file is saved, rename the extension accordingly (pptx or zip, depending on the format in which they were originally posted here). Let us know if that works for ya.

This is bizarre. Nothing I do works. I give up. I've not had this problem before. I just purchased some cutouts from elearningArts.com and downloaded and unzipped png files without any issues.

Hi Marty - I uploaded these to our amazon server; are you able to get at the files by using the following links instead of the attachments above?

Blair's Continuous Slide example

Sayuj's Drawing Animation example

Assets for PPTA screencast

Assets for Quizmaker branching screencast

@Linda - Cool tip on the receipt tape. I thought I was the only one building "story strips" I really like this method of laying out a linear sequence. 

You can actually build a powerpoint slide at a mondo-width:

"These strips represent sequences or themes for communicating concepts. Most folks don't know that you can make PowerPoint slides REALLY wide. I use square strip units and it's easy to update these if I run out. If I needed 15 strip transitions, I'd make the PPT slide width 15x as wide as the height. Under the design tab, click Page Setup.  The default height is 7.5 inches. I make this 3.75 inches so I can have a wider strip.  The max width is 56 inches in PPT 2007. I end up with a 15 unit wide strip. This is helpful when I want to represent a transitioned series of graphics and don't want to have to flip through pages. This is also great for really extensive flowcharts that you want to be able to represent vertically or horizontally when capturing process flows."

Once you get your strip built, you can easily group it up and paste into another tool as a single element. You could use multiple path animations to seamlessly shift from one context to the next in PPT. Or, if you want something that looks a little sexier - use Keynote's MagicMove and export as a movie.

Thank you very much Jeanette. These work!