Make an object orbit around another...

[Pat]

I want to make a single object (a rectangle, circle, whatever) appear
to orbit around another. By orbit I mean that 1/2 the time it is in
front of another object, and the other 1/2 of the time it is behind.

I've done this in flash by creating 2 animations, one for the front
and one for the back. I adjust the layering of them so that the "rear"
is at the back, the stationary object is in the middle, and the 1/2 of
the orbit toward the user is on top.

Problem is, I can't get any of the animation settings to allow there
to be only one of the 2 animations in view at one time. In other
words, look liek there is one object orbiting another, by means of
delays and repeat until next slide.

Have any of you been able to accomplish this? I have no fear of VBA,
if that is what it would take.

TIA!

 

[Cosmo]

I did a few quick tests, and what I came up with was I set the orbiting shape
to follow a circular motion path, set to repeat until end of slide. Plus. I
added a grow/shrink effect to run with the motion path (to make it get
smaller when it goes 'behind' the other shape). Make sure the circular path
is large enough so that the shape does not overlap on the upper and lower
points of the path.

Then, I took the shape that it was orbiting, sent it to the back, and made a
copy of it in front of the other shape. I cropped/reduced the height of the
shape so that it only covered the bottom half of the circular orbit.

 

[Pat]

Cosmo,

Thanks for writing. I really hate the fact that you can't crop Shapes.
To simulate real cropping, I was forced to adjust transparency to a
hard line in the middle. I thought it easier to do one orbiting shape
and 2 stationary shapes. This way, if you change the orbiting objecct
in any way, it is only 1 object to change.

I put the result (36Kb) here: http://atcp.us/random/ppt/OrbitPresentation.pptx

If this is the only way to do this, then ugh... Pictures do crop in
PPT.

Thanks!

pat