An Entry effect is an effect which plays when the object starts showing such as slide in, fade in, zoom in, etc. While an Exit effect is an effect which plays when the object starts disappearing at the end of its duration.
To edit an object effect settings, simply click on the object in the preview window or in the timeline, then click on the Effect tab at the Selected object properties tab.
Click on the effect combo on either Entry (top section) or Exit (bottom section) section to choose an effect. You will notice in the popup menu that effects are grouped into three categories:
| • | General effects: This effects can be applied to any object such as text, image, video, clipart, etc. Effects in this group are: Expand, Dissolve, Fade, etc. |
| • | Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects: This effect can be applied to any object. |
| • | Text effects: This effect can only be applied to a text object. Callout is not considered a text object. Text effect animates each individual text character. |
Each text group has a different control settings.
Now lets try choosing Fade effect for an Entry effect and a Fly - To Bottom effect for an Exit effect. If the object is set to Hide at start (continuing from previous tutorial), please set it back to Show after by clicking on Hide at start combo. If the object is set to Show forever (continuing from previous tutorial), please set it back to Hide after by clicking on Show forever combo.
You will notice that a triangle representing the entry and exit effect duration appears at the start and end of the object bar in the Timeline.
You can adjust the Entry/Exit effect duration by dragging the start/the end of the triangle. Notice that the effect duration in the Effect tab also changes with it.
To adjust the object duration without changing the Exit effect duration, simply drag the left side of the Exit effect triangle. This will only adjust the object duration (the duration after the Entry effect finishes to the start of the Exit effect). You can also adjust the object show time without changing the Entry effect duration by dragging the right side of the Entry effect triangle. See the picture below to see the exact location to drag.
Text Effects
Text effects only available for a Text object. Text effect works a little bit different. As text effect works on each individual text character, you cannot manually change the Entry/Exit duration by dragging in Timeline. The only way to adjust it is by changing the effect Speed. To try, select a Text Spiral effect for Entry effect and Text Flip effect for Exit effect.
You will notice that you cannot drag the start of the Entry and the end of the Exit effect anymore. The duration text box for both Entry and Exit effects are now disabled. They are showing the correct duration but will not allow you to modify them. You should also notice there are several more controls showing in the Effect tab. The effect duration is calculated automatically by taking into account Cascade Delay, Speed and the number of character in the text object. Changing any of these will change the effect duration. This is done in purpose so that the you can control the effect speed and also changing the text content without effecting the effect speed.
Cascade Delay is a delay which is introduce between character. Eg: Cascade Delay of 0.1 sec means the second character will start animation 0.1 sec after the first character and so on.
Speed is a number between 0-100 with 100 to be the fastest.
Try playing the movie with several different Cascade Delay and Speed to see how they effect the animation.
More about this settings will be discussed in the User Interface - Effect Tab section.
Pan/Zoom/Rotate Effects
Pan/Zoom/Rotate effects allows you move the object by specifying the pan/zoom/rotation factor. This is very useful if u want a complete control over where and how much an object should move/zoom/rotate.