Combining elements of styles...

[Lin Evans]

I had the question asked about how one could possible "combine" elements of a style into a single slide. When a style is applied to an image and then that image which has the style applied is selected and yet another style applied the original style is replaced with the new one.

In most cases this is perfectly logical and exactly what "should" happen because otherwise very strange results might happen. But in the case of an effect such as snow or rain, one might wish to achieve the combination of having elements of different types applied to a single slide. Can this be done, and if so, how?

Yes, this can be achieved. The way I do it is to first add the same slide to the show twice. Apply the first style to the first slide then apply the second style to the second slide. Select the second slide and go to Objects and Animations and select everything in the objects list then copy this to the clipboard. Now remove (delete) the second slide and go to the objects list on the first slide and "paste" the content of the clipboard under or over the content from the first slide.

Next select the "image" in the top layer and change the opacity as desired. The "snow" or "rain" effects will be combined on the screen in equal amounts and changing the opacity of the main image will essentially only affect the amount of the effect contributed by the lower image. The main image will not be affected because the images are identical on both layers but the contribution of everything else from the lower image will change with the opacity of the main image.

I will create a small tutorial demonstrating this.... The tutorial (50 meg zipped video) is linked below:

http://www.lin-evans.org/snow/combiningsnowstyles.zip

Best regards,

Lin