Simple shape morphing in Keynote...?

Colin,

I'm not quite sure how smooth you need to be, but I was able to cobble together a 4 slide progression that showed areas of Europe changing over time in about 10 minutes.

I used Keynote. On the first slide I placed a general map and then using the Shapres > Free Draw Tool I drew the first area. I then cloned the slide (Option Drag) in the Slide Navigator and then edited the free form shape to expand it over a greater area and change its color slightly.

I repeated this two more times then selected all slides in the Slide Navigator and gave them a Dissolve Transition of about 2.0 seconds and played it. The effect is quite smooth - the background map stays in position and the shapes grow to fill the new areas (and change colors). I used a graduated fill in the shapes with about 50% opacity using the Graphic Inspector.

Here are some caveats & tips: any good work takes time - so plan for it; the shapes can be easily re-edited quickly if you assign a keyboard shortcut for the Shapes > "Make Editable" option; positioning control points on your shape can be tricky - I found using the arrow keys does a great job in moving points small distances without frustration; if you inadvertantly move something you didn't want moved, immediately Undo, don't wait until later to fix it. Adding Control Points is done using the Option Click while editing.

Try It - if you would like to see what I created, contact me by clicking on tmy name above.

Good Luck

Colin,

Sorrry this didn't help. I found slowing the transitions between slides did a fine job in growing the shapes. I guess I don't understand what you are looking for... I was able to create all this in abouot 10 minutes. I wasn't going for accuaracy, just proof of concept (and the whole thing is obviously fiction), so research and due diligence would add some time, but in days past, I would have given a first born or two for the ease to do just this.

Good Luck in your quest.... let us know when you find that magic bullet.

I'm using KN '09 5.1.1 (same build) but on OS X 10.6.8 on iMac 3.06 Ghz intel Core 2 Duo w/ 4 GB Ram - call me old fashioned, but I still have a place in my heart for older but still useful applications that have been paid for - the loss of Rosetta was a deal breaker to upgrade to Lion - that and the odd stories about files that do even odder things since Lion showed up.

I believe there is a difference between an image masked by a shape and a shape filled with color or an image. I believe the actual photo image behind the mask is what causes the whole object to move smoothly from point A to B (look at photos doing smooth MM even with rough edge frames, etc) which doesn't happen with the latter case. But you are right, it doesn't take much tweaking before the whole things reverts back to jumpy behavior. That is sad, but true.

My first proof of concept - creating a free-form shape and on the next slide editing the shape and using an extended dissolve still gives a pretty good illusion of a shape morphing, I think. It is certainly enough for me. And isn't the whole thing about getting the point across that people/states/societies/tribes/what-have-you moved from area 1 to area 2 and not so much that the transition is absolutely liquid?

I have had success moving photos (screenshots with instant alpha to rid the background) of shapes and have been able to squeeze/stretch and rotate/reposition these on the second slide with very smooth movement. The stickier one is the free-handed shape mask - that will move smoothly if not edited on second slide - and can be squeezed/stretched like others. Here are aome shots of what I did - the first shows the first slide - the upper arrow is an image of an arrow, the lower arrow is an masked arrow and blob on one image. The second shot is the second slide - note the lower arrow I moved the blob into view inside the mask (in both cases the mask was simple rectangle). This moved very smoothly. Thesre was also a dotted curved line that was done similarly that moved with all this. All very smooth MM style.

Colin,

Last nighht I gave your problem some additional thought and had a minor apostrophe... Shapes, per se do not move smoothly with Magic Move, but photos do. Odd but true. So...

I created a blank slide with a plain, one color background and then I placed various shapes i needed on it (arrows, dotted curvy lines, hand drawn shapes with gradient fills, etc.) and then took screen shots of the individual shapes. (Shift-Cmd-4, drag across the area needed, let go and there is your shot on your desktop waiting for you)

Then I placed the images on the starting slide and used Instant Alpha to remove the background, adjusted their masks and placed them in starting positions.

Then I cloned the slide with all the shape images on it and moved and resized the shape-images on the second slide - moved and grew arrow sizes, stretched shapes where I could, etc.

I set the transition of the first slide to Magic Move and the shapes (actually images now) moved very smoothly from Point A Siza A to Point B Size B Rotation B. The tricky part is loading up on shapes on slide 1 before cloning to slide 2, etc.

It is by no means perfect, but it will give you another tool in your kit for making things move and change on command. Any cheat in a storm is worth having.

The downside is that the shapes are now images of shapes and can't be edited as I did in the earlier demonstration. It is odd indeed that with all the horsepower of modern Macs that smooth rendering of photos works but simple vector shapes don't.

Anyway, try this and see if it doesn't help. Good Luck.

A Post Script: You can get interesting transitions by including images of more than one shape that have only one shape visible in the mask and then move the image within the mask on the second slide so that another shape or part of the image is visible.

Importatnt: to keep the magic move transition smooth, don't change the size of the mask from what it was on slide 1, just move a different part of the image into view. If you change the mask size, you get a jumpy transition - not what you want.

You've set some pretty high goals. I think I can understand what you want, but as a proverbial guiding star, you can guide on it but you can't touch it.

I also found limited success in one other trick - taking a screen shot of a patch of color (gradient? didn't try but worth checking) then imposing a free-style shape on top, select both the shape and the image and Mask to The Shape.

What you get is a shape of color that will Magic Move and if you are careful, you can edit the shape on the second slide (double click on the shape-mask and the edit points should become visible) and have a fairly smooth transformation of the shapes boundaries as a result. Also worth a try.

Good Luck

Colin,

I have had similar problems to solve for transparent overlays for/with

Keynote and iMovie and found an elegant and flexible solution by using

Seashore and MorphX.

In Seashore you are able to draw very quickly transparent contours (with disjunct pieces, holes,

and tunable gradients) over maps as background and export such contours as .png files;

Using a (pressure sensitive) pen tablet (like Wacom) is also supported and very attractive;

In MorphX you can morph those countours into each other with very intuitive handles in

any way you like, and export to small transparent (Animation format) QT movies.

Those movies work directly as stackable overlays in Keynote, but are also composable

in iMovie over any background movie via the Picture in Picture facility.

The result is keeping the advantages of Keynote but avoiding its clumsiness for what

you want to obtain.