I am creating a slide presentation where I would like part of the
background to occasionally "sparkle" or "twinkle" with stars that
subtly fade in and out -- not over programmed, but very subtle.  How
can I do this?  Individual animations can be created for single
slides, but what if I want it for the whole presentation?

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Request for Question Clarification by answerguru-ga on 27 Sep 2002 15:32 PDT

Hi prpro-ga,

On the individual slides, are you using a graphic that you've inserted
or are you using a specific animation feature in PowerPoint? If so,
could you please state what it is?

There are a couple of solutions that come to mind but I want to make
sure they apply to what you are trying to do.

answerguru-ga

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Clarification of Question by prpro-ga on 27 Sep 2002 16:15 PDT

I've tried both using an inserted graphic and trying use the animation
feature.  The animation feature in Powerpoint isn't adequate to get
the "twinkle" look I need. I'm open to anything that would look best
at this point.

PRPro --

Hello again!  Google Answers gets lots of questions about Powerpoint
(and other Microsoft software).

The task of animating the background in a Powerpoint master slide is
not difficult but can't be done with the limited power of Microsoft's
animation tools.  However, Powerpoint allows you to put an image in
the background of the "Master" slide -- and that gets us where we want
to go, if you use an animated GIF.  You could also use other video
files, but the animated GIF will be the most-compact and easiest to
create.

You're probably familiar with GIF (Graphics Information Files), as
they are the most-commonly used form for logos and simple
illustrations on the web.  An animated GIF allows you to put a series
of stills together and control:
* the amount of time for each still
* the number of times a loop can run (and you can set it to run
infinitely).

STEP 1:

To get your twinkle effect, you'll want to use GIF Animator software. 
I use the animation plug-in for Paint Shop Pro to create animations
and first learned to use animated GIFs with Ulead's software
(available for a trial period):
http://www.ulead.com/ga/runme.htm

In any case, a Google search yields dozens of references:
"GIF animation" + software

STEP 2: TWINKLE!

First, create your star field in a shape that matches your Powerpoint
slide.  In most cases, it's a landscape (horizontal image) with an
aspect ratio of about 17H x 24W.  I'd create a pixel map of about 680H
x 960W and put in as many stars as you like!

You'll probably want to start with a full field of stars, then get
your twinkle effect by creating a 2nd image which moves (or deletes) a
few stars.  Create a series of 5 (or so) star fields, being careful to
name them sequentially  -- star1.gif, star2.gif, star3.gif, etc.  Be
careful with your selection of background color, as this will be your
background on every PPT slide.

Next, create an animated GIF by connecting these 5 images with the
animation software.

STEP 3: Putting the animated GIF into Powerpoint

1.   When you open Powerpoint, go to View/Master Slide
2.	Now you'll go to: Insert/Picture/From File and you'll put your
animated background into the slide.
3.	Size it to fill out the slide.
4.	Right click on the mouse and select Order/Send to Back.

Voila!

Remember that you've been editing the master slide.  Save it as a
template or blank presentation.  Then go to town with the full
presentation.

Some disclaimers here:
*  I'm using Powerpoint 2000 and it's possible that some newer
features have emerged of which I'm not aware (but animated GIFs work!)
*  I have no financial stake in the two pieces of software companies
mentioned above.

Let us know if this process is clear enough.  And thanks for using
Google Answers again!

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 28 Sep 2002 09:12 PDT

PRPro --

It could be worse -- you could be using AVI files in the background!

The best way to minimize it would be to use repeated images in your
animated GIF, something like this:
star1.gif
star2.gif
star3.gif
star2.gif
star1.gif

Unfortunately any time you're inserting images into Powerpoint the
files get big very fast.  And conversion to other formats can make
then unbelievably big: I recently made a demo file for a Google
Answers customer that was 300K, but when I converted it to Powerpoint
97 it went to 2.1M!

Another suggestion: keep your background slide in a template.  Create
your new presentation in a PPT file with no background.  Insert new
presentation onto the template at the last minute.  Yeah, it's a kluge
but it would save storage space over time.

Thanks for the great rating too!

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Excellent detailed answer, omnivorous!  This is exactly what I needed,
plus gives me some ideas on how I can vary the slides by creating
slightly different animated GIFs (2-3) to vary the presentation a bit.
 However -- just a final question -- won't this make the presentation
a major memory hog and -- if so -- any tips on how to diminish that?