Back in 1993, I went to Las Vegas to help work an NAB multimedia trade show booth that
WilTel was co-sponsoring with Silicon Graphics. I was bowled over by all of the super
slick special effects around me. This was just when rendered graphics were becoming hot
and virtual reality was just becoming real.
One of the booths I visited was CrystalGraphics who was known as the preeminent leader
in professional 3D videographics for broadcast television and corporate video
presentations. They had a hot product at the time called Crystal TOPAS Professional. The
guy working the booth demonstrated working 3D models of slot machines (remember, it was
Vegas), and many other incredible, mind-blowing graphics. They were masters of creating
flying logos (3D words that soared across the screen like the titles on TV or in the
movies). I was blown away.
Of course, mere mortals like myself aren't going to be able to do a lot with Crystal
TOPAS Professional or any of the other wonderful rendering products because I am NOT an
artist. I can fake my way through anything, but I a man's got to know his limitations, and
mine is art.
Over the past few years, though, CrystalGraphics has created a library of graphics
called PowerPlugs
for Microsoft PowerPoint, that anyone can use to create professionally rendered graphics
in minutes. In fact, even if you can't draw a straight line, you can create something that
will look polished within minutes. It's that simple.
The current PowerPlugs library consists of 9 CDs including Charts, Transitions I and
II, PhotoActive I and II, SuperShapes I and II, and the new Backgrounds I and II. You can
purchase them individually or as a collection (recommended).
Now you will need a machine with a certain amount of horsepower to it: Windows
95/98/2000, 50 MB free space (or more per plug-in module), and PowerPoint 97/2000 are the
prerequisites. Our evaluation system was a Gateway 450 with 256 MB of fast RAM. The
products installed quickly, but they are still very memory intensive, so the more RAM the
merrier you will be. We experienced a few puzzling questions during install: a few of the
CDs in their library detected "other versions" of files from other PowerPlug CDs,
and this seemed to confuse the installation routine. We responded "Yes" to
overwrite any existing files and everything else went swimmingly.
As named, PowerPlugs
are plug-ins for PowerPoint, so you can invoke them and use them all within PowerPoint.
Now this creates somewhat of a problem if you do not have a lot of RAM and you have
several other memory-intensive applications open simultaneously. Throw in the memory leaks
which have plagued Microsoft Office through its evolution, and you have a slow system.
Thus our warning to load up on RAM and close down all unnecessary applications. Don't
worry: the results are worth it.
Once you invoke any of these plug-in modules, you have access to the full graphical
power of the toolset. You can preview your creations as you go and add 3D charts, photo
effects, animated transitions, or other unusual and attention-grabbing special effects. In
short, your final presentation is limited only to your imagination.
One thing I rather liked is the ability to run these modules stand-alone, outside of
Powerpoint. Sometimes you just need a quick graphical treatment of a chart, and don't want
to have PowerPoint open, too. No problem. Just invoke the Chart module and away you go,
same functionality and preview abilities. Very slick.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words in this case, I want you to go visit their
site right now by clicking here, and
download their demos and peruse their online gallery. To recreate these types of effects,
you would need to spend a fortune on outsourced graphics and artists or spend a helluva
long time trying to master a myriad of tools. Why bother? Buy the whole collection. The
solution to your graphical challenges is crystal clear: PowerPlugs.
