by Don Herion

3.5/5 Geeks

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Can 'Live Motion' give 'Flash' a run for its money? This was probably the first question designers asked after Adobe announced and then released their web-animation program. To be honest, it was also the first question I asked. When I finally received my copy of 'Live Motion' I set about finding the answer.

A New Player in Town
Upon starting the program the first thing that becomes obvious is the interface. For a moment I thought I had started Photoshop by accident. As you can see from the screenshot it closely resembles the interface of Photoshop and Illustrator. This greatly reduced my learning curve and my anxiety. Learning a new interface is often a frustrating experience. You have a single 'tool palette' on the left and 5 'editing palettes' on the right. These palettes can be stacked in any number of ways just like in Photoshop. After spending a few minutes checking them out I felt right at home.

Creating Objects
Like 'Flash' you can create objects using the 'tools palette.' Although lacking the more powerful features of its cousin, 'Illustrator' 'Live Motion' comes equipped with a 'bezier pen tool' and a 'pen selection tool' to build and edit complex vector shapes. You can also create vector shapes using the 'rectangle,' 'ellipse,' 'rounded rectangle,' and 'polygon' tools. These shapes can be edited more precisely using the 'Transform' and 'Properties' palette. Once your basic shapes are created you can 'Combine' them in a number of unique ways.

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Bitmap images can also be imported into 'Live Motion' using the 'Place' Command. This includes native Photoshop (.psd) and Illustrator files (.ai) with all layers and effects intact. Again, a huge plus. If you have a 'twain' compatible scanner you can bring in images that way. Unfortunately you cannot import Macromedia 'Flash' symbols, native Flash (.fla) or Shockwave files. You also cannot import 'Quicktime,' or other video formats. On the plus side you can import audio files, including .wav, .au and .mp3.

Animating Objects
Borrowing from Adobe 'After Effects,' 'Live Motion' uses an 'object-based timeline' to create animations. Unlike Flash which utilizes layer-based animation, object based animation is simply that, animating each object's (text, image, graphic, etc.) position, color, opacity, and shape separately over the length of the animation. You can even apply non-destructive Photoshop type filters to images.

Creating an animation is as simple as picking an object, create an initial 'keyframe,' shift the 'current-time' marker to an appropriate frame and then edit the objects attributes (i.e. position). The moment you do this a second 'keyframe' is created. Now press play and watch the object move. Shift an object's 'keyframe' to edit the speed. That's it. What can possibly be simpler? Unlike Flash you cannot assign an object to a path. Nor are there ease in/out sliders. Hopefully this will be rectified in future releases.

Live Motion Time Line