Users of Illustrator and Photoshop will find the LiveMotion interface instantly familiar, because it shares the look and feel of those other Adobe products. Tabbed palettes provide quick access to a variety of attributes, such as opacity and 3D effects, and you'll find a new Timeline palette for adding and editing the animations.
Documents in LiveMotion are composed of objects, such as geometric objects, text, or images. You create these objects by using the software's drawing tools, by importing them, or by dragging one from the well-stocked Library palette. An object's appearance and actions, such as sounds, textures, animation behaviours, and colour, are then applied as attributes. Of course, the software supplies a library of predesigned effects that can be added to individual objects.
One of LiveMotion's coolest features is the way it handles animated text. You can break words apart into individual letters and animate them separately without losing the ability to edit the text or add new effects to it. Another nice feature is the ability to link rollovers to an object state, which lets you simultaneously apply the same effect to several objects. And although LiveMotion is vector-based like CorelDraw and Illustrator, you can still take advantage of Photoshop filters.
LiveMotion is well-matched against Fireworks, although for an ERP of AU$665, the product is quite pricey (and about AU$200 more than the Macromedia product). Nevertheless, Web designers may find that the program's features and ease of use are worth the extra expense.
Adobe LiveMotion 1.0
Company: Adobe
Ph: 02 9778 4100; Fax: 1300 550 405
Price: ERP AU$665.
Rating: 4 Star
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