NEWS • OCTOBER 23 , 2000
Adobe Updates LiveMotion
New version enhances performance, gets added export functionality

by David Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com

Adobe has posted a free update to LiveMotion on its site for register users. LiveMotion is Adobe's tool for creating Flash animations for the Web, as well as supporting a number of other formats, including JPEG and SVG. The updated version, 1.02, includes several enhancements, though these do not include the ability to import QuickTime movies or MP3s.

New audio features include several bug fixes for exporting files to the SWF format, including volume and pan keyframes, loops and accurate truncation for audio files that start before the lifetime of the group they are in.

Performance updates include:

• Faster performance when working with objects that have been grouped multiple times.
• Increased performance when working with a large number of objects in the Composition.
• LiveMotion remains stable when cutting or copying objects that are positioned off the Composition workspace.
• You can now add a Go To Label or Change State behavior to a Time Independent Group within another Time Independent Group.
• LiveMotion remains stable when opening a large LiveMotion document that was created by another copy of LiveMotion on a Macintosh with a larger memory allocation.
• LiveMotion remains stable after opening the Adobe On Line dialog box and switching from another application back to LiveMotion.
• Illustrator files and simple EPS files are now also editable with the LiveMotion Pen tool when placed in a LiveMotion composition through Copy and Paste and/or Drag and Drop.

Exporting has also received some bug fixes and feature enhancements. These include exporting files that contain multi-layered Illustrator files. Other enhancements include:

• A multi-layered object that has its top layer turned off will export to the SWF file format without the top layer being visible in the exported file.
• Looping Time Independent Groups that are one frame in duration will now export to the SWF file format correctly.
• The hit area of a rollover for single layer geometric objects that export as a vector is now the actual shape of the object instead of the rectangular bounding box of the object.

Edit Original and Import updates include:

• When using the Edit Original command, LiveMotion now correctly handles imported Photoshop files that contain layers with a Photoshop filter applied to them.
• LiveMotion now supports the ability to apply the Convert Layers Into command on multiple files simultaneously so that the files remain independent of each other when the Edit Original command is used on any of the resulting objects.
• LiveMotion will now correctly convert an imported multi-layered file that contains an empty layer to a sequence using the Convert Layers Into Sequence command.

Timeline updates include:

• Labels in the Timeline remain visible when the Current Time Marker passes over them.
• Time Independent Groups will now loop the defined number of iterations that have been dragged out in the Timeline.
• Creating an object while editing a Time Independent Group will now add the object to the Time Independent Group level instead of the Composition level.

Adobe LiveMotion is available for $299. The free update requires a registered version of LiveMotion 1.0. To read our review of version 1.0, click here. You can also visit our LiveMotion user forum here. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com.

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