Microsoft Liquid Motion Animation San Jose CA

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Originally published at Internet.com

Microsoft's Liquid Motion offers an innovative way of developing animated images for use on the Web. Unlike the standard animated GIF images that you see almost everywhere you look on the Web these days, Liquid Motion uses Java to develop animated graphics. Liquid Motion animations will play in any Java-enabled browser that supports JavaScript, effectively limiting them to use on Internet Explorer 3.0 and Netscape Navigator 2.0 and later browsers.

Liquid Motion also offers advanced animation support for Internet Explorer 4.0. Features like 3-D shapes, DHTML filters and transitions, audio panning, and some image and audio formats will only play on IE 4.0 browsers, while the rest of the Liquid Motion animation will play on any Java-enabled browser. And while Microsoft touts Liquid Motion as a 'no plug-in needed' animation solution, any time you play a Liquid Motion animation in Netscape you will be presented with a dialog to download the optional Microsoft Liquid Motion advanced performance controls for better performance.

More than anything else, Liquid Motion excels in ease of use. An introductory tutorial will help you get started with the basic model underlying Liquid Motion - adding behaviors (motion, interactivity, etc.) to standard objects (images, text, etc.) and thereby creating animated content. Additional tutorials will then take you step-by-step through the process of creating instant animations.

A wide range of sample animations and templates are also available for helping you get a jumpstart on the action. More in-depth information is available in the form of User Guides, which cover both basic and advanced operations in detail. Finally, a 'How Do I?' help section acts as an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for helping novice users get past the initial learning curve associated with creating animations.

In addition to its extensive help documentation, Liquid Motion offers a number of features that add to its ease of use. For example, the client offers complete integration with FrontPage 98, allowing users of the Web site editor to automatically add Liquid Motion animations to FrontPage 98 Themes and existing Web sites. Liquid Motion also offers one-button publishing capabilities, in which a wizard takes you through the process of optimizing your animation and then automatically uploads it to your Web site.

While the registered release of Liquid Motion includes more than 2,000 clip art samples, the downloadable demo is a bit more limited in nature. 31 standard GIF images, 10 2-D shapes (Macromedia FreeHand files), 13 3-D shapes, 7 MIDI audio files, 5 AU audio files, and 5 WAV audio files (same clips as the AU files only encoded in the WAV format) are available for use in creating your own animations. While a bit limited in number, the demo's samples will give you a good idea of how useful the full version's clip art collection can be in helping you create animations.

Figure 1. Snapshot of the Liquid Motion Interface

Additional features in Liquid Motion include a Smart Timeline that gives users a visual timeline for when various objects will begin their animation routine and when they will finish, an Animation Recorder that records the movements of an object as you move it around the page, unlimited undo and redo capabilities, a Structure View that allows you to manage each object and any behaviors associated with it, and a trio of automatic animation features - AutoEffects, AutoMotions, and AutoTriggers.

AutoEffects give users one-click access to Web effects like smoke, bubbles, sparklers, and clouds for their animations. AutoMotions let users add actions like grow, shrink, jump, and spin to objects. The only downside to these motions is that they are limited to use on Internet Explorer 4.0. AutoTriggers are interactive controls that you can add to your animation objects to allow them to react to mouse movement. Available triggers include mouse avoid/mouse follow, mouse up/mouse down, mouse enter/mouse exit, mouse drag, and URL linking.

If it weren't for the auto-animation features, Liquid Motion would be tough to recommend, especially considering its $150 price tag. A high-quality animated GIF tool like the inexpensive GIF Animator from Ulead will allow you to create animated GIFs that in general download much faster on the 'net than comparable Liquid Motion animations. This is due to a number of factors, including Liquid Motion's reliance on Java for its animations (animated GIFs do not need Java classes to be pre-loaded in order to play on a Web site), better optimization capabilities in high-end animated GIF tools like GIF Animator, and the need for only a single image to be downloaded as opposed to a group of images and the animation settings for those images.

Another drawback to Liquid Motion is that when importing a standard graphic, the client only allows GIF and JPEG images to be imported. While this leaves out file formats like PNG (Portable Network Graphic), PSD (Photoshop), and TIFF, you can get around this limitation by dragging and dropping any type of image into Liquid Motion from another graphics app. Still, it's surprising to find these features lacking in a high-end design tool like Liquid Motion.

Despite the numerous advantages of animated GIF tools, if you have a highly complex animation or want to add sound or interactivity options to an existing animation, Liquid Motion is the best way to go. While VRML animations offer a number of similar features, users must first download a VRML plug-in in order to view them, and, like those of Liquid Motion, VRML animations tend to be quite large in terms of file size. While a perfect compromise between animated GIFs and VRML animations may not be available for quite some time, Microsoft Liquid Motion has taken the all-important initial step towards that elusive goal.

Pros: Feature-rich, trio of automatic animation tools, add sound & interaction to animations
Cons: Relatively expensive, requires Java-enabled browser, creates large