Microsoft Liquid Motion Develop Animated Images for the Web Forrest Stroud
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.
