molly.com
Monday 31 May 2004
revisiting adobe livemotion
In a response to my recent adobe upgrade policy unacceptable post, designer Patrick Lauke,
who is the designer of one of my most favorite CSS Zen Garden designs, “Door To My Garden” expressed these thoughts:
“i was particularly annoyed about them dropping livemotion. i absolutely despise the user interface of macromedia flash . . . the whole workflow of [Adobe] livemotion seemed a lot more intuitive to me.”
Whoa. Heavy words, Patrick, but I’ll ride with this. I personally view Flash as a formidable and important specialty within web design and development. I do, however, completely agree that Flash has always had interface problems. It’s just not that intuitive. So the learning curve is high, and it takes a special kind of thinking to master it. Adobe LiveMotion always appealed to me because it was extremely intuitive.
“very annoying. for better or worse, i’m now stuck with using macromedia’s tool of the devil, and hating every mind-numbing UI decision along the way.”
I liked LiveMotion. I thought it had legs. Tool of the devil? That’s a bit dramatic, but I have always been disappointed that Adobe didn’t try harder. I know that LiveMotion had many strong evangelists early on, but the software just seemed to get lost after that.
Got an opinion on LiveMotion and Flash? Be a Flash in my comment pan below. You never know what you might illuminate.
Filed under: software
Posted by: site admin | 6:26 am |
May 31st, 2004 at 8:03 am
I never used LiveMotion, so I can’t judge what it feels like.
I do know, however, what other Adobe products like PhotoShop, Illustrator, etc. feel like. I learned (myself) how to use these tools when I was only 15 or 16 years old. How was that possible? Indeed, because it’s so intuitive. It has “trial and error” written all over it (you just want to try it all out–at least, that’s how it works for me), and you don’t even have to make that many errors along the way to master these programs.
I also do know what Macromedia products like Authorware, Director, and Flash feel like. Triggered by interesting results I saw from others, I also tried to master these; but found an interface that was nowhere near as inviting, and thus gave up on it. I then studied information technology where one of these programs (Authorware) was part of the subject matter; I learned a great deal, but it took a lot of effort.
Looking at the works I’m most proud of, I see both things that were created with Adobe as things that were created with Macromedia products (and combinations). They both alow me to express myself by letting my creativity do whatever it wants. The difference is: while conceiving these results, Adobe felt “at home,” whereas Macromedia did not.
May 31st, 2004 at 8:41 am
I used to have all that stuff hanging off my browser. It looked like some lame customized old Caddy. You know the model - a mountain of chrome, sitting in the broken down lane. Of course I’m speaking of IE and it just slurpped up all thoes dodads. But none of it - Flash, Real, QT - none of it worked all that well. And, even with a good DSL line, t h i n g s j u s t c r a w l e d…
Now, I have Opera and Moz. Everything moves quickly. The sites that interest me have content not gimmicks. And I find the overall web experience much more enjoyable.
June 1st, 2004 at 1:23 am
Apple’s Motion does look easier to use than Flash and if anyone can make a friendlier media tool, it’ll be Apple. If it weren’t for their close relationship with Adobe, they would have made a competing app to Photoshop years ago and probably trounced them.
I’ve used LiveMotion and Flash. LM was great for quick and dirty things, but like PageMill, it was one of those apps you could tell was doomed from the start. Adobe never quite “got” the Web or how to write apps for it. They excel in print and quite honestly should stay there.
June 1st, 2004 at 7:37 am
I think it depends heavily on which interface you learn first. I learned web development on Fireworks and Dreamweaver. So, switching over to Photoshop, I’ve felt limited…even in PS7. I’ve found it a harder interface to learn. Certainly most designers learn PS and AI first and, therefore, using other Adobe products becomes easier as a result.
June 1st, 2004 at 9:14 am
LiveMotion didn’t stand a chance because they couldn’t keep up with ActionScript. In term of motion graphics, LiveMotion probably was a better choice. However, Apple’s Motion looks quite promising. I am hoping it will replace Flash in term of motion graphics and animation. Check out the tour below, if you’re interested. It looks quite good.
http://www.apple.com/motion/
June 2nd, 2004 at 2:22 am
At the risk of sounding like an obsessed fan-boy..”Flash in my comment pan”?! HAHA! *wipes tears from eyes*
I’ve never used Livemotion, so am not fit to comment, but I HAVE used Flash before; I personally found it rather easy to pick up.. perhaps I don’t know what I’m missing? *hides*
June 2nd, 2004 at 4:52 am
“LiveMotion didn’t stand a chance because they couldn’t keep up with ActionScript.”
if i remember correctly, this was mainly due to macromedia’s rather leisurely release of the full flash specifications, which effectively would have condemned LM to always be one version number behind MM flash in terms of supported features.
(in the same vein, i seem to recall Apple’s similar reluctance to publish full details of its firewire/DV implementation in OS X is what slowed adobe’s conversion of premiere, guaranteeing Final Cut Pro’s “first to market” advantage…but that’s another bonfire to pour napalm on)
anyway, yes Molly, i did use strong words in my comment…mostly tongue in cheek, but they’re certainly on something that truly nags me deep down.
July 11th, 2004 at 1:32 pm
Adobe needs to take advantage of APPLE TECHNOLOGIES, like Core-image/video, and Core-audio or Apple will. Apple just can’t sit back and let Adobe ruin the mac-plateform by bad ports(premiere 6.5) and also making pc-only-wares,,,audition, encore, etc. Avid did the samething(dropping mac support)and editing up getting de-railed by Apple’s Final Cut Pro and firewire(dv). Apple has already shown its ability to make ground breaking app’s like Motion using Cocoa and Core-image/Core-video(Motion uses 32-bit float internal processing for filters, put that in your pipe Adobe). Motion’s ability to play back HD in realtime is breath-taking ADOBE! Adobe, if you won’t APPLE will!!
February 26th, 2005 at 3:42 am
Another very insightful post - thanks!
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:23 pm
great posts! Thankyou very much
September 13th, 2007 at 12:56 am
This article is very interesting and written by some clever guy.:) Thank you!
January 29th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
thanx
February 5th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I taught myself how to use adobe premiere, encore and photoshop because Adobe stick to a clever, yet similar user interface for each of their packages and they are easy to learn once you’ve learned one.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Livemotion is overly complicated and it’s not fun to use, Adobe on the other hand always seem to have fun user interface.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
What is Cocoa and Core-image ?
May 1st, 2008 at 7:37 am
it is easy to find it on google