An overview of how to create basic animations

There are different ways to create an animation--for example, you can start with existing art or import Illustrator layers as artwork, attach scripts, create rollovers, and work with movie clip groups. In general, however, creating an animation usually involves a number of these basic steps:

• Open the Composition window, and choose a size and frame rate for the animation. (See Working with compositions.)
• Open the Timeline window. (See Using the Timeline window.)
• If your composition needs to be a specific duration, drag the composition timeline's end handle to the desired length. If you don't know how long your composition will be, skip this step, and the composition's length will automatically adjust to accommodate all objects within it. For more information, see Setting the composition's duration.

Note: If you don't know how long the duration of an object needs to be, don't set the end handle. LiveMotion will automatically make the object's duration as long as the composition's duration.

• Move the current-time marker to where you want the object to begin in the animation (often 0 seconds). For information on the current-time marker, see Using the Timeline window.
• In the Composition window, create or add the object you want to animate.
• Move the current-time marker to the point from which you want to begin animating a change in the object.
• Expand the object's property that you want to animate and click the stopwatch to set an initial keyframe for that property. (See Animating object and layer properties.)
• Move the current-time marker to the point at which you want to specify what the property is changing to, then change that property. (See Creating keyframes.)
• In the Composition window, add any further objects, and make any additional changes.
• Preview the file within LiveMotion or on a Web browser. (See Playing animations and Previewing compositions.)
• Save the file. (See Saving compositions.)
• Export the file in Macromedia Flash (SWF), Animated GIF, or QuickTime Video format. (See About export formats.)