Overview

Alight Motion 3 is our biggest update yet, including a major revamp of the user interface. This means there are a lot of new features and improvements, but also that some exist features have moved to new places. Be sure to read on learn where to find everything!

What's New?

Home Screen

We've updated the home screen with a cleaner look and some fine tuning: The tabs have been moved to the bottom, for easier access when holding your phone. The sign-in option is now directly available at the top-right of the screen (instead of in the side menu). The add button is now in the middle instead of floating on top of the project list.

Tutorials

The new Tutorials tab on the home screen is a great resource to learn how to use Alight Motion. Be sure to check out the tips section, and scroll down to the bottom for sample projects you can download.

Creating a Project

The interface for creating a new project has been updated. You can now choose between creating a Project or creating a reusable Element right here.

We've also added a new preset for making 4:5 videos, for producing vertical video that can appear un-cropped in a Facebook or Instagram feed.

Side Menu

The side menu has been updated so that you can access app settings here directly. This is also where you can find Project Sorting options and (as usual) access the about screen. (Note: to access the My Account screen, tap the account icon at the top right of the home screen; it's not in the side menu any more).

Note: A few settings have been removed because they don't apply to the new user interface design, such as the desaturated color theme (the new design uses mainly uses colors that are already more subtle and less saturated).

Add Layer

The Add Layer menu has been reorganized. Not only is it much more spacious, we've also separated the visual (Image and Video) browser from the audio browser. The four buttons along the top (Shape, Image & Video, Audio, Elements) now behave as tabs, while the buttons on the right side can be used to immediately add a layer of the appropriate type.

Menu Reorganization

Previous version of Alight Motion had a lot of ••• overflow menus, and it was often confusing where to find the options you were looking for. These menus have been reorganized now to make it clearer.

Copy, Paste, and Duplicate have been moved to a new menu just above the timeline. This menu is available all the time in the same place, whether you have a single layer selected, multiple layers select, or nothing selected.

Layer Options are in the same place as usual, the top-right of the screen after selecting a layer. The icon has changed to distinguish this from other overflow menus.

Other Overflow Options are now in a ••• menu attached directly to the area they affect (instead of at the top of the screen). For example, the options related to Move & Transform are now in the overflow menu attached to the Move & Transform panel

Mini Color Picker

A new mini color picker has been added, so that you can adjust the color while seeing the results on the screen at the same time. Note that we are trying out two different designs, so the mini picker on Android and iPhone are a little bit different. Let us know which one you like better (we're leaning towards the Android design with the ring now!) and we'll update both platforms to match in a future version.

Palette Editing Changes

We're trying out some changes to the full-screen palette editor, so you can rearrange entire rows of colors at once. This is only available on iPhone/iPad for now, but once we've finished fine-tuning it, we will make it available on Android as well.

Edit Points Changes

When editing a vector drawing in Edit Points mode, you can now use a lasso gesture to select multiple points to move at once.

When you have selected a curve handle there are now two new buttons that appear on the left side of the panel. These allow you to lock the angle or distance of the two curve handles (they toggle on and off). Note that these only appear when you have selected a curve handle (not a main control point) and only if the point has two curve handles (not just one).

When using the Open Curve button, it now opens the curve at the point you have selected (use the outline scroller at the size to scroll between points first) rather than randomly at the first point drawn (which is what happened in previous versions).

When using the control pad to drag a point in Edit Points, it will now snap to the nearest point of other layers too (not just the selected layer). To avoid too much snapping when you have a lot of layers, only the closest point when you start the swipe gesture will be snapped to (so use one gesture to get close, then a second swipe gesture to precisely match the other layer's point).

Multi-Select Changes

When you select multiple layers at once, the options have changed. There are now quick buttons to access the different kinds of grouping, and split and time adjustment options appear on the bottom of the screen. Tap the arrow at the upper-right to access a full menu of alignment options.

Easing Curve Changes

The easing curve user interface now has buttons at the bottom to quickly jump to the next or previous pair of keyframes. (Don't worry, we've heard you—additional easing types are in the works!)

Group Editing

When editing a group, you can now see the hierarchy of groups above it, back to the main project, at the top of the screen. Tap any one to quickly jump to that level.

Border Editing

Border editing has been improved to better show an overview of the borders attached to a layer.

New and Improved Effects (from Alight Motion 3.1 only)

Three new effects have been added: Color Temperature, 360º Rotate Sphere, and Four-color Gradient.

We've also improved the Polar Coordinates effect, adding several new parameters and improving the quality.

Here's just one example of what you can do with the updated Polar Coordinates effect (here, combined with Turbulent Displace and Hot Color)

Performance and Stability Improvements 

We have worked hard to vastly improve performance and reduce memory usage when working with text layers. This should also indirectly reduce the number of crashes. We've also improved the reliability of non-English fonts (especially for languages with large character sets such as Korean or Japanese).