Pro's can,
you do all the set up in illustrator, layout artwork design
then you render it through image ready
Illustrator talks to photoshop as its part of adobe, save as animated gif at 72dpi, just careful not to overload the colour blendings as gif cant blend very well.
i'm still right. Image Ready is doing the animation and not illustrator. Illustrator is supplying the eps files and layered compositrions.