Celeb Control Interactivity with the Tempo channel from tutorial macromedia director, source:thandafanda.blogspot.com. Animating the enemies creating keyframes vtc macromedia director mx 2004 lingo video tutorial creating bracket frames in illustrator lingo scripting explosions on power director 8 tutorial after effects motion graphics course.
.Using Director MX Macromedia Director MX.If you access a third-party Web site mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites.CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. 13 Getting Started System requirements.Add navigation buttons to the animation scene. 77 Build the sound and video scene. 79 Write Lingo scripts to control movie playback.CHAPTER 5.157 Sprites Creating sprites.Working with Macromedia Fireworks.CHAPTER 11. 293 Using Flash and Other Interactive Media Types Using Flash Movies. 293 Editing a Flash cast member.CHAPTER 14.357 Behaviors Attaching behaviors.CHAPTER 17.443 3D Basics What you need to know.CHAPTER 20.
521 Controlling the 3D World 3D Lingo events.CHAPTER 26.571 Packaging Movies for Distribution Shockwave browser compatibility.Contents.INTRODUCTION Getting Started Macromedia Director MX is the world’s foremost authoring tool for creating interactive multimedia. Developers rely on Director to create attention-grabbing business presentations, advertising kiosks, interactive entertainment, and educational products. To see some of the exciting and varied ways in which developers use Director, visit the Director showcase at www.macromedia.com/software/director/special/inspiration/.Integration with other Macromedia MX products Director MX is truly a part of the Macromedia MX family; this is evident in the workspace, which matches those of other Macromedia MX products, as well as in other aspects of the application’s strong integration with Macromedia Flash MX, ColdFusion MX, Flash.Macromedia Flash Remoting MX Macromedia ColdFusion MX and Shockwave Player. When used with Director MX, Flash Remoting MX lets you easily pass data to ColdFusion MX and back. Gives Director MX developers access to the robust design.The Director MX workspace contains tooltips and context-sensitive help, and additional help is available on the Director MX website at www.macromedia.com/support/ director.
The new Answers panel in the Director workspace gives you a quick and easy way to find out about the latest Director materials available on the web.The Answers panel provides quick access to information that helps you work effectively with Director. This includes tutorials, TechNotes, and other useful content. You can get the latest Director information from macromedia.com by simply clicking the Update button in the Answers panel.Conventions used in Director Help and printed books The help system and printed books use the following conventions:. The terms Lingo and Director refer to Director MX. Within the text and in Lingo examples, Lingo elements and parts of actual code are shown in font.CHAPTER 1 Director Basics Macromedia Director MX is the tool of choice for legions of web and multimedia developers. With Director, you can create movies for websites, kiosks, and presentations as well as movies for education and entertainment. Movies can be as small and simple as an animated logo or as complex as an online chat room or game.Introducing the Director workspace When you first launch Director, there are several windows in the default layout, including the Stage, the Score, the Cast, and the Property inspector.
Stage Tools Property inspector Cast Score Default Director MX window layout (Windows platform) When creating and editing a movie, you typically work in four of these windows: the Stage, the Score, the Cast, and the Property inspector.To scroll around the Stage, do one of the following:. Use the scroll bars. (To show or hide Stage scroll bars, select Edit Preferences General and select or deselect Show Stage Scrollbars.).
Select the Hand tool from the Tool palette and drag inside the Stage to reposition the visible portion.The floating (detached) Control panel displays tempo information that does not appear when the Control panel is attached to the Stage. For more information about tempo, see “About tempo” on page 267. Actual tempo Tempo Setting The floating Control panel To close the floating Control panel, do one of the following:.You can control the Score by zooming to reduce or magnify your view and by displaying multiple Score windows.
You can also control the Score’s appearance by selecting Edit Preferences Score. Score Playhead Keyframe Sprite in Score The Cast window If the Cast window is not visible, select Window.The Property inspector If the Property inspector is not visible, select Window Property Inspector. The Property inspector provides a convenient way to view and change attributes of any selected object, or multiple objects, in your movie. After you select an object, relevant category tabs and associated fields appear in the Property inspector.The following illustrations show different information that appears in the Property inspector, depending on what is selected. In the first illustration, a sprite is selected.
In the second illustration, a cast member is selected. To show more or less information in the Property inspector:.The following illustrations show different information appearing in the Property inspector depending on whether the expanded information is hidden or shown. Chapter 1.Setting Stage and movie properties You use the Property inspector’s Movie tab to specify settings that affect the entire movie, such as how colors are defined, the size and location of the Stage, the number of channels in the Score, copyright information, and font mapping.To select a color palette for the movie, select a palette from the Palette pop-up menu. This palette remains selected until Director encounters a different palette setting in the Palette channel.
For a complete discussion of color palettes and using color in Director, see “Controlling color” on page 255.When you change the size of the Stage, any guides or grids you use to assist you with alignment will also scale to the zoomed size, and you can manipulate Stage objects in the same way that you would on a Stage that is not zoomed. To zoom the Stage, do one of the following:.About channels in the Score Channels are the rows in the Score that control your media. The Score contains sprite channels and special effects channels. Sprite channels are numbered and contain sprites that control all visible media in the movie.
Effects channels at the top of the Score contain behaviors as well as controls for the tempo, palettes, transitions, and sounds.To turn off a Score channel:. Click the gray button to the left of the channel. A darkened button indicates that the channel is off. This channel is on This channel is off To turn multiple Score channels off and on:.About the playhead The playhead moves through the Score to show the frame currently appearing on the Stage.
As you play your movie, the playhead automatically moves through your Score. You can also click any frame in the Score to move the playhead to that frame, and you can drag the playhead backward or forward through frames. Select an option on the Zoom pop-up menu to the right of the Score. Zoom pop-up menu Score zoomed out to 50% Score at 100% Score zoomed in to 200% You can also display more frames in a Score without changing the zoom setting. To do so, place a sprite in the rightmost frame of the Score.Using context menus To let you quickly access certain commands, Director provides context menus that display commands that are relevant to a particular element. These menus are called context menus because the commands on the menu vary, depending on the context in which the menu appears.
In the following illustration, Director shows the context menu for a sprite.The following is a list of document windows in Director MX. Stage.
Score. Cast. Script. Message. Media editors (Paint, Vector Shape, Text, Field, QuickTime, Shockwave 3D, RealMedia, AVI Video) The following is a list of tool windows.Panels have the following features: a header bar that displays the name of the panel, a title bar, an expander arrow to collapse and expand panels, a panel gripper to dock and undock panels, and an Options menu for managing panels.
Title bar Header bar Options menu.To hide all panels:. Select Window Hide Panels, or press the F4 key on your keyboard. Repeat this command to show all panels. Note: The Hide Panels menu command hides all floating (non-docked) tool windows and all docking channels (Windows only).To dock a panel or panel group:.
Drag the panel or panel group by its gripper over another panel or panel group, or (in Windows only) over a docking channel. Panel gripper As you drag the panel over a docking area, a placement preview line or rectangle shows where it will be placed among the panel groups.To group a panel with another panel or panel group: Select a panel or tab within a panel group.
From the panel’s Options menu, select Group panel name With, and then select a panel or panel group name from the submenu that appears. To remove a panel (tab) from a panel group: Select a tab within a panel group.Using panel Options menus Each panel and panel group has an Options menu located in its upper right corner. The Options menu contains items for grouping, closing, and renaming panels. To use a panel’s Options menu: Expand the panel, if necessary, by clicking the panel’s expander arrow or the title next to the expander arrow.Using multiple Score windows You can view and work in different parts of a movie at the same time by opening additional Score windows. If your sprite bars occupy many frames in the Score, for example, you can open a second Score window to work on another place in the movie without scrolling.Using markers Markers identify fixed locations at a particular frame in a movie. You use markers when you’re defining navigation.
Using Lingo or draggable behaviors, you can instantly move the playhead to any marker frame. This is useful when jumping to new scenes from a menu or looping while cast members download from the web.To enter marker comments: Move the playback head to a marker, and select Window Markers. The Markers window opens and displays comments associated with that frame. Comments Marker names Comments associated with markers appear in the right column.
By default, the marker name appears as the first line of text in the comments column and should not be removed.If you want to delete frames, select Edit Clear Sprites, or press the Delete key on your keyboard. If you cut, clear, or delete the selected frames, Director removes the frames and closes up the empty space.
Note: To delete a single frame, you can also select Insert Remove Frame. To paste frames that you have cut or copied, select any frame or sprite, and select Edit.Movies command is faster for converting large projects. It’s also more effective for preserving links to external media.
See “Processing movies with Update Movies” on page 585. Note: Macromedia Shockwave Player 8.5 can play Shockwave movies created with Director 5, 6, 7, 8, and Director MX.Setting general preferences To control some of the Director default settings for the Stage and the user interface, you can use the General Preferences dialog box. These settings control the appearance of movies only in the authoring environment, not during playback.
To set Director default values: Select Edit.Choosing Internet connection settings Director can connect to the Internet to import cast members and retrieve data. Use settings in the Network Preferences dialog box to control how the connection works and to define a preferred browser. To select Internet connection settings: Select Edit.Printing movies You can print movie content to review it and mark changes, to distribute edits to a team, to make handouts from a presentation, or to see your work on paper. You can print a movie while in authoring mode in several ways. You can print an image of the Stage in standard or storyboard format, the Score, the cast member number and contents of text cast members in the Cast window, all scripts or a range of scripts (movie, cast, Score, and sprite scripts), the comments in the Markers window, the Cast window artwork, or the entire Cast window.To determine the layout of the items to print, click Options and select from the following: provides options to print at 100%, 50%, or 25% of the original size.
Scale creates a border around each frame. Frame Borders prints the frame number with each frame. Frame Numbers places marks on every page to align the page for reproduction.Xtra extensions. For information on creating Xtra extensions, download the Xtras Developer’s Kit from the Director Support Center at www.macromedia.com/support/xtras/.
You must distribute any Xtra that a movie requires along with the movie. Xtra extensions can be packaged with projectors, or your user can download your required Xtra extensions from the Internet.
Transition Xtra extensions supply transitions in addition to the predefined transitions that are available in the Frame Properties: Transition dialog box. Tool Xtra extensions provide useful functions in the authoring environment, but they don’t do anything while a movie runs. They do not have to be distributed with movies. About installing Xtra extensions To make custom Xtra extensions available to Director, place them in the Xtras folder located in the same folder as the Director application.The Answers panel provides quick access to information that helps you work effectively with Director, including TechNotes, articles, and other useful content. To open the Answers panel:.
Select Window Answers. To get the latest Director information from macromedia.com:. Click the Update button. Chapter 1.CHAPTER 2 Director MX Basics Tutorial The Director Basics chapter of Using Director introduces you to the Macromedia Director MX user interface and basic Director concepts; you’ll gain a greater understanding of the material presented in this tutorial if you’ve first read Chapter 1, “Director Basics,” on page 19.
This tutorial reiterates and expands on much of that information while it guides you through the process of creating a simple interactive movie with animation, sound, and video.About the Director metaphor The Director user interface is designed around a movie metaphor. Each project you create can be thought of as a movie, with a cast of characters, a score, a stage where the action takes place, and a director (you, the author).View the completed movie You can view a completed version of the tutorial movie to become familiar with how your finished movie will appear. Launch Director and select File Open. Within your Director MX application folder, browse to Tutorials/Basics/Finished and double-click the Basicfinished.dir file.
If windows obscure the Stage, drag them out of the way.Set up the movie You can now arrange your workspace and set properties for your movie, such as the Stage size and color, and the number of channels in your Score. During the authoring process, you view Director movies on the Stage window. You can set up the size and color of the Stage window.In the Property inspector, select a dark orange color from the Stage Fill color picker. Stage Fill color picker Save your movie by selecting File Save or clicking the Save button in the toolbar (Window Toolbar).
Director MX Basics Tutorial.View your cast members To create a Director movie, you need cast members. Cast members are the objects that appear on the Stage and in the Score. Some of these elements might be text, graphics, sound, video, or Lingo scripting behaviors.
The movie you create in this tutorial consists of three scenes.Edit a text cast member The first cast member you will use in your movie is the text cast member containing the words “Director Basics.” You’ll edit the text to give it a more appealing graphic design. Double-click the text cast member in the first slot of the Cast window.
The Text window opens.Give the text cast member a name by clicking in the Cast Member Name text box at the top of the window and typing TitleText. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh). Close the Text window, and save your movie.
The next section guides you through the process of building the first scene of your movie and creating a new cast member for the scene.In the Cast window, click the TitleText cast member and drag it anywhere on the Stage to create a sprite from the TitleText cast member. The background of the new text sprite is white. Click the new text sprite on the Stage to select it. On the Sprite tab in the Property inspector, select Background Transparent from the Ink pop-up menu.Add buttons to the Stage In addition to the title text, the first scene of your movie will contain two buttons. You’ll add the first button to the Stage, then you’ll create a new button on the Stage to complete the scene. You begin by giving the button cast member in the second slot of the Cast window a name.Remember that button cast members contain special functionality to automatically highlight when clicked. Creating button cast members in Director is different from creating most other cast members.
Cast members are often created in separate windows and then dragged from the Cast window to the Stage.When you release the mouse button, the rectangle you created becomes an editable text box in which you enter the text that you want to appear on your button. Type Go to Sound and Video in the text box. To place the button precisely, in the Property inspector, type 242 in the X text box and type 161 in the Y text box.In the Score window, click the end of the TitleText sprite in frame 28, and drag it to the left to frame 10.
Note: You can also lengthen sprites by dragging their end frames to the right to higher-numbered frames, and you can edit more than one sprite at the same time by selecting multiple sprite end frames.Create an animation The second scene of your movie will contain a simple animation of a sunset. The sun will set behind a mountain range, and a cloud will move across the sky. You’ll make three of the cast members for this scene, arrange their sprites in the Score, and create the animation of the sun.
This scene will also include a new button that returns users to the first scene.When you place new sprites on the Stage, Director puts them into the first available channel in the Score. Because there were no other sprites in frame 15, the Mountain sprite appeared in channel 1. Later you will make changes to the order in which the sprites appear in the Score channels.In the Paint window toolbar, select the Pencil tool.
Select an orange color from the Foreground Color pop-up menu. Eraser tool Paint Bucket tool Pencil tool Foreground Color pop-up menu Select the one-pixel line width from the list of line widths at the bottom of the left-side Paint window toolbar.Fill the shape with color After you’ve drawn the cloud outline, you can fill it with color. Because this is an animation of a sunset, the cloud will have an orange gradient.
A gradient is a smooth blending of one color into another.With the Paint Bucket tool still selected, click inside the outline of the cloud. The cloud fills with an orange gradient. Cast Member Name text box Click the Cast Member Name text box at the top of the Paint window, type Cloud in the text box, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).Select Window Vector Shape, and select the Filled Ellipse tool in the toolbar on the left side of the window Filled Ellipse tool Stroke Width pop-up menu Gradient color boxes Select 0 point from the Stroke Width pop-up menu. Drag the pointer in the window to make a circle.Select a very light orange from the second Gradient Color box. This will be the ending color of the gradient. Click Gradient, below the Gradient Color boxes.
The gradient fill in the circle changes color from left to right. To rotate the gradient so it changes from top to bottom, enter 90 in the Angle text box at the top of the window.Animate the cloud You are now ready to add the cloud to the scene and create an animation of it moving across the sky. You can do this by placing a sprite of the Cloud cast member on the Stage, and then using a technique called tweening.The new Cloud sprite has a bounding box around it and a round dot in the middle. Click and drag the round dot in the middle of the cloud to the right edge of the Stage.
A line connects the original location of the cloud to the new location of the dot. There is still a dot in the middle of the Cloud sprite, but it is a different color from the dot that you dragged.Change the tempo of an animation To create a slower tempo for the sprite, you can extend the sprite in the Score. Click the end frame of the Cloud sprite in frame 24 of the Score, and drag it to frame 50. To see the slower animation this creates, drag the playhead back and forth from frame 15 to frame 50 in the Score.Drag the dot in the middle of the Sun sprite downward, in a slight diagonal toward the left, to the bottom of the Stage. A line appears, connecting the dots. This line is the sun’s tweened animation path. Click the end frame of the Sun sprite in frame 24 of the Score, and drag the end frame from frame 24 to frame 50.Click and drag the Sun sprite from channel 4 to channel 1, but make sure it remains in frames 15 through 50.
Scrub or drag the playhead from frame 15 to 50 to see the modified animation. The Sun sprite now appears behind the mountains and cloud. Add navigation buttons to the animation scene You’ve successfully completed your first animation.Add a new button Next, you create a new button that returns users to the first scene. Click frame 15 in the frame number bar in the Score to move the playhead to that frame. In the Tool palette (Window Tool Palette), click the Push Button tool.
Drag a horizontal rectangle to the lower left area of the Stage, and release the mouse button.Arrange sprites in the Score To make the Score easier to read, arrange the sprites of the animation scene in the Score so there is an empty channel between the graphic sprites and the button sprites. Select both the SoundVideo and GoStart sprites, which begin in frame 15, in the Score by Shift-clicking them.Import a cast digital video member So far, all the cast members you’ve used have been created and stored within your Director movie file. The buttons, graphics, and text are part of the Director file. It is common to import files from outside Director, too.Double-click the digital video cast member in the Cast window. The QuickTime window opens. Playhead Fast forward Play Rewind Play the video using the controls at the bottom of the QuickTime window:. Click the Play button in the lower left corner of the window.
The video begins playing, and the Play button changes to a Pause button.Create a QuickTime sprite You are now ready to place the QuickTime sprite on the Stage. The sound and video scene should start in frame 55. Click frame 55 in the frame number bar in the Score. The playhead moves to frame 55. Drag the Ouch!
QuickTime cast member to the upper left corner of the Stage.Add buttons to the Stage Next, you’ll add buttons that control playback of the QuickTime sprite. These buttons are already included in the Cast window in cast slots 9, 10, and 11. Unlike the Director Button cast members, these cast members are bitmap graphics that don’t include automatic button functionality.To place the Pause button on the Stage, verify that frame 55 is selected, and drag the Pause button from the Cast window to the left side of the Stage window, directly beneath the QuickTime sprite and to the right of the Play button. Again, precise placement isn’t necessary yet.Import a sound The QuickTime movie has no soundtrack. You can make the scene more interesting by adding sound to accompany the video. The easiest way to add sound to a Director movie is to import a sound cast member and place it in one of the sound channels in the Score. Whenever the playhead plays frames that include sound sprites, the sound plays.If the effects channels that appear above the frame number bar in the Score are not visible, click the Hide/Show Effects Channels button in the upper right corner of the Score.
The effects channels appear. Sound channels Click frame 55 in the frame number bar in the Score.
With the Cast window and Score open, drag the drumloop cast member from the Cast window to frame 55 in sound channel 1.Add navigation buttons The last sprites that you’ll add to the sound and video scene are the navigation buttons. You’ll then be ready to add simple Lingo, the Director scripting language, to all the buttons. The sound and video scene needs a button that returns users to the start scene and a button that’s linked to the animation scene.On the Stage, click the Animation button to select it.
Use the Sprite tab in the Property inspector (Windows Property Inspector), as you did earlier, to give the button x- and y- coordinates of 220 and 298, respectively. Note: As you complete the tutorial, remember to save your work frequently. Each scene of your movie is graphically complete.Each script you write is composed of handlers. A handler is a set of Lingo commands that handle a specific event, such as the event.
Some scripts have only one handler and some have exitFrame multiple handlers. Each handler begins with the name of the triggering event, such as exitFrame and ends with the word Write a handler.Reuse the handler You’ll use the same script cast member in the last frame of your movie, frame 64. With the Cast window and Score open, drag the Loop script from cast slot 13 to frame 64 in the script channel of the Score. A new sprite for the script appears in frame 64. Notice that the default length of script sprites is one frame.In the markers channel to the right of the marker menu in the Score, click frame 15. Marker menu Markers channel A new marker appears in the marker bar in frame 15.
Type Animation in the text box next to the new marker, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh) to name the marker.Add Lingo to navigation buttons To make the navigation buttons function, you need to add scripts to the buttons. You’ll write scripts attached to the button sprites, rather than to frames in the script channel.
Your frame scripts respond to events.Add markers to two additional scenes Your first button is complete. To use similar scripts on the remaining navigation buttons, you can add markers to the start scene as well as the sound and video scene. In the Score, click the marker bar in frame 1, the first frame of the start scene. A new marker appears.Add scripts to the animation scene The animation scene contains two buttons: the Go to Start button and the Go to Sound and Video button. Because you’ve already written a script for the Go to Sound and Video button, you can reuse it.Digital video movies use a timeline instead of a Score.
The timing of the video playback is tied closer to the soundtrack of the video. For example, if the video has a soundtrack, the timing of the video and sound must remain synchronized during the entire playback of the video. For this reason, digital videos will skip frames if necessary to keep up with the soundtrack.In the name text box at the top of the script window, type RewindScript. Close the Script window, and save your movie. The Lingo you typed in this handler uses a different syntax than the scripts you wrote earlier. When you write Lingo that manipulates properties of objects such as sprites or cast members, you use dot syntax.Add a script that pauses the QuickTime sprite When the video is paused, the is 0.
You can play a video at faster than normal speed movieRate by using numbers greater than 1 and at slow speed by using numbers less than 1. In the Score, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the Pause button sprite in channel 3, frames 55 through 64, and select Script from the context menu.Modify the script for the Pause button Now you need to modify the PauseScript Lingo so that the sound pauses when the user clicks the Pause button to pause the video. In the Cast window, select the PauseScript cast member, and click the Cast Member Script button at the upper right of the window.In general, you can publish your movie for the web by simply selecting File Publish. Using default Publish settings, Director will create a Macromedia Shockwave version of your movie, with the Director movie (DCR) extension, in the same directory as your original movie.
An HTML page includes the necessary tags to embed the movie.Note: Both versions of the QuickTime Xtra are cross-platform. Select Download if Needed, click OK, and save your movie. The Xtra will now download transparently to the user’s computer, from a Macromedia secure server, if the user doesn’t have the Xtra. For additional information about Xtra extensions, see TechNote 14888 Using Xtras in Director: An Overview at www.macromedia.com/support/.Change Publish settings and publish your movie When you use the Publish command, you can take advantage of the default Publish settings of Director, or you can modify them with the Publish Settings dialog box. For the tutorial movie, you’ll publish the movie using the Detect Shockwave HTML page which, in addition to including tags that are necessary to display your movie correctly OBJECT.Continue learning about Director By completing this tutorial, you’ve become familiar with the basic tasks and procedures used to create Director movies. You now know how to:. Import cast members.
Edit movie properties. Create sprites. Use inks.Macromedia Director MX includes three-dimensional (3D) images, text, and animations with the suite of Macromedia design and development tools. 3D cast members in your Director movies allow realistic spatial rendering of graphical objects.
With Director MX 3D features, you can create and view images that have depth as well as height and width.View the completed movie You can view a completed version of the tutorial movie to become familiar with how your finished movie will appear. Launch Director, and then select File Open.
Browse to the Director MX application folder and open Tutorials/3D/Magicfinished.dir. To play the movie, click the Play button, along the bottom of the Stage window, or select Control.If the Stage and Library are not open, select Window Library Palette. If your Internal Cast window is not open, select Window Cast. In the Cast window, find the cast member named Title text. Title text is 2D text created in Director MX. In the Score (Window.If the Property inspector Sprite tab is not visible, click the Title text sprite on the Stage.
On the Sprite tab, type 0 in the X text box and 0 in the Y text box. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh). You use the X and Y text boxes to place the sprite precisely.In the Display pop-up menu, select 3D Mode. On the Stage, the text becomes 3D. Modify the 3D text You can alter the appearance of the 3D text by changing settings in the Property inspector 3D Extruder tab. Click the Property inspector 3D Extruder tab. Move the Tunnel Depth slider left and right to see the different effects.In the Light pop-up menu, select Top Center.
Three-dimensional objects in Director can use both ambient and directional lights. By specifying Top Center as the light, you’re indicating where on the text it should appear as though a light is shining. The Title text sprite changes to reflect the settings in the Property inspector.Rotate the 3D text To rotate the text, you use a behavior from the Library palette.
When the 3D text rotates, the directional light that you specified in the Property inspector appears to shine on one fixed position, lighting the text much as a spotlight would. In the Library List pop-up menu, if Actions is not already selected, select 3D.In the Which Axis to Rotate About pop-up menu, select Y, and then click OK. The x- and y-axes are the model’s horizontal and vertical axes, respectively; the z-axis refers to the depth of the model. To view the 3D text rotating, play your movie. The rotation speed seems a bit fast.Modify behaviors Once you’ve added a behavior to a sprite, you can use the Property inspector to modify the behavior. Slow the rotation speed To slow the rotation speed setting, complete the following steps: With the Title text sprite selected, click the Property inspector Behavior tab.
With Automatic Model Rotation (Internal) selected in the Property inspector, click the down arrow to the right of Rotation Speed and move the Rotation Speed slider from 10 to 3.View a 3D world Click the magic shop scene on the Stage. The scene is comprised of models within a single sprite named Magic trick.
The Magic trick cast member is an example of a 3D world. The 3D world contains models, which are the visible objects within the world, such as the tables.In the Parameters for Pan Camera Horizontal dialog box, specify the following:. In the Degrees to Pan Per Frame text box, type 10. In the Which Group Does This Behavior Belong To text box, type Pan.
Then click OK. You are creating a group, named Pan, to which you’ll add actions and triggers.Specify the panning trigger for the opposite direction Naturally, you want to give your user the ability to pan the camera to the right as well as to the left. The procedure to add a keyboard input to pan left is similar to the keyboard input procedure you just completed.Pan the camera horizontally To see the Pan Camera Horizontal behavior in action, do the following: Play the movie and press the Left Arrow key repeatedly. Each time you press the key, the camera for the 3D world moves a little to the left. Press the Right Arrow key to see the camera change direction.Add a trigger for the Pan Camera Vertical action Again, you must associate triggers with the action. First, you will specify a trigger to pan the camera upward. Drag the Keyboard Input behavior from the Cast window to the Magic trick sprite on the Stage.Pan the camera vertically Now you’ll test the pan behaviors that you added.
Play the movie. Press the Up Arrow key to see the camera tilt up, and press the Down Arrow key to see the camera tilt down. When you finish moving the camera, stop and rewind the movie. Add the Dolly Camera behavior Another way to manipulate the view of a 3D world during movie playback is to dolly the camera.Add the triggers for the Dolly Camera behavior You have already associated triggers with all four of the arrow keys. You’ll now specify that the F and B keys trigger the forward and backward dollying action. Drag the Keyboard Input behavior from the Cast window to the Magic trick sprite either on the Stage or in the Score.In the Parameters for Keyboard Input dialog box, specify the following:. In the Which Key Will Be Used pop-up menu, verify that The Custom Key I’ve Entered Below is selected.
In the If Using a Custom Key, Enter It Here text box, type b.Reset the camera Once the camera starts moving around the world, it can be tricky for the user to return to the original camera position—unless you’ve included a way to reset the camera. Fortunately, Director MX has a Reset Camera behavior, which you’ll now apply. In the Library palette, verify that 3D.Set model rollover cursors Often in interactive movies, the pointer transforms into a hand when it’s over an object the user can click, such as a link or hot spot. The Model Rollover Cursor behavior lets you select a model, then specify how the pointer will appear when it’s over that model.When you finish viewing this behavior, stop and rewind the movie.
The cursor changes to a pointing finger Use 3D behaviors for navigation When a pointer changes to a pointing finger, users know that they can click and expect some sort of result.Use the Click Model Go to Marker behavior The Click Model Go to Marker behavior lets you specify both the model in a 3D world that the user clicks and the marker that the playhead moves to when the user clicks the model. In the Library, with 3D.Select the action and trigger for the Hat marker You’ll repeat the procedure to add the Click Model Go to Marker action behavior and trigger behavior for the middle table. Drag the Click Model Go to Marker behavior from the Cast window to the Magic trick sprite. In the Parameters for Click Model Go to Marker dialog box, specify the following:.You’ve almost finished By now, you should be familiar with the procedure to add the Click Model Go to Marker action and its trigger.
You’ll repeat the steps a final time for the remaining table. Drag the Click Model Go to Marker behavior from the Cast window to the Magic trick sprite. This time, specify Table 3 in the Which Model pop-up menu and Rings in the Go to Which Marker pop-up menu.Use the left mouse button (Windows) to click on the Table 1 model.
(Macintosh users with a single-button mouse can simply click.) Notice the following:. The movie plays from frame 10, the frame labeled with the Cards marker, to frame 20. By clicking Table 1 during playback mode, you cause the action to jump to another marker on the Score.Cast window with tabs in Thumbnail view You can create and edit cast members in Macromedia Director MX using basic tools and media editors such as the Paint and Text windows, and you can also edit cast members using external editors.Casts can be internal—stored inside the movie file and exclusive to that movie—or external— stored outside the movie file and available for sharing with other movies. When you create a new movie, an empty internal cast is automatically created, and when you open the Cast window it is in the default List view.To create a new cast: Do one of the following:.
Select File New Cast. Select Modify Movie Casts to open the Movie Casts dialog box, and click the New button. In the Cast window, click the Cast button and select New Cast from the pop-up menu. (See “Using Cast window controls”.Creating cast members You can create several types of cast members in Director.
Director includes editors to create and edit common media such as text, shapes, and bitmaps. You can also define external editors to launch from within Director when you double-click a cast member, and edit almost any type of supported media.To create a cast member in a media editing window: Open a media editing window by selecting Window and then selecting the type of cast member you want to create (Paint, Vector Shape, Text, and so on). Click the New Cast Member button to create a cast member of the corresponding type. The cast member is added to the most recently active Cast window.Switching from one Cast window view to another You can easily toggle between List and Thumbnail views of the Cast window. To switch from one Cast window view to another, do one of the following:. Click the Cast View Style button on the Cast window to toggle between the two views.
Cast View Style.To group a Cast panel with another Cast panel or Cast panel group: Select a Cast panel or a tab within a Cast panel group. From the panel’s Options menu, select Group Panel Name With, then select a panel or panel group name from the submenu that appears.Using Cast window controls The controls along the top of the Cast window are the same in both the List and Thumbnail views. You use the controls to change the cast that appears in the Cast window, the cast member selection, or the name of a cast member.Do one of the following:.
Click the Cast Member Properties button. Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh), and select Cast Member Properties from the context menu.
Select Window Property Inspector. See “Viewing and setting cast member properties” on page 142. To view the cast member number:.Naming cast members To avoid problems in Lingo when referring to cast members, you should name them and refer to them by name. Naming cast members doesn’t affect Director performance.
The name stays the same even if the cast member number changes. Avoid duplicating cast member names.Column Title Column Information Modified By Who modified the cast member. This value comes from the user login name (Windows) or the Sharing setup name (Macintosh).
Macromedia Director 8.5 is the multimedia authoring application used to create dazzling multimedia-rich DVD-ROMs, CD-ROMs, and Shockwave-enhanced Web experiences.The most exciting news for the 8.5 release is the under-the-hood Intel 3D technology that enables Shockwave to use high-impact, textured, 3D graphics and models. Since version 6.5, you can import Flash movies (as.SWF files) via the Flash Asset Xtra. With version 8.5, you can take even more control of your.SWF movies in Director. Moreover, the latest versions of the Shockwave plug-in automatically install the Flash Asset Xtra on Web browsers. That means that you can count on Shockwave-enabled visitors being able to view your Flash-Director Shockwave content.
But why would you want to use Director in combination with Flash in the first place? We answer that question next.Benefits and limitations of Flash movies in DirectorFlash 5 has been another monumental leap forward for Flash interactivity. With the additional advanced ActionScripting that Flash can now employ, many of the previous Flash-Director scenarios or workarounds are no longer needed.
However, if you’re already familiar with Director and Lingo (Director’s scripting language), then you may find integrating.SWF files into Director projects easier than learning advanced scripting with ActionScript in Flash 5. The following list reviews some of the benefits and drawbacks of using Flash movies in Director projects. Vector control: Even though Director has vector shape-drawing tools, it doesn’t use the same intuitive drawing mechanism that Flash does. Use Flash for any complex vector drawing and animation, and then bring it into your Director project. Implement existing projects: With the ability to use Flash movies in Director, you need not duplicate efforts if material already exists in one format or the other.
Thus, if you’ve already developed some cool animations in Flash for your company’s Web site, you can reuse the same Flash.SWF files in your Director projects. Use media types that are not available in Flash: Director’s architecture can be expanded with the use of Macromedia’s (or a third party’s) Xtras. Even though Flash 4 and 5 can import QuickTime movie files, it can only export QuickTime Flash movies it can’t export.SWF files that contain QuickTime movies. However, you can import QuickTime movies, as well as many other media types, such as 3D Studio MAX models, into Director and that can be viewed and controlled in Shockwave Director movies. Some audio file formats, such as AU and MIDI, are not supported by Flash 5. Director 8.5 natively supports AU import.
With the proper Xtras, you can use MIDI music with your Flash movies in Director. Audio support: In versions of Director before 7.02, Flash audio could not play simultaneously with Director sound channels. Now, you can control the global property soundMixMedia to mix Flash sounds with Director score sound channels. Flash frame rate control: Ironically, you have more control over a Flash movie’s frame rate in Director than you do natively within Flash 5.
In Flash, the movie’s frame rate is fixed throughout the entire movie once it is set in the Modify➪Movie dialog, it cannot be updated or changed during playback.Flash movies also seem to play more smoothly at higher frame rates when played within a Director projector. Similar scripting environments: Both Flash and Director use a form of Dots notation for their scripting languages. Flash ActionScript resembles JavaScript much more closely than Director Lingo does. Director Lingo uses a different model of command and event control than Flash 5 does. Flash and Director intermovie activity is a two-way street: You can send events from Flash to Director (via Lingo), or you can control Flash movie playback from Director (via Lingo). Just as Flash Movie Clips can be self-contained interactive modules within one overall.SWF file, Flash.SWF files can be components of a much larger and media rich Director movie.
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To get you started with Director-Flash interactivity, the next section shows you how to send events from Flash movies to Director movies.Creating Director-specific actions in FlashYou can use Flash.SWF files in any number of ways with Director. If you simply want to use a Flash animation for graphic content within a Director presentation, you can simply use the same.SWF you generated for the Web.
Use the Flash Asset Xtra import box (see the more in-depth discussion later in this section) to set the parameters of playback without needing any Lingo. However, if you want Flash actions (in frames or on buttons) to do something in your Director movies, then you need to know how to get Lingo’s attention. The drawback to this type of “dual” interactivity is that you need to plan ahead with both your Flash and Director movies. As with any project, you should outline a storyboard before embarking on a task such as this.You have three methods to use within the Flash authoring environment, all involving the getURL action. You can assign any of these methods the same way you would with any other Flash interactivity attach these actions to buttons, frames, or ActionScript conditions.Standard GetURL commandOn a Flash Button or frame, open the Actions Panel and assign a getURL action. This is the preferred method of sending information to Director movies because you can deal with the result of the action in Director you do not need to specify what Director does with the string from Flash.
When a Button instance is selected and the Actions Panel is in Normal Mode, Flash 5 automatically creates a default on (release) action to contain the getURL action. In the URL setting, create a string to be passed to an event handler in Lingo.A getURL action is assigned to a frame in Flash. The string ProjectOne is entered in the URL text field.
This string, in turn, is received by Lingo.In Director, you need to attach a behavior script to the Flash Sprite so that the getURL action and string can be received by Lingo.The string ProjectOne was assigned to getURL. In Director, we could tell Lingo to go to the frame marker called ProjectOne:on getURL me, FlashStringgo to frame FlashStringendYou can enter any word or series of characters (that is, a string) in the URL field. This string is then passed to Lingo.When the Flash Sprite plays in Director and the getURL action is executed, the ProjectOne value of getURL is passed as the FlashString argument of the Lingo event handler, on getURL. Lingo will direct the playback of the Director movie to the frame marker ProjectOne.Event: commandYou can also specify an event: handler in the URL field of the getURL action. This method is useful if you would like to describe an event that is repeatedly used in Flash, but needs customized settings with each use. For example, if you want to add a mouse click to go to a different Director frame depending on which button was clicked, you could use the following URL in the getURL action:event: FClick “ProjectOne”In Director, you then write a behavior that would receive the FClick event:on FClick me FlashStringgo to frame FlashStringendHow is this different from the last example?
If you want to have several events in one script that perform different Lingo commands, you need to label each one with a separate event, such as:on FClickButton01 me FlashStringgo to frame FlashStringendon FClickButton02 me FlashStringquitendIn the preceding example, we have two defined Flash events, FClickButton01 and FclickButton02, which do different things. If we had used the standard getURL action, we could only pass the string to one Lingo command.Lingo: commandThe last getURL method of sending events to Lingo is the most direct method of communicating with Director movies. In the URL field, a lingo: handler is used to specify a Lingo statement. This is the most inflexible method of sending events to Director insofar as you cannot do anything in Director to modify or direct the event.
For example, if you added the following code to an on (release), getURL button event in Flash:lingo: quitThen the Director movie quits (or the Director projector closes) when that button was clicked. With lingo: statements in getURL actions, you do not need to specify any further Lingo in the Director movie, unless you are setting the value of prescripted variable or executing a event described in the Director movie script.Controlling.SWF files in DirectorYou can import and use Flash movies (.SWF files) into Director just as you would any other cast member. Director controls Flash movies with the Flash Asset Xtra. This section shows you how to import Flash movies and use them in the Director Score window. You should already be familiar with the Director authoring environment and basic Behavior use.The Flash Asset Xtra: Importing Flash moviesSince Director 6.5, the Flash Asset Xtra has enabled Flash movies to play within a Director movie. Again, make sure you have Director 8.5 in order to use Flash 5 movies.
If you have Director 8.0 or 7.0.2, you’ll need to export your Flash 4.SWF files from Flash 5. Director 7.0.1 supports Flash 3 or earlier movies. If you have Director 6.5, you need to export your Flash movies as Flash 2 movies.To import a Flash movie (.SWF file), do the following:.
Start a new Director movie (.DIR file) or open an existing movie. Use the File➪Import command (Command+R or Ctrl+R) to select a Flash movie (.SWF file). Double-click the file name in the upper portion of the Import dialog, or select the file name and choose Add. You can select several files of different types and import them all at once. When you are done adding files, click Import to bring the Flash movie(s) into the Internal Cast.You can import several files at once with the Import command.
(The Mac version is shown here.). Open the Cast window (Command+3 or Ctrl+3). Double-click the Flash movie that was imported.
This brings up the Flash Asset Properties dialog. The top section of the dialog is used to link to external or remote Flash movies (see following tip and sidebar), while the lower section sets the playback attributes:The Flash Asset Properties dialog enables you to specify how the Flash movie functions in the Director movie. Media: This setting has two options, Linked and Preload. If you don’t want to store a Flash movie within the Director movie, check Link and specify the path to the Flash movie.
Unless you want to link to a Flash movie on the Internet, you should store the Flash movie in the Director movie Flash movies are usually very small due to their vector structure.If Link is checked, then you can also enable Preload. Preloading will force Director to load (or download) the entire.SWF file before it starts playing the Flash movie. Otherwise, Director will start playing the Flash movie as soon as it starts to stream the Flash cast member. See the sidebar at the end of this section for more information on linked Internet files.
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Playback: This setting has five options that control how Director displays the Flash movie. The Image option, checked by default, determines whether Director shows the graphic content of a Flash movie.
The Sound option determines whether Director plays the audio content of a Flash movie.The Direct to Stage option tells Director to give priority to the Flash movie Sprite over all other Sprites currently on the Stage. Although this option may enable Flash movies to playback more smoothly, Director ignores any ink effects applied to the Sprite, and the Flash movie always displays on top of other Sprites.The Paused option is akin to adding a stop Flash action to the first frame of the Flash movie you can force Director to display the movie in a paused state. The Loop option enables continuous playback of the Flash movie. If this option is checked, the Flash movie repeats as soon as it reaches the last frame unless the last frame has a stop Flash action. It continues to repeat while the Flash Sprite is present in the Director Score, or until it is paused by a Lingo command. Quality: This setting has a drop-down menu with the exact same settings as the Quality setting in the Flash 5 Publish Settings. By default, this setting is High.
Scale Mode: By default, this setting uses Auto-Size, which enables Director to automatically resize the Flash movie’s width and height according to the Sprite’s bounding box on the Director stage. Meaning, if you resize the Sprite, then the Flash movie should fit the size of the Sprite box. Auto-Size automatically sets the Scale setting to 100 percent. Conversely, No Scale keeps the Flash movie at the size specified by the Scale setting (covered in a moment) and any subsequent resizing of the Sprite bounding box may crop the Flash movie.
The remaining options, Show All, No Border, and Exact Fit operate the same as the Publish Settings options in Flash 5. Rate: Perhaps one of the most powerful settings in the Flash Asset Properties dialog, Rate controls how fast or slow the Flash movie plays in a Director Scores irrespective of the Tempo setting used in the Score. The Flash Asset Properties’ Rate setting has two options: a dropdown menu and an fps text field. If Normal or Lock-Step is selected, then the fps text field is disabled. Normal plays the Flash movie at its native frame rate, as set in the Flash application via the Modify➪Movie dialog.Lock-Step plays one Flash movie frame for every Director frame that its Sprite occupies (for example, if the Flash movie occupies four frames of the Director score, then only the first four frames of the animation plays back in Director).
Therefore, Lock-Step inherits the frame rate of the Director movie as established in the Tempo setting in the Score. Fixed rate enables you to specify a new frame rate for the Flash movie, independent of the original frame rate specified in Flash 5 (via Modify➪ Movie) or the Director Tempo setting in the Score. Scale: This setting works hand-in-hand with the Scale Mode setting. If anything other than Auto-Size is selected in Scale Mode, you can specify what percentage of the original Flash movie is used for the Flash Sprite.If 50 percent is used for the Scale of a 550 × 400 Flash movie and Exact Fit is chosen in Scale Mode, then the movie displays at 225 × 200 in the original placed Flash Sprite on the Stage. If you resize the Sprite box, then it continues to maintain a 50 percent portion of the Sprite box area.
After specifying the settings you wish to use for your Flash movie, you can then place the Flash cast member as a Sprite on to the Director Stage.Using Director’s Property InspectorDirector 8.0 introduced a new look-and-feel to the authoring environment. In addition to a resizable Stage window, you can change the Cast window to view by list or thumbnail, and you can quickly modify Sprite, Cast Member, and Movie attributes (among others) with the Property Inspector.The Property Inspector enables you to quickly change all of the Flash Asset Properties for any Flash Cast Member.
You can click the More Options button on the Property Inspector to access the traditional Flash Asset Properties dialog, which enables you to change Import (for example, path to remotely or locally linked.SWF files) and Media (Linked and Preload) properties.You cannot preview Flash movies in the Property Inspector.Director’s new Property InspectorFlash Movies as SpritesIn Director, any item that is used in a movie becomes part of a Cast, and is referred to as a Cast Member. When a Cast Member is placed on the Stage, it becomes a Sprite. A Sprite is an instance of the Cast Member used in the Score.
The relationship between a Flash Symbol and a Symbol instance is similar to the relationship between a Director Cast Member and its Sprite(s).To place a Flash Cast Member on the Director Stage, simply click and drag its Cast Member icon (or thumbnail) from the Internal Cast window to the Stage or the Score. If you drag a Cast Member to the Stage, it automatically becomes a Sprite on the first Sprite channel. If you drag a Sprite to the Score, it is automatically centered on the Stage.(A) A Flash Sprite on the Director stage. (B) A Flash Sprite in the Director score.Although Flash Sprites perform almost the same as other Director Sprites, you should be aware of certain Sprite properties before proceeding with Lingo Behaviors and Flash Sprites. For more information on basic animation features of Director, please consult the Using Director 8 manual that comes with the Director software.
Sprite Duration: Every Sprite has a duration in the Score. By default, every Sprite dragged to the Score or Stage has a duration of 28 frames. Like digital video and sound Sprites, Flash Sprites only play for as long as their frame duration allows them. For example, if a Flash movie that is 30 Flash frames long (and has a Lock-Step rate) is inserted as a 15-frame Flash Sprite in Director, then Director only shows the first half of the Flash movie. Sprite Inks: Of all the inks available to Sprites, only Copy, Transparent, and Background Transparent have any noticeable effect on Flash Sprites. Copy makes the Flash movie background opaque, in the same color that you specified in the Flash authoring environment.
Transparent or Background Transparent hide the background of a Flash movie, so that the Director movie background (and other Director Sprites) show through.With an ink effect of Background Transparent, the white background of the crosshairsButton Flash Sprite drops out.Controlling.SWF files with LingoNot only can you send events from Flash movies to Director movies, but you can also control Flash movies from Director with Lingo. More than 70 Lingo commands exist that are specific for Flash movie assets in a Director movie. Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this book to explore so many different commands. This section provides an overview of the new Lingo commands for Flash movie, and shows you how to alter the size and rotation of Flash Sprites.Lingo and ActionScriptFor a complete listing of Flash-specific Lingo commands that can be used with Flash Cast Members and Sprites, access the Help➪Lingo Dictionary in Director 8.5 and search for Flash. Some of the more powerful Lingo commands are getVariable and setVariable, which give you access to any variables inside a Flash 4 or 5 movie. Make sure that you specify the variable name as a string in Director Lingo (unless it’s also the name of a Lingo variable), as in:on beginSprite mesprite(me.spriteNum).setVariable(“/globals:currentURL”,¬“Lingo code will give the variable currentURL in the globals Movie Clip of the current Sprite (me.spriteNum) the value of Therefore, you can use Slashes notation to access nested variables in Movie Clip instances.
Similarly, the getFlashProperty and setFlashProperty Lingo commands can use Slashes notation to access Movie Clip or Main Timeline properties:on enterFrame meglobal dogScaleXdogScaleX = sprite(1).getFlashProperty(“/dog1”,¬#scaleX)endThis Lingo code will retrieve the current X scale of the root.dog1 Movie Clip instance and make it the value of a global Director variable named dogScaleX. Table below details the Flash Movie Clip and Main Timeline properties that can be retrieved and set by Lingo.Lingo and actionscript property conversion chartMacromedia has expanded the Lingo hitTest command (which can be used to detect whether an arbitrary point in the Flash movie is the transparent background area, a normal “fill” area, or a Flash button) to include an #editTest return value to detect Flash 4 and 5 editable text fields. The Lingo hitTest method works much like the hitTest ActionScript method. For more information on Director’s hitTest method, refer to the Help➪Lingo Dictionary. Finally, Director 8.5 adds five new Lingo commands to work with Flash movies:. call: This command works just like the call(frame) action in Flash 5. It executes the actions on the specified Flash timeline keyframe.
print and printAsBitmap: These commands print the contents of a target Flash timeline. sendXML: This is a new event handler in Director 8.5 that catches any sendXML events from a Flash 5 movie. You can define an on sendXML handler on a Flash Sprite that will execute whenever a sendXML action is executed in the Flash movie. tellTarget and endTellTarget: These commands work like the Flash 4 equivalent actions. However, in Lingo, you nest the actions in a slightly different manner. Also, you can only use the following actions within a tellTarget Lingo group: stop, play, gotoFrame, call(frame), find(label), getFlash Property, and setFlashProperty. You use a tellTarget Lingo action in the following way:on exitFrame mesprite(1).tellTarget(“/nestedMovie”)sprite(1).setFlashProperty(“”,#ScaleX,200)sprite(1).setFlashProperty(“”, #ScaleY, 200)sprite(1).goToFrame(2)sprite(1).endtellTargetgo to frame 5endThis Lingo code targets the nestedMovie Movie Clip instance located on the Main Timeline and sets its scale to 200 percent and moves its playhead to frame 2.
Then, Director’s Score moves to frame 5.Changing the size and rotation of Flash SpritesThe previous section listed the properties of internal Flash Movie Clips that can be manipulated with Lingo. You can also control the Flash Sprite properties with Lingo, which will affect everything in the Flash movie. With the crossButton.swf example used earlier, we can rotate and zoom the Flash movie in Director. Because the crossButton Sprite is a Flash button that already plays a 3D rotation sequence, we disable the Flash button by using a Lingo script in the first frame of the score:on enterFramesprite(1).buttonsEnabled = falseendOn exitFramego the frameendThe sprite(1) line of code refers to the Sprite occupying the first Sprite channel, which in our example is the crosshairsbutton Flash Sprite. Adding the.buttonsEnabled property lets Director know what property we want to change with the Sprite in this case, Flash button activity. Setting this property to false means it is being turned off. Next, add the following behavior script to the Flash Sprite:on mouseEnter merepeat while sprite(1).rotation.