Macromedia Director

1
Macromedia Director

• Dr H Batatia

2
Director a movie metaphor

• Different applications use different metaphors
• Word uses the page
• PowerPoint uses slides
• Director uses the movie
• Movie
• Stage
• Cast
• Score
• Control panel

3
What is the stage?

• The place where everything is visible
• A space on the screen

4
What is a cast?

• A list (or library) of objects (graphics,
  buttons, texts, videos, audio)
• An object is called cast member
• You can have more than one cast in a movie
• Cast members can be created locally or imported

5
What is a movie?

• A list of Frames
• Every frame is an Image that contains various
  text, graphics, video
• A frame last for a given time (can be changed)
• A frame is seen on stage!

6
What is in a Frame?

• Objects representing (text, buttons, graphics)
• Every object is called a sprite segment
• A sprite is a copy of a cast member
• You can have any number of copies of the same
  cast member in the movie (same or different
  frames), each a sprite

7
Director's Windows

• Control Panel
• Score Window
• Cast Windows
• Paint Window
• Text Window
• Tool palette

• Markers window
• Colour Palette
• Script window
• Message Window
• Watch Window
• ...

8
Control Panel
9
Cast Windows
10
Stage
11
Score
12
Paint Window
13
Text Window Field Window
14
Tool Palette
15
Inspectors
16
Colour Palette
17
Markers window
18
Script Window
19
Message Window
20
Debugger Window
21
The watch window
22
Sprite channels vs. Sprite segments?
Sprite Channels
Sprites or Sprite segments
23
Sprites vs. cast members
Sprite
Cast Member
24
How do you create a sprite?

• You can do it by
• dragging the cast member to the stage
• dragging the cast member to the score

25
When does your sprite appear on stage? How long
does it last?
Appears on Frame 29 Lasts until Frame 53
Appear on Frame 1 Last until Frame 25
26
How different is the sprite from the cast member?

• The cast member is the parent of the sprite
• A sprite can have a different
• size
• colour
• location
• behaves in different way

27
Cast member types

• Bitmap PICT
• Button Script
• Digital Video Shape
• Field Sound
• Film Loop Field
• Director Movie Text
• Palette Transition
• Multiple cast members Xtras

28
Cast member proprieties

• Every type has its own proprieties like
• type of button, type of shape, size of bitmap,
  colour depth
• Proprieties of casts depend on the type of cast
  member
• We rarely need to change proprieties of cast
  members using scripts
• But it is possible

29
Proprieties of sprites

• Sprites have all the same proprieties whatever is
  the type of their parents (the cast member)
• Most of the work done under director is checking
  and changing sprite proprieties
• Proprieties can be checked and changed using
  manual ways (menus, inspectors, mouse), or using
  simple programs

30
Sprite proprieties
31
Proprieties of sprites
32
...Proprieties of sprites
33
Creating a movie

• Creating a Director movie is largely a process of
  defining where sprites appear on the Stage, when
  they appear in the movie, how they behave, and
  what their properties are.
• You need to write scripts to make these changes
  possible during playback time.