Director Part1

8/8/2019 Director Part1

1/24

Ranjan Parekh

School of Education Technology, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India

www.rp.setju.ac.in

1

Introduction to

DIRECTOR

Part 1

Dr. Ranjan Parekh

School of Education Technology

JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY

Calcutta 700032, India


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1. OVERVIEW

DIRECTOR WORKSPACE

Director is an authoring software developed by Macromedia Inc. (now acquired by Adobe Systems) and it allows us

to integrate different media into a single entity called a presentation. Director calls the presentation a movie. It usesthe timeline authoring metaphor whereby different components of the presentation are arranged along a timeline

of frames, and each element is displayed or played back as a playback head moves across them. Director

presentations are distributed as EXE files by default although other file formats are also supported. Native Director

editing files have the DIR extension. The main components of the Director authoring framework are : Stage, Cast,

Score. The Director workspace is shown below, and includes the menu bar, tool bar, tool palette, stage, cast, score.

Menu bar Toolbar

Cast

Score

Stage

Cast

member

Sprite

Play button

Sprite channels

Tool

palette

Playback head

Frame numbers


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STAGE

The Stage is the blank canvas on the screen where the movie will play. When playing back from an EXE file only the

Stage is visible. The size of the Stage can be altered to suit the movie dimensions. Additionally background color of

the Stage and its position on the screen can also be specified.

The Stage can be accessed by clicking the corresponding icon in the toolbar

CAST

The Cast is a collection of media elements like text, image, graphics, sound, video and program code. Each element of

the cast is called a cast member. Cast members may be created within Director or imported from external files by

choosing File > Import. The cast window by default is titled Internal Cast, because it is created and stored within the

movie. There can also be an external cast is saved as a separate file, with extension CST. A Director movie may use

multiple casts. The Cast window is accessed by clicking the corresponding icon in the toolbar


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Cast members are created from within Director by using the Paint window, Vector Shapes window, Text window,

Script window, Tool palette etc. Other elements like transitions, behaviours, xtras also lead to generation of cast

members. Cast members can also be created by importing media from outside Director, by choosing File > Import

and can include audio, video, shockwave and Flash files. Importing can be done in two ways : the Standard import

option copies the external file into the Cast and resides inside the Director projector file during playback, while the

Link to External File option does not copy the external file into the Cast but only creates a pointer to it. In this case

the media is displayed/played back inside the Director projector file from the external file directly, and hence the

external file also needs to be distributed along with the projector file, and at the same relative location with respect to

the projector file. Usually smaller media like text, image and graphics are imported in a standard manner, while large

files like audio and video are imported in linked manner so that they do not increase the size of the projector file.


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SPRITE

A sprite is an instance of a cast member on Stage. A cast member when dragged from the Cast and placed on the

Stage becomes a sprite. A sprite is a cast member with additional properties, which determine how and when they

appear in a movie. Multiple sprites may be created from the same cast member each with its own set of properties.

When a sprite is selected on Stage a semi-transparent sprite label is displayed with information about the sprite.

Among the parameters displayed are :

Row-1 : cast member name, cast name, data type,

Row-2 : sprite channel in Score, location coordinates of the sprite on Stage, ink, opacity

Row-3 : Behavior attached to the sprite (if any)


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SCORE

The Score is used to organize and manage temporal properties of the sprites. The Score consist of a window

containing a series of horizontal sprite channels spread across a number offrames. Media elements from the cast

are placed over the channels to represent the sprites in the form of rectangular blocks. When the movie is played, a

playback head moves across the Score from left to right, and this represents the flow of time. The length of the

sprites on the Score is therefore proportional to the time duration for which it appears in the movie. The framenumbers are displayed just above the sprite channel 1.

When sprites are arranged on channels of the Score, sprites on lower numbered channels appear below sprites on

higher numbered channels where they overlap e.g. sprite in channel 1 (sprite 1) appears below sprite in channel 2

(sprite 2) which in turn appears below sprite in channel 3 (sprite 3) and so on. The Score can be accessed by clicking

the corresponding icon in the Toolbar

Above the normal sprite channels numbered 1,2,3,, there are some specialized channels called Effects Channels

which are accessed by clicking on the Hide/Show Effects Channels button to the right.

The first Effects channel from the bottom is the Script Channel which provides a place to write frame scripts and

attach to specific frames. Above that are two Audio Channels designated by speaker icons which are used for playing

audio. Above those is the Transition Channel which is used to specify transitions between two sequentially occurring

sprites. Above that is the Palette Channel used to specify color and palette options for different parts of the movie.

Above that and the topmost channel is the Tempo Channel used timing and speed options for various parts of the

movie.


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MARKERS

Markers are labels used to mark or designate specific points in the movie. Markers are created by clicking in the

Marker channel at the top of the Score, and entering a descriptive name. Markers provide references for the

playback head to jump to various sections of the movie.

Although references to parts of a movie can be

provided by frame numbers as well, markers

have an advantage over frame numbers and

their usage is recommended over frame

numbers. In a partially developed movie when

additional portions need to be inserted before

existing sections, then the existing sections

need to shift to the right to make way for the

new sections. Any reference to the existing

portions, either from within or from other

sections, which had been done using frame

numbers, would all need to be edited as due to

the shifting frame numbers would have

changed. On the other hand, if the references

had been done using marker names, then there

would not be any need for editing. Since

markers designate specific points in the movie,as the movie portions are shifted, markers also

shift with them.


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PROPERTY INSPECTOR

BEHAVIOURS

Behaviours are ready-made sets of instructions that can be attached to frames or sprites in order to impart some sort

of functionality to them e.g. click a button to play a sound. Behaviours are stored in the Library Palette, divided into

a number of classes and sub-classes like Animation, Controls, Internet etc. From there they can be dragged and

attached to a frame or sprite. For example, the Go Nextbehavior when attached to a button takes the user to the nextpage of the presentation when the button is clicked. Behaviours essentially represent Lingo code that might be

frequently used and hence they are supplied as a ready-made packages so that the developer does not need to write

them each and every time. The Library Palette can be accessed from Window menu option or by clicking the

corresponding icon in the Tool bar

A dialog box which displays a number of information about a

specific sprite as well as the associated cast member and the

movie. It allows the developer to modify various properties of

the sprite like the start and end frame numbers of the sprite onScore, the location coordinates on screen, the dimensions,

rotation angle etc. The Property Inspector can be accessed from

the corresponding icon in the Toolbar


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BEHAVIOUR INSPECTOR

PAINT WINDOW

The Behavior Inspector is a dialog box which allows

one to see the Lingo code of the Behaviors attached

to a sprite. It also allows one to modify the code and

thereby build custom behaviors. The Behavior

Inspector is divided into three sections : the top

section displays the name of the behavior, the

bottom-left panel shows the events for which the

behaviour is activated, and the bottom-right panel

shows the actions corresponding to a selected event.

A Script Window icon on the menu-bar when clicked

displays the actual Lingo code for the selected action.

The Behaviour Inspector can be accessed from the

corresponding icon in the Toolbar

Director has a Paint window where you can use

basic paint tools to create cast members.

Click the Paint Window icon on the Toolbarto open the Paint window.


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There are 5 Paintbrush types and 5 Airbrush types. You can change a brush's settings by clicking on Settings... and

altering the brush shape for a paintbrush, or flow rate and dot size for an airbrush. To see the menu click and hold on

the brush icon.

The Paint Bucket will fill an area with color when you click in that area. This tool is the best way to create large areas

of color like backgrounds.

The Foreground Color is the color you use to draw with. To select a new foreground color click and hold on theForeground Color box as shown below, run the cursor onto the color you want and let go. The Background Color is

used as the background to text made with Paint's text tool.

You can select a color from an existing image by using the Eyedropper.

To use a patterned brush, click and hold on the Pattern rectangle and select a pattern or tile. The plain box is just the

foreground color, this is the default, the patterns use the background color as the secondary color. To customize a

pattern select Pattern Settings.


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Choose the colors in the gradient color palettes by clicking and holding on the Gradient Color Boxes.

Click and hold on the small black and white pointer to the left of the right color box to reveal the Gradient Settings

menu and select a setting.

Select the icon for the tool you are using, i.e. the paint bucket, then go to the pull down menu at the bottom left of

the paint window, use this menu to select Gradient

Double clicking on the Eraser icon will erase everything

VECTOR SHAPE WINDOW

The Vector Shapes window allows one to create and edit vector shapes and use them in a movie. To draw a regularshape there is a choice of rectangle, rounded rectangle and ellipse or for irregular shapes there is the pen tool. The

shape can either be filled or just the outline. The width of the outline can be adjusted using the Stroke Width menu,

this one is set to 1 point (1pt). The shape can either be open or closed, an open image however cannot be filled. The

fill can be added or removed after the initial drawing of the image using the No Fill, Solid and Gradient tools. Under

these tools are the color selectors for the gradient. The Stroke Color sets the color of the outline of the shape. The Fill

color sets the color of the inside of the shape, given that it's a closed shape. The background color sets the color of

the background. The background color can be removed using background transparent regardless of whether it is set


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to white or another color. Matte does not work on vector shapes. The Vector shape window can be accessed by

clicking the corresponding icon in the toolbar

INKS

Inks change the display of a sprite's colors. Inks are most useful to hide white bounding rectangles around images.

Copy (default)displays all original colors of the sprite. If the cast member is not rectangular, a white box appears

around the sprite. Background Transparentmakes all the pixels in the background color of the selected sprite appear

transparent and permits the background to be seen. The ink is selected using the Property Inspector of the sprite. Adisadvantage of the Background Transparent ink is that it consumes a lot of memory space and should be used

sparingly only when required. A large number of other inks like Reverse, Ghost, Blend, Lighten, Darken, Add, Subtract

etc. produce varying types of effects.


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TOOL PALETTE

CONTROL PANEL

The Control Panel helps to control the playback of an animation sequence or the entire movie as a whole. The top left

buttons allow you to step through the movie one frame at a time, forwards or backwards. Under these buttons is a

volume control for any audio in the movie. To the right of this are playback buttons and above them a box which tells

you what the current frame is. To the right of this section the numbers denote the frame rate (fps) of the movie. The

Control Panel is accessed by choosing Window > Control Panel

REGISTRATION POINT

A registration point is a dot with respect to which the location of a sprite is referenced, usually a blue-and-red dot at

the center of a bitmap sprite or at the top left corner of text sprites. A registration point provides a fixed reference

point within an image, thereby helping you align sprites and control them. Although every sprite has a default

location of the registration point, the location can be changed using the Registration Point tool in the Paint or

Vector shape window. The location of a sprite on the Stage is determined by the coordinates of its registration point,

and when a sprite is rotated, the registration point acts as the pivot point. When creating animation by tweening, the

registration point is used to determine the path over which the sprite will move.

The Tool palette provide basic tools to quickly draw filled and outline shapes, lines, text,

button, checkbox etc. with options for selecting and foreground/background color and line

width. Although the Paint window also allows you to draw similar elements, the advantage of

the tool palette is that the elements drawn using it takes up less memory than correspondingelements drawn using the Paint window. However the disadvantage is that once drawn the

elements cannot be edited unlike Paint window created elements, they would need to be

deleted and re-created if necessary.


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TEXT WINDOW

XTRA

Xtras are plug-in code modules developed by Macromedia as well as third parties, to increase the functionalities of

Director. Xtras are machine-language code often written in C or C++. Because Xtras interact at a low level with the

operating system they are platform specific. All Xtras a movie requires must be present on the user system when the

movie runs. The Movie Xtras dialog box, accessible from Modify > Movie > Xtras, contains a list of most

commonly used Xtras. Depending on the movie content Xtras are automatically inserted in the Xtra list e.g. Flash

Asset Xtra if the movie contains Flash files.

Xtras can be included in a director movie in 3 ways :

1. Include in Projector option makes Director include the Xtra in the Projector file2. Download if needed option makes Director prompt the user to download a required Xtra.3. Create an XTRAS folder containing all required Xtras, in the same folder as the Director movie. This allows you to

see which Xtras are used without opening the movie.

The Text window allows one to create text using

various fonts, styles, color, size etc. The Text

window can be accessed from the corresponding

icon in the Toolbar


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TRANSITION CHANNEL

Transitions can be used to add fade or wipe effects between two points of a movie. A transition takes place between

two sprites when placed on the first frame of the second sprite in the Transition Channel. A variety of transitions can

be selected from a Transition palette, accessed by double-clicking on a frame in the Transition channel. Duration

determines amount of time over which the transition takes place. Smoothness determines the no. of pixels affected

at a time. Increasing value reduces number of pixels and causes the transition to take place more slowly. It has more

impact on speed than duration. The transition specified becomes a cast member. The Changing Area Only option

affects the sprite in whose first frame the transition is applied. The Entire Stage option changes the entire stage. This

is slower and more resource intensive.


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Director also provides a number of behaviours for transition. These are accessed from the Library Palette in the

Animation > Sprite Transitions section. These behaviours are however attached directly to the sprites like other

behaviours and not on the Transition channel.

TEMPO CHANNEL

Tempo refers to the speed and timings related to the playback of a Director movie. The tempo of an entire movie can

be controlled by the Control Panel. This is done by inserting a value for the fps (frames per second) field. The default

value is 30 fps.

Tempo can be changed more selectively using the Tempo Channel. Specific frames in the Tempo channel can have

different values assigned to them so that different sections of the movie can play at different speeds.

The settings are applied by double-clicking a specific frame in the Tempo channel which opens the Tempo dialog

box.


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Using the Tempo option, the slider can be adjusted for a specific fps value. As the playback head passes that frame,

the playback speed of the movie is accordingly adjusted. The movie continues to play at that speed until a new tempo

setting at a subsequent frame changes the speed. As an example, this option can be used to slow down a movie when

an object rises up from the ground to simulate the effect of deceleration, and then speed up the movie when the

object falls back to ground to simulate the effect of acceleration.

The Wait option is used to halt playback for a specified time duration. The playback head stands still on theconcerned frame for the time duration before continuing on. As an example, this option can be used to let the user

read small amounts of textual instructions on the screen.

The Wait for Mouse Clickoption is used to halt playback of the movie for an unspecified or indeterminate amount

of time. The playback head stands still on the concerned frame until the user clicks the mouse or presses a key. As an

example, this option can be used to let the user read a large amount of textual content on the screen which might

take different amounts of times for different users and cannot be pre-determined.

The Wait for Cue Point option is used to halt the playback head on the concerned frame until playback of an audio

or video file reaches a specified cue-point or marker set within the audio or video file. The Channels field specifies the

audio/video file name and the Cue Point field specifies the marker name.

WORKING WITH AUDIO

Director provides two Audio Channels for playing audio files. Audio files can be imported in the standard way and

placed as cast elements and then dragged on the Score to the audio channels. Playback of audio in an audio channel

is independent of Directors playback head audio is played back at the rate at which it was recorded irrespective of

the speed at which the playback head is moving. Within the extent of an audio sprite is the playback head is made to

oscillate between two frames, the audio playback is not repeated but proceeds in a normal way.

The audio playback however depends on the length of the audio sprite. If the audio sprite is too short in length then

the playback head will pass over the sprite before the entire audio has finished playing. One way to handle this is to

use the Tempo channel to stop the playback head for a specified amount of time during which the audio file is

expected to complete. However since the audio playback duration might be unknown, a better way is to use cue-

points.

When an audio sprite length is longer than its audio playback duration, the audio playback will complete before the

Director playback head has crossed over the entire sprite. In such situations the audio will not repeat unless the Loop

checkbox in the cast member property is checked.


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Shockwave Audio :Directors built in compression method for audio is called Shockwave Audio (SWA). The SWA Xtra

compresses both internal and external sounds. When you distribute a movie compressed with Shockwave you must

include the Xtras to decompress and play the sound. It is usually used when Director movies are to be played back onthe Web using a browser. To convert WAV files to SWA files, choose Xtras > Convert WAV to SWA. Select the WAV

file to convert and click on Convert button. To add the compressed file to the internal cast, choose Insert > Media

Element > Shockwave Audio. Drag the cast member onto a sprite channel (not an audio channel).

Behaviours : Director provides 6 built-in behaviours for manipulating sound. The first 3 can be used to attach tosprites to start, pause and stop a sound. The sound is specified as the name of the cast member. The fourth

behaviour causes the system to beep when the sprite is clicked. The fifth and sixth behaviours turn a sprite into a

slider that controls the volume and pan of the sound.


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Note : If sound files are large in size, these are imported in a linked manner instead of the standard manner.

WORKING WITH VIDEO

Digital video files can be imported and played back with a Director movie. All video files are imported in a linked

manner irrespective of the option chosen (Standard or Linked) during importing. Hence video files always need to be

distributed along with the projector file. Like audio files, playback of video files is independent of the playback rate of

the Director movie. Unlike sound files, video files cannot be included in a film loop. The length of video sprites should

be sufficient to ensure that the entire video has time to complete otherwise they will be clipped. Alternatively, cue

points may be added to ensure that the entire video plays back before the playback head continues to the next sprite.


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QuickTime video : For QuickTime videos we can enable the video controller from the Property Inspector dialog box.

This create control buttons below the video sprite for forward, The QuickTime CODEC must be installed in the system

to view the video clip within Director

Direct to Stage : When you place video on Stage, Director uses the default Direct to Stage option. This option

allows for the best speed and smoothest display of the video within a Director movie. With this option enabled, the

video can be effectively synced to the soundtrack.


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One drawback of this option is that it places the digital video in front of every sprite on Stage regardless of thechannel in which the video is placed. Hence it is important to design the layout of the presentation so that the video

does not interfere with other sprites on Stage. Another drawback is that ink effects and transitions do not work on the

video sprite.

When Paused is enabled, causes the video to remain in first frame. Lingo is required to start it. When Preload is

enabled, video is preloaded into memory before starting. When Sync to Sound option is selected, Director may skip

frames if necessary in order to synchronize sound with video. To scale the video by dragging, the Scale option should

be enabled. To crop the video enable the Crop option. Cropping does not resize the video, it hides portions of it. To

keep the video centered within the cropping box, enable the Center option.

Director provides two behaviours to manipulate QuickTime video clips. The QuickTime Control Button behaviour

can be applied to a sprite to control actions like Play, Rewind, Fast Forward etc. The QuickTime Control Slider

behaviour behaves as the standard controller that can be displayed with QuickTime movies.


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LINGO SCRIPTS

Lingo is Directors internal scripting language. It allows you to manipulate objects in a movie in ways not possible by

the tools provided by the user interface. Director uses four types of scripts : frame script, sprite script, cast member

script, movie script.

Frame Scripts : These are written to tell Director to do something when the playback head reaches a specific frame

e.g. go to the frame 7, or stop moving forward and loop in the same frame. These are written in the Script Channel

and attached to the concerned frame.

on exitFrame

go to frame 7

end

on exitFrame

go to the frame

end

Sprite Scripts

These are attached to sprites on the Stage. These are written to instruct Director to do something when some event

like clicking of the mouse button, occurs on the concerned sprite.

on mouseUp

go to frame 7

end

Both the frame script and sprite script are available as cast members. Hence these can be reused on other frames and

sprites. Multiple scripts can be attached to a single sprite while only one script can be attached to a frame.

Cast Scripts


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Scripts can also be attached to cast members. In that case all sprites created from that cast member will be required

to execute that script unless explicitly overridden.

on mouseUp

go to home

end

Here home is the name of a marker.

Movie Scripts

A movie script is something that should be applicable for an entire movie instead of a single frame or sprite. Suppose

in a movie you require the playhead to be stationary in any frame but move forward by one frame on a single mouse

click.

on exitFrame

go to the frame

end

on mouseUp

go to the frame + 1end

Script Hierarchy

When the playhead moves across the frames in the Score, it may come across multiple types of scripts e.g. a movie

script applicable for the movie, a frame script for the frame and the sprite script for the sprite over which the playhead

is moving over. In addition there could a cast script for the cast member of the sprite. These different scripts might

contain conflicting commands. Thus Director needs a scheme to resolve the conflicts. This is provided by a script

hierarchy. It says that a movie script has the lowest priority, which can be overridden by a frame script, which in turn

can be overridden by a cast script, which in turn is overridden by a sprite script. Hence in case of conflicts a sprite

script will have the highest priority while a movie script will have the lowest priority.

sprite script (S) > cast script (C) > frame script (F) > movie script (M)

PUBLISHING

For distribution and playback, a Director file is converted to a Projector file which has an EXE extension and can start

playing on double-clicking without any additional software applications. However they cannot be edited.

To create a projector file select Create Projector... from the File menu.


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You will then need to select the movie file(s) you want in your projector. Click the Create... button, name the file and

select a location to save it to. The movie will then be turned into a projector file with the icon shown.

A Director movie can be saved as a Shockwave file for distribution over the Internet and play back in a Web browser.

Shockwave files are compressed files and to decode it we need the Shockwave plug-in which can be freely

downloaded and installed. Choose Files > Publish. In the Compression tab, choose Standardto use Directors own

compression scheme (suitable for limited number of colors) or JPEG. To compress audio select Compression Enabled

& bit rate. Click OK to exit from Publish Setting. This creates a file with .DCR extension and HTML file

Within the HTML file Director uses the EMBED tag to insert the Shockwave movie. The user would be prompted to

download and install the plug-in before the movie can be displayed. Playback response might be slow as the movie

needs to be decompressed before playing.

Documents

Director Part1