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Introduction

What is Director?

Macromedia Director is a very powerful and versatile multimedia authoring program. It can be used to create interactive CD-ROMs, internet presentations, and even complex computer games. It is similar to Macromedia Flash, but it can work with a wider variety of files, can create more complex interactivity, and, unlike Flash, it can create stand-alone projectors (i.e. a program that contains all the necessary components to run itself, unlike browser-based Flash).

The basic functions of Director are visually-based and relatively straight forward. If you have used Flash before, the working environment will seem very familiar. As you add more complex interactivity and require special functions, the program requires more knowledge of lingo, Director's "programming" language. Many of these functions are accessible through Director's script libraries, and so it is still possible to use many of the program's features without memorizing the entire lingo dictionary (which does happen to be in the DMC's book collection, just in case.)

If your computer has the latest Shockwave software plugin, you can see some examples of Director projects. If you do not have this plugin, you can get the free download at the Macromedia Download site. You can watch a very short visual demonstration of a Director presentation, or you can look at some of the very advanced projects that are being created by cutting-edge companies.

Since Director is quite a complex program, this helpsheet cannot cover more than the basic points. If you are learning the program, you may wish to work with the interactive tutorial that is included with Director, in addition to referring to the Director manual. An informal tutorial can also be set up with one of the DMC Staff.

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Working Space

The area in Director where all the action occurs is called the STAGE. The stage is all that will appear in your final presentation, and can be set to many different sizes, from the size of a web-banner to full-screen, depending on the needs of your project. The media elements which you include in a Director presentation (photos, audio, text, video, etc.) are called the CAST, and once they are added to the stage, they are called SPRITES. The area where you "instruct" the cast members how long to appear, and also give instructions for their various actions, is called the SCORE. The project which you create is called a MOVIE. Do not confuse this term with Quicktime of AVI movies that you may use in your project.

The basic process works like this: you import or create cast members, which you then can add to the score at the point/s you wish them to appear. The cast members are represented in the score by horizontal blue lines, with each "frame", or section of time, is represented by a vertical column. You can add cast members directly to the stage, and they will appear in the score at the corresponding frames. Once a cast member is placed on the score or stage, they are referred to as sprites. At that point, all the fun begins . . .

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Initial Settings

When you first open Director, it will be set to the most recently used settings. To change these, select Modify>Movie>Properties. This dialogue box will appear:

You can use it to change the stage size (use the arrow to the right to view a menu of standard stage sizes), the number of channels (see the explanation of the score for more information), the background color of the stage, and the color palette. If your Director project will end up on the internet, or will need to be viewed on both Macs and PCs, it is best to set the color palette to Web 216.

The control panel allows you to play and stop the Director movie. One particular setting that can cause problems/confusion is the loop button. When selected, it will repeat your movie over and over again until you hit stop. If you want Director to stop after one play through, simply deselect the loop button.

 

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The Cast

The cast is made up of all the media elements which you will use in the presentation. Cast members can include such items as text, graphics, audio, and video. There are two ways to get cast members: you can either import them, or you can create them in Director. You can create text, simple bitmaps, and vector shapes in Director. All other files need to be imported.

The cast can be viewed in two different ways: either by icon, or in a list.

You can change the viewing style by clicking the "cast view style" button near the top left.

Importing Cast Members

To import a cast member into Director, select File>Import. You will be able to browse through files to find the ones you want to use. If you only need one file, select it, and then click "import". If you want to import a number of files, click "add" after you select each file. Once all the files you want to import appear on the list, then click "import".

Supported files include: bitmaps, PICT's, JPEG's, GIF's, animated GIF's, various audio formats, other Director movies or casts, Quicktime, Realmedia, Shockwave 3D, Shockwave Flash, AVI, Havok Physics Scene, and both text and rich-text.

Note: If you need to import a Power Point presentation, you can do this by going to Extras>Import Power Point File.

Creating Cast Members

You can create and edit text, bitmaps, and vector shapes in Director. You can view the editing windows for each of these by going through the Window menu, or by clicking the buttons at the top:

[Terminology: Bitmaps are images made up of a collection of pixels. The larger they are, the more pixels they include, which increases the file size. When scaled, they have a tendency to distort or become "blocky". Vector shapes are created by mathematical equation, and will look exactly the same when scaled to any size. The file size also remains the same at any size.]

Each window has a similar control bar at the top. This allows you to add new cast members of that type, scroll through cast members just of that type, and view the name of the current cast member.

 

The bitmap window is like a "paint" program, or can also be used to edit any bitmaps that you have imported into the cast. You can also create bitmaps directly on the Stage using options from the tool palette. The vector shape window operates similarly to the paint window, except that it creates vector shapes instead of bitmaps. The text window allows you to enter in text, or cut and paste it from elsewhere. You can also enter text directly onto the stage using the text option from the tool palette.

NOTE: when creating cross-platform projects (especially for the web), make sure to use standard fonts. If you use a font which other computers do not have, you will need to imbed the font in your project (refer to the Director Help menu for more information on this.)

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The Score

The score is a visual representation of time. Each vertical column represents a frame, and each horizontal numbered row represents a channel. The channels are where you place cast members, which then are referred to as sprites. The rows above the gray bar with frame numbers are the "special effects" channels, which are dedicated to certain things such as transitions, pauses, and audio tracks. To be visually helpful, every 5th frame is marked in gray.

Adding Cast Members to the Movie

Once you have created and/or imported the files you need, you can begin to add them to your presentation. There are two ways to do this: drag a cast member directly on to the stage and place it exactly where you wish it to appear, or drag a cast member on to the score. When a cast member is placed on the stage, it appears on the next available channel on the score at the current frame. When a cast member is placed on the score, it appears at the center of the stage. Once the cast member is placed, it is then called a sprite.

You can tell what frame you are at by the vertical red line, or playback head, on the score, as well as by the frame counter in the control panel:

 

Once a sprite is in the score, it appears as a blue line. Its beginning is marked with a circle, and the end with a rectangle. These end markings indicate key frames. Key frames can also be added in the middle of sprites for certain situations when a change needs to occur.

You can stretch a sprite out across more frames by dragging the final key frame, or shrink it by moving the opposite direction. Once a sprite is decreased to once frame, it appears only as a circle keyframe:

In order to extend the sprite from a single frame, hold Control (PC) or Command (Mac) as you drag it.

You can change the default span of frames that a sprite occupies by going to File>Preferences>Sprite, and change the "span duration".

When placing sprites on the score, it is important to remember that a sprite on a lower number channel will appear in front of a sprite on a higher number channel. The only exception to this is digital video (i.e. Quicktime or Real Media movies) which always appear in the foreground.

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Working with Sprites

Once a sprite is on the stage, there are many options for their appearance and movement.

You can:

Inks

As you begin to place sprites on the stage, you may notice a few things. One of the initial things will be that, when you are working with a stage that has a dark background color, there may be white areas around sprites. This can also be observed when one sprite partially covers another sprite.

For an example:

Step One: set the background color of your movie to black (see initial settings.)

Step Two: select a color from the toolbox:
Step Three: Create a text cast member.
Step Four: Place it on the stage. You will see at this point how the sprite has a large area of white around it, also known as the bounding box. While this will not show up right away if your stage is white, it will become obvious if part of this sprite covers another sprite. In order to change this, you can change the ink, or appearance, or the sprite.
Step Five: make sure the sprite is selected (click on it from either the stage or the score.) Select "background transparent" from the ink setting on the Property Inspector box.
Step Six: The sprite now should appear in "background transparent" ink.

You can test the different inks to see what effect they create for your particular situation.

Mask Ink

One of the inks that is very useful, but which has some specific requirements, is the "mask" ink. This ink will overlay one bitmap over another, and delete the difference.

In order to use it, place the cast member you wish to use directly before the bitmap which will affect it. In this case, the bitmap "shepherd" will be used, and the bitmap "2" will affect it.
Place the first cast member on the stage, and make sure that it is selected:
Go to the sprite properties box, and change the ink to "mask". You can select the percent of the masking effect at this point.
The sprite on the stage will now appear with the mask ink. Note that the second cast member is never place on the stage.

 

Fading, Rotating, and Skewing

For an increased sense of motion in your presentations, you can add a variety of effects to your sprites. One of the most basic and useful elements is to change the blend of sprites, especially text, so that it appears to "fade" in or out of the presentation. You can also change the blend for a sprite's entirety, which can create a translucent effect. Another useful possibility is rotating, which can either make a sprite appear at a different angle, or can make the sprite's rotation change during a certain period, creating a spinning effect. Skewing distorts the appearance of a sprite by skewing to the left or the right. NOTE: If you are working with bitmaps, you can change the rotation, skew, or even warp the actual cast member in the paint (bitmap) editing window as well.

To "fade in" your sprite":

1) select the first frame of the sprite in the score (alt-click on PC, command-click on Mac)

2) change the blend in the property inspector box to a lower number. Generally, 10-20% works fine. For a fade-in from nothing, type in "0" and press enter ("0" is not an option on the pull down menu.)

3) select the frame in which the sprite will be completely blended. If this is at the last frame of the sprite, select that frame with either alt-click or command-click. If it is in the middle of the sprite, alt-click or command-click that frame, and then add a keyframe (Insert>Keyframe). Make sure just that key frame is selected.

4) change the blend back to 100%, or any other level you choose.

To "fade out" your sprite:

Follow the same steps as above, but start with 100% blend, and go to a lower % blend.

To change the blend of the entire sprite:

Select the entire sprite, rather than a single frame, and change the blend to the desired percentage.

Rotating

To make a sprite appear at a (static) rotated angle, select the entire sprite, and change the degree of rotation in the property inspector.

To make the sprite change rotation angle while on the stage (i.e. to spin) select the final frame, or create a keyframe (Insert>Keyframe) if you wish the movement to stop before the end. Change the rotation in that single frame. For example, if you wish the sprite to spin once around, select the final frame, and type "360" into the rotation angle box. If you want it to spin in the opposite direction, type "-360" into the box.

Skewing

In order to skew a sprite, change the skew angle in the Property Inspector box.

The normal sprite:	Sprite skewed at 50 degrees:	Sprite skewed at 150 degrees:

As with rotation, if you wish the sprite to appear skewed the entire time, select the entire sprite, and then change the skew angle in the box. If you wish it to change skew amount during the time on stage, select the last frame where you wish change to occur, and then change the skew amount in that frame only.

Animation (Tweening)

Any cast member can be moved around the stage during a presentation. The smoothness of the movement will depend on the cast member (vector shapes, for instance, can be animated much more smoothly than high-resolution bitmaps), as well as the speed of movement across the screen, and the frame rate.

When you select a single keyframe of a sprite on the score (such as the first or last frame, or a new keyframe which you have created), you will see a blue or green dot appear, depending on which frame you are in.

1) Select the entire length of the sprite by clicking on a non-key-frame, and move the sprite to its starting point (this can be off the stage if you like.)
2) Select the single "destination frame", or final frame where there will be movement, on the Score.
3) Drag the sprite to its final destination on the Stage. If you wish a perfectly horizontal or vertical line, hold the "shift" key while you drag the sprite. A dotted line will appear to show the path of the sprite.
4) If you wish for the sprite to deviate from its straight path, select a single dot by alt-clicking (PC) or option-clicking (Mac). This creates a new keyframe in the Score. You can now drag that "dot" on the Stage anywhere you like, and that will be the new path for the sprite.

If you want the sprite to start out by moving but then come to a stop, you can do this either by script (if you want the entire movie to stop or hold at that frame), or you can copy the last frame of the sprite, paste it in the next frame, and then stretch it out using the alt-drag (PC) or command-drag (Mac).

Any text created in Director 8.5 can be set to appear as 3D. Once the text is placed on the stage, select it, and go to the Property Inspector box. If the Property Inspector box is not visible, go to Window>Inspectors>Property.

Change the display mode to "3D Mode"	Select the "3D Extruder" section of the Property Inspector.	Now you can modify the the various aspects of the 3D display.

 

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Special Effects Channels

At the top of the score are seven channels that are referred to as the "special effects" channels.

Tempo

The tempo channel allows you to set or change the frame rate, measured in frames-per-second (fps) as well as setting stop points. It can also be used to synchronize a Director movie with audio or video. To add a tempo change, double click the tempo channel on the frame where you would like the change to occur.

For reference on setting the tempo/frame rate: AVI and Quicktime movies are between 12-15 fps, standard feature movies are filmed at 24 fps, PAL (European video standard) is 25 fps, and NTSC (North American video standard) is 30 fps. Tweening appears much smoother at a high frame rate, but this requires more processor speed, and will require a large file for the same amount of viewing time as a movie with a slower frame rate.

In addition to frame rate changes, the tempo channel allows you to completely stop the movie for a given amount of time. To pause the selected frame, select the "wait" box, and set the number of seconds that you want the pause to last. When you do this, the movie will effectively freeze for that time period. If you wish to remain on a frame while keeping the movie active, see the explanation of scripts.

Another option is to pause the movie until the user clicks the mouse or presses any key.

Synchronizing with Audio and Video:

When you have an audio file in your audio channel, you can also select "wait for cue point" and specify "end" in the tempo channel. This is a useful way to keep your score compact: if you simply want to wait for the end of the audio before your next change, you can make your audio sprite a few frames long (looped), and add a tempo change with "wait for cue point: end" in the last frame. Once the end is reached, your presentation will continue. Note: be sure not to place the tempo change too late, so that the cue is not reached before the tempo change.

If you are including an audio file that contains cues, you can select "wait for cue point" which will pause your movie until that cue point is reached. Note: Quicktime and AIFF files with cue points only work on Mac, and the DMC does not currently own software that can add cues to these file types (Sound Edit 16 or Peak LE.) If you wish to add markers on PC, add them using Sound Forge or Cool Edit Pro, and save your file as a .WAV for best results. In Sound Forge, you can add a marker simply by going to the point you wish on your sound file and pressing "m".

Color Palette

Note: Color palette changes do not work on web presentations. They are only useable for stand-alone projects.

The color palette channel allows you to change the selected set of colors during a presentation. This can create interesting visual effects, or can allow you to have access to colors that are not available in your starting palette. See the Director manual for more information on this feature.

Transitions

Transitions are very useful for moving from one section of a movie to another in a visually interesting way. There are 51 different transitions available, and most of them can be set to last a varying length of time. You can also vary the smoothness of the transition.

To apply a transition,go to the frame at the beginning of the new section.

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Double click the transition channel, and the transition dialogue box (above) should appear. Make your selections, and click "o.k." To change the setting, double click on the transition sprite (indicated by the "3" in the picture above.)

Audio Channels

Director provides two channels for audio. You can place any standard audio file in your cast, and then drag it to the audio channel. If you simply place the cast member there, it will play for the duration of the audio sprite and then stop--meaning that it can easily cut off before the file is finished. It is important to remember that even if the audio works on your current setup, if you are just placing the audio sprite (as opposed to the loop technique described below,) it may not synchronize the same way on a different setup. If you choose to simply place the audio on the channel, make sure to stretch it for much longer than it "needs" to make sure that the file plays in entirety.

Another option is to "loop" the sound. This is a little different from what one might think. A long audio file that is only extended for a few frames, but is looped, will playback for its entirety and then stop. If the audio file is short, and its sprite is extended for longer than the duration of the audio, the audio will repeat until the sprite ends.

Alternate Audio Option:

Another option altogether is to bypass the audio channel by using Quicktime audio files. Quicktime audio and video files are treated like regular cast members/sprites in Director, and can be placed at any point in a sprite channel. You can still use the loop option on these sprites, and this allows them to take up as little as one frame.

Script Channel

The Script Channel is the place to add scripts affecting entire frames. See the Simple Scripts section for more information on these frame scripts.

Adding Markers

When you play a Director movie, the program will move from beginning to end, frame by frame, unless it receives other directions. If you want your project to be able to jump from one point to another, you need to first add markers. You can then give instructions to Director about how/when to jump to certain markers via behaviors in the behavior library or through the use of simple scripts. While you can also navigate by using frame numbers, markers are much more versatile, as they are moveable.

The markers are added at the top of the score:

To add a marker, double click in the marker bar. A new marker appears. You can rename it by clicking the name and typing in a new one. You can move it by dragging it with the mouse to any other location.

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Adding Interactivity

You can give a Sprite various properties with Lingo, which is similar to a simple programming language. You can write your own scripts in the frame script channel (directly below the audio channels on the score) or in each sprite's script box, or you can use pre-programmed behaviors that are included in the library. Almost all the behaviors that you would need to use in a standard Director movie are included in the library.

Some of the most frequently used behaviors (and the category under which they are listed):

To open the library palette, click on the book icon on the top tool bar:

There are several categories to the tool. To select a different one, click on the library list.

To use a behavior from the library, drag it on a sprite in the score. Depending on which behavior you select, a dialogue box may appear, which will allow you to change the settings for that behavior. If Director does not allow you to drag the behavior on to the sprite, it means that the sprite is not "qualified" for that behavior. For instance, a 3D behavior does not work on a 2D text sprite--you must change the text to 3D mode.

Simple Scripts

Scripts are lines of lingo that instruct certain aspects of the program to act/interact. You can have either frame scripts, which affect an entire frame, or sprite scripts, which just affect a single sprite. The frame scripts are added in the script channel, while the sprite scripts are added via the cast window. There are a few simple scripts that are invaluable for even the most basic projects.

Frame Scripts

To Hold the Movie on an Active Frame:

The script used to hold a movie on a certain frame is different from simply pausing or holding a presentation by using the tempo channel. The tempo channel's options freeze a frame, while the following script plays the same frame over and over. This option allows all links and sprites, as well as audio and video, to remain active.

In order to make the movie repeat a certain frame until it is given a command to do otherwise, double click on the Scripts Channel at the specific frame which you want held.
The Behavior window appears.
Type "go the frame" in the middle line. You can then close the window.

Once the frame is held, you can allow movement again by a sprite script such as the following one that tells Director to go to a different frame

Sprite Script

You can assign a behavior to the sprite by using the behavior library. You can also "manually" write the script in the sprite's script window.

To open the window, select a sprite in the cast, and click on the script icon at the top of the cast window:

The script window will appear:

One of the most useful scripts is to make the movie jump to a certain frame or marker when the sprite is clicked.

The script for this actions is: "go frame X" or "go to marker X" where X represents the number/name of the target frame/marker. For example, on the line after "on mouseUp", type in "go frame 34". This will mean that when your movie is playing and sprite "sample" is clicked, on the release of the mouse button the movie will jump to frame 34. Note: for this to work, the frame needs to be active. The "hold frame" command in the tempo bar renders the frame as "paused", not active. Use the go the frame command instead.

The rollover images in the sample Director movie are examples of sprites with a "go to frame X" script. When they are clicked, the Director movie jumps to the specified frame.

 

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Exporting and Publishing

Director offers several options for exporting or publishing your Director movie:

To export frames as BMP images, AVI, or Quicktime select File>Export. This will bring up an export dialogue box.

The dialogue box allows you to select the current frame, the selected frames (select frames as you would select text in a word processor), all frames, or a frame range. PC allows you to save a DIB File Sequence (numbered bitmaps), and Mac allows you to save in PICT, PICS, and Scrapbook formats (Mac BMP image formats.) PC allows you to save in both Quicktime and AVI, while Mac only allows for Quicktime. Remember that none of these formats will retain any interactive functions.

If you want to publish your Director movie to the web, you will need to publish it as a Shockwave file. To start, select File>Publish settings:

This allows you to give the name for your new shockwave file, as well as the html file that will be created as well. If you will be adding your shockwave file to a Dreamweaver page, the html page is not necessary--just select "insert>media element>shockwave" in Dreamweaver to add the movie.

The Publish Settings also gives you options for various other aspects of the shockwave file, such as the amount of compression. For more information on the specifics of these settings, select "help" and look up "publish settings" on the Director help index. To test the current settings, go to File>preview in browser.

Once you have made your selections, you can save your shockwave file by going to File>Publish.

If you want to save your movie as a stand-alone projector, go to File>Create Projector. A stand-alone projector is an application that contains your Director movie as well as all the files needed to run it. This is what you would select if you were to make a CD-ROM presentation, for instance.

The "Create Projector" window shows the basic projector size before you add your files, and then the resulting size as you add files. If you simply have one Director movie to save, select that one. If you have several movies that you wish to be played in a row, or if you have additional movies that are used within the initial movie (refer to "movie in a window" section of the Director manual for more information about this possibility), you should add these as well. If you select the "options" menu, you will see another window:

Once you click "o.k." on the options menu, you can double check the files that have been added to your projector, and then select "create."

 

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Working with Director on the DMC's Dell Dimension 4500

Every computer has its quirks. Two that have been noticed on the Dell: