ART279 - 3D Computer Graphics Design II
Spring 2002 - NVCC - Giulio Porta

Web Animation - Director

By Holly Zell


Assignment #9a
Create and Organize a Movie

This project required using Macromedia's Director  to complete an assignment to give the student a basic understanding of Director capabilities. 
A 30 day trial version of Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio was downloaded and used to create this animation. 

Click the arrow button in the bottom left corner to play

"A Day in May"

 

 

 

The Cast Members(Symbols)

Cast Members can be generated inside Director using the Paint or Vector windows. You can also Import graphics images created in other applications, sound files, animated GIFs, Flash movies, other Director Movies and Power Point presentations.
I created the boy and the crow in Adobe Photoshop. The remaining elements of the movie were created in Director using the Paint window.
I also created a Button (Play) to allow the viewer to play the movie when desired.

I used 4 types of cast members: Bitmaps, Wavs, a Button, and Behaviors to create this movie.

              

    

 

 

The Score(Timeline)


The top portion of the Score window are the Special Effects Channels that control your media. 
They are the Tempo, Palettes, Transitions, 2 Sounds (allows overlapping), and a Behavior Channel.
For this animation I used 3 sounds using both Sound Channels. Since they did not overlap, I could have put them all on one Sound Channel.
I placed a stop playing command at the last frame of the movie in the Behavior Channel. (More about that below)
The bottom portion of the Score window contain the Sprites Channels. 
Sprites are numbers 1-1000 with he higher channels appearing on the Stage in front of sprites in lower channels (layers).
A Sprite is each occurrence of a Cast Member on the Stage.(Instance)
Cast Members are Dragged in from the Cast Window at the desired frame and a Sprite is created.

Movie at Various Frames

Frame 1

Frame 20

Frame 60

Frame 80

Frame 100

Frame 120

Frame 140

Frame 180

 

Graphic Animation Paths

Crow #1 Path
Crow travels from left to right and shrinks 

Kite Path
Kite travels from bottom right corner to upper left corner and shrinks

String Path
The kite String move from bottom right to upper left and shrinks

Crow#2 Path
The 2nd Crow travels from right the left

Boy Path
The Boy travels up and shrinks into the right corner.

Dog Path
The Dog travels straight up.

Sky Path
The sky travel down from a darker to a lighter blue

These images show the Paths each Cast Member moves along in the course of the movie. The Black rectangular box is the actual camera view. The Cast Members are presented in order of appearance. All cast members except the sky travel from outside the camera view, into the camera view with image size decreasing to give distance perspective.
Paths can be modified to accelerate or decelerate a Sprite's movement.
(Like paths in trueSpace)

 

Lingo Scripting Language(ActionScript)

Shockwave movies loop by default. To cause a Shockwave movie to play only once, you must add the
  Hold on Current Frame behavior to the last frame of the movie.
This is accomplished as follows:
Open the Library Palette, Choose Navigation, Scroll down to the Hold on Current Frame behavior, Drag and Drop it
 into the Behavior Channel for the last frame of the movie. (Frame #200)
Behaviors are scripts attached to Sprites or Frames and appear as Cast Members.



I attached a simple Lingo Script to the Play Button. (see below)
When the viewer clicks it with the left mouse button, the movie goes to frame 1 and plays.

on mouseUp

go to frame 1

end

 

Comparing Flash and Director

Users knowledgeable in Flash will have no problem quickly becoming familiar with Director. Flash and Director are both Macromedia products and share the same concepts but use different terminology.

Flash Symbols have their own timelines in addition to the movie's timeline. 
Director movies have only one timeline called the Score. Cast Members do not have independent timelines/scores.

Director's Lingo scripting language is more english-like making it easier for non-programmers whereas, Flash's ActionScript is based on JavaScript which is very syntax sensitive.

Flash is a web design tool. It is limited in the number of images and types of media that can be used and creates small files sizes (it's big advantage over AVIs).
Whereas Director is a true multimedia authoring tool allowing interactive content with a large variety of media types (images, sound, animation, and flash). 

Note: Macromedia products are fast becoming industry standards.

References

I made extensive use of the online Help and Macromedia's Online Director Support Center to help me understand how to use Director.
I also used the Visual Quickstart Guide book Director For Macintosh & Windows 8 by Andre Persidsky in completing this assignment.
The Visual Quickstart Guide series of books are usually well written with lots of pictures to illustrate how to do things. I recommend them.
I could not find as many library resources for Director as I found for Flash.


Back to Director Assignment Page


İHolly A Zell
Revised: September 22, 2007
All Original Artwork Copyrighted.