Director 8 Primer

DENNIS CHOMINSKY, President of P/FS New Media in Totowa, NJ, teaches at Future Media Concepts, NYC's premiere certified Adobe and Avid training center. Chominsky is author of Premiere to Go (also published by Prentice Hall PTR).

(NOTE: Each Chapter ends with Summary.)

Introduction.


1. What's New in Director.


Property Inspector: A New Window. Seeing Is Believing: A Zoomable Stage. A New Look for the Cast Window. Linked Scripts. Bitmapped Compression. Save As Shockwave Has a New Name. Scalable Shockwave Movies. Keep Sprites Under Lock and Key. Position with Guides. Multiple Curve Vectors. Enhanced Lingo Performance. Control Bitmaps with Lingo.



2. Planning a Project from the Start.


Define the Project. Strategy: How To Approach the Project. A Mix of Marketing and Production. Define Your Target Audience. The 3S's: Scripts, Schematics, and Storyboards. Work Within the Boundaries of System Requirements. PC, Mac, or Both. Gather the Files. Work with Pencil Comps. Create a Few Color Comps. Choose Your Weapon: Selecting the Appropriate File Types. Prepare to Test, Test, and Re-Test. Customized Settings. Color Palettes. Utilize Third-Party Programs. Be a Neat Freak: Manage Your Movie. Do Not Name Files John Doe. Images to the Left, Behaviors to the Right. Save Time with Multiple Casts. Use Linked External Casts. Using Unlinked External Casts. Use Unlinked External Casts as Libraries. Leave a Paper Trail. Repurpose Files for Multimedia Projects.



3. Navigational Controls for Interactive Applications.


Control the Speed of Your Movie. Use the Wait Feature. Add Basic Interaction. Director: A Non-Linear World. Move Around with Markers. Name Markers. Add Comments to Markers. Next, Previous, and Repeat with Markers. The Basics of Behaviors. Use the Behavior Library. Customize Behaviors. Add Comments to Behaviors. Save Custom Behaviors. Change the Default Editor. Build Interactive Applications Using Behaviors. Control Playback with Behaviors. Create Rollovers with the Behavior Inspector. Sprite Navigation with Behaviors. Reuse Behavior Templates. I Quit.



4. Lingo Basics: An Introduction.


How Does Lingo Work? Types of Lingo Scripts. Understand Lingo Handlers. The Most Common Script. Go to Another Location. Loop Sections. Play Other Director Movies. Automatically Return to a Director Movie. Lingo Conditions: True or False. One Sprite, Two Functions. Can Scripts Make Decisions? If Shortcuts Are Needed, Then Use Case. Set Values and Variables. Global vs. Local Variables. Check a Sprite's Bounding Box with Lingo. Analyze Lingo Commands and Comments.



5. Imaging and Animation: the Keys to Director.


The Magic of Inks. When to Anti-Alias Objects. MASKS. Separate Images from the Background. Advanced Layering. Compare the Background. Transparent and Mask Ink Effects. Do You Like to Work in Photoshop? Apply Filters to Sprites. Onion Skinning. Optimize Your Design Techniques. JPEG Compression. Set the Speed of Your Movie. Frame-by-Frame Animation. Animate Multiple Cast Members in a Single Sprite. Cast to Time. Create Film Loops. Tweening. Keyframes. Tween Animations. Setting Tweening Properties. Rotate Your Sprites. Tumble Sprites In and Out. Go Too Far. Advanced Tweening: Use Multiple Keyframes. Create Better Transitions. Sprite Transitions.



6. Creating Killer Visual Effects.


Launch and Edit. Add Just the Right Color. Optimize Your Graphics. Change Image Color Depth. Design Effective Navigational Elements. Create Flashy Button Designs. Trim Down Navigational Elements. Design Buttons with Third-Party Help. Quick Shortcut to Highlight Buttons. Cool Example Using Rollovers. Support Files with Third-Party. Applications and Xtras. A Close-Up Look at an Image. My Favorite Xtras. Smoke, Fire, and a Bit of Rain. Automatic Animating Behaviors. Integrate QuickTime VR.



7. Avoiding Audio and Video Nightmares.


Optimize Digital Media Files. Tempo Controls. Wait for Cue Point. Work with Digital Media Files. AUDIO. Source Material and Digitized Sound. File Types. Convert Files. Downsample Your Audio Files. So What Is a Sample Rate? Mono or Stereo? Import Files. Glitched Sound Files. Quick Response Sounds vs. Long Tracks. Reduce Access Time to Linked Files. Loop Audio. Volume Controls. Create Adjustable Volume Controls. Wanna Be a DJ Using Volume Sliders? Digital Video Volume Controls. Fade Sounds In and Out. Use Lingo to Play External Sounds. Turn Sound On and Off. Toggle Channel Sound On and Off. Control Sound Files. The puppetSound Command. Add Sound Effects to Rollovers. Two-Channel Audio. Video. Capture Video Content. Digital Video Applications. Size and Frame Rates. The movieRate Command. Types of Files. Codecs. Work with MPEG. Import Digital Video Files. Vital Statistics. Separate Sound and Video from Digital Video Files. Loop Video Clips. Pause Video. Show Controller. Transitions and Digital Video Files. Wait for Digital Video Files to Finish. Lingo Commands That Allow Digital Video Files to Finish. Simultaneous Interactive Controls and Digital Video Playback. Interactive Scrolling Through Digital Video Files. Resize and Reshape Video Files. Scale a Digital Video File. Crop a Digital Video File. Reshape Video Files. Mask Your Videos. Direct to Stage. Export Digital Videos. Package External Files for Distribution. Test, Test, Test.



8. Tidbit Toolbox.


Move and Stretch One- and Two-Frame Sprites. Exchange Cast Members. Embed Fonts for Accurate Text Display. Upgrade from PowerPoint. Create Hyperlinks in Director. Registration Points for an Even Exchange. Reverse an Animation. Add Print Capabilities. Play Selected Frames. Work with External Executable Files. Work in the Score. Turn Sprite Channels On and Off. Turn Effect Channels On and Off. Alter the Display of Your Score. Change the Focus of Your Timeline. Locate the Playback Head. Troubleshoot Techniques. Debug Your Application. Find a Problem, Figure It Out, and Fix It. Step-by-Step Commands with Trace. Create a Limited-Time Demo. Top Secret: Add a Password. Help Users with Tooltips. Improve Text: SubScripts and Superscrips. Make Movies Special with Xtras. Find Movie Xtras.



9. Advancing Techniques with Behaviors and Lingo.


Time for Behaviors. Create Popup Menus / Drop-Down Lists. Editable Text. Set Constraints for Moveable Sprites. Set a Time Limit. Access Media on CD-ROM from Desktop Projector. Determine CD-ROM Drive Letters for Windows Systems. Score for Games. Build a Chat Room with MultiUser Server. Clear Director's Cache.



10. It's All Finished…Now Deliver It.


Prepare Your Movie for Distribution. Test Your Movie. System Requirements for Playback. Different Ways to Save Your Work. Clean Up Director Movies. Create a Projector File. Customize Projector Options. Playback. Options. Stage Size. Media. Create Small Movies. The Benefits of Creating Test Projector files. Protect External Movies for Distribution. Save as Shockwave Movies. Which Files to Include. Xtras. Installation Programs. Autostart for Auto Launch. Create Screen Savers. Interactive Screen Savers. Web Page Links from Screen Savers. Export Director Movies as QuickTime Movies. Export Your Movie as a Digital. Video File or Bitmapped File. Made with Macromedia Logo.



11. Shock It for the Web.


Multimedia's Evolution on the Web. Prepare a Movie for the Web. What is Shockwave? Create a Shockwave Movie. Director on the Web: The Pros and Cons. Set Your System's Default Browser. Embed Movies With HTML. Navigate to a Web Site. Retrieve Shockwave Movies from the Internet. Audio on the Web. Shorter Wait Times with Streaming Media. Video on the Web. Don't Forget the Plug-Ins. Add a Little Flash to Your Web site. Tips for Optimizing Your Web-Bound Movies. Test Your “Internet” Movie.



Index.