DIRECTOR MX ® 2004 Getting Started with Director Trademarks Afterburner, AppletAce, Attain, Attain Enterprise Learning System, Attain Essentials, Attain Objects for Dreamweaver, Authorware, Authorware Attain, Authorware Interactive Studio, Authorware Star, Authorware Synergy, Backstage, Backstage Designer, Backstage Desktop Studio, Backstage Enterprise Studio, Backstage Internet Studio, Contribute, Design in Motion, Director, Director Multimedia Studio, Doc Around the Clock, Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver Attain, Drumbeat, Drumbeat 2000, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Fontographer, FreeHand, FreeHand Graphics Studio, Generator, Generator Developer's Studio, Generator Dynamic Graphics Server, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track, LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Contribute, Macromedia Coursebuilder for Dreamweaver, Macromedia M Logo & Design, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Xres, Macromind, Macromind Action, MAGIC, Mediamaker, Multimedia is the Message, Object Authoring, Power Applets, Priority Access, Roundtrip HTML, Scriptlets, SoundEdit, ShockRave, Shockmachine, Shockwave, shockwave.com, Shockwave Remote, Shockwave Internet Studio, Showcase, Tools to Power Your Ideas, Universal Media, Virtuoso, Web Design 101, Whirlwind and Xtra are trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. 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THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. Copyright © 2004 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of Macromedia, Inc. Part Number ZDR10M100 First Edition: January 2004 Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Introduction. ............................................ 7 About Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 What's new in Director MX 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Guide to instructional media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Getting online help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Sources of information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Document conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 CHAPTER 2: Installing and Configuring Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 13 14 14 15 System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing Xtra extensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Connecting to the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 3: Getting to Know the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Understanding the Director metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Navigating the Director workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Getting to know the default workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Manipulating the default workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Getting to know window types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Using the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Moving around on the Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Increasing or decreasing your view of the Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Using the offstage canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Using the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Navigating the Score. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Showing and hiding the effects channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Setting the number of Sprite channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Turning channels on and off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Changing your view of the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Using the Control panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Displaying the Control panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Controlling movie playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Navigating frames in a movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Using the Cast window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3 Using the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Controlling your view of the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Setting cast member and sprite properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Setting movie properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Using the Script window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Using the Message window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Customizing your workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Customizing panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Docking panel groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Saving panel sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Opening, closing, and collapsing panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Working with Xtra extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Adding media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Adding script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Adding transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Distributing Xtra extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 CHAPTER 4: Building Your First Basic Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 What you will learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Preparing to build the movie scenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 View the completed movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Open the movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Set up the movie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 View your cast members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Building the first scene with text and an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Edit a text cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Add sprites to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Add sprites to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Add an existing button to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Create a new button cast member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Observe the difference between sprites and cast members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Edit sprites in the Score window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Change the default length of sprites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Building the second scene with animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Place the background bitmap on the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Name a cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Import media into Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Animate the image to travel up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Scrub the playhead to view your animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Animate the image to travel down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Extend the background across additional frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Change the tempo of an animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Change the span of an animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Add an existing navigation button to the Score. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Add a new navigation button to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Arrange sprites in the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Building the third scene with sound and video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Import a digital video cast member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Play the digital video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4 Contents Create a QuickTime sprite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Specify direct-to-Stage playback for a QuickTime cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Add custom buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Import a sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Add a sound to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Add navigation buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Writing scripts to control the movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Looping the playhead with Lingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Write a handler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Reuse the handler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Add a marker to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Create navigation in Lingo using marker na ...