Introduction to

DIRECTOR

Part 1

Dr. Ranjan Parekh

School of Education Technology
JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
Calcutta 700032, India

Ranjan Parekh 1
School of Education Technology, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India
www.rp.setju.ac.in
 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 uses
the 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.

Stage Sprite Menu bar Toolbar

Play button

Cast
member

Cast

Tool
palette Frame numbers

Sprite channels
Score

Playback head

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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 of frames. 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 frame
numbers 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

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 on
Score, the location coordinates on screen, the dimensions,
rotation angle etc. The Property Inspector can be accessed from
the corresponding icon in the Toolbar

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 Next behavior when attached to a button takes the user to the next
page 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

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BEHAVIOUR INSPECTOR

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

PAINT WINDOW

Director has a Paint window where you can use

basic paint tools to create cast members.

Click the Paint Window icon on the Toolbar

to 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 the
Foreground 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 regular
shape 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 Transparent makes 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. A
disadvantage 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

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 corresponding
elements 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.

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.

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TEXT WINDOW

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

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 file
2. 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.

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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 the
concerned 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 Click option 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 Director’s 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 : Director’s 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 on
the 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 to
sprites 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 the
channel 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 Director’s 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 + 1
end

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 Standard to use Director’s 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.

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