The Paint window has some truly impressive features (intelligent lasso's/ink effects), but in terms of sheer flexibility, it's not in the same league as standalone applications such as Photoshop or Corel Draw. You can use it to create original artwork, but depending on your desired level of sophistication, you may find yourself choosing to create graphics elsewhere and then importing them.
One
really convenient feature of Director is that it lets you specify an external application (i.e. Photoshop) to
edit a bitmap,
digital video, or sound cast member. From the File menu, choose Preferences and then Editors
to specify your choice for each
cast member type. When you double-click a cast member, the chosen program will
now automatically be launched.
To understand the difference between bitmapped graphics and vector shape graphics, imagine a simple line: You can either physically draw the line on a piece of paper (bitmaps), or you can jot down the coordinates of point A (the starting point) and point B (the ending point). Vectors take the latter approach, juggling the mathematical representation of a line rather than the line itself. Although the computer screen will display an actual line in either case, the vector format is a lot more versatile.
A vector's mathematical description isn't
just length and shape; it also includes fill color and thickness of the
line. This makes it possible to resize them without
introducing any distortion. Moreover, they require a lot less
disk and memory space and will download and animate much faster
when used on the Web.
Along with specifying font, size, and style, you can set tabs, margins, leading (line spacing), and kerning (letter spacing) values. What's especially impressive is Director's ability to display text on the screen in anti-aliased form, which means the characters are smooth edged rather than jagged. and it's all done in the Text window. You can type directly in the Text window, or you can import files saved as plaint text (ASCII), saved in Riched Text Format (RTF), or saved as HTML documents. RTF is supported by many word processing applications and preserves some formatting niceties. Director 7 recognizes most HTML tags.
Text is handled slightly differently in the Field window. there are no tabs, paragraph formats or typographic controls, and when placed on the stage, a field cast members won't animate as quickly as a text cast member. The main advantage of fields is that they take up a lot less space.
The Tool Palette is designed to deposit its creations directly on the Stage. If you use Tool Palette's Text Tool, your subsequent typing will make an automatic entry in the Text window. Click the field tool, and the text will go into a Field window instead.
Some of the tools in the Tool Palette look identical tro those in the Paint window, but
there's an important
difference: lines and shapes created here are storen in a form that takes up less file space
than bitmapped graphics, and
they're easily modifiable at any point after their creation.
You can edit the colors of a palette in two ways. the first is by selecting the color and then using the hue, saturation and brightness arrows to modify the color. This doesn't let you see the results of your actions, so here's a better method.
It's easier to import a piece of artwork with the color values you want to use. You can then import not only the artwork but its palette, which Director will display in the Color Palettes window.
Director movies can incorporate QuickTime movies and AVI movies, and you can even export a Director movie as a digital movie in either format.
When you import a digital video file into Director it takes up residence in the Cast window and can be viewed in the QuickTime or Avi Video window. The logistics of a movie within a movie can get pretty thorny, especially since both can have independent playback rates.
For scripting, look at the advanced pages.
Director 7 has several features designed to encourage you to use readymade behaviours whenever possible, and one way this shows up in the interface is the Library Palette, which lets you drag behaviours right onto your sprites or into a frame in the behaviour channel.
Director will walk you through the process of supplying any required extra
information for the behaviour. you
can now include some pretty impressive behaviours for creating animation,
navigation, user interfaces, and even an analogical
clock.
draft version 0.5 (12/3/2001)
The Vector Shape window
The Text window
The Field window
The Tool Palette
The tool Palette's other strength is its button-creation
function. if you want to create buttons with built-in
animations that underscore their 'button-ness' this is the source.
But keep in mind, that anything residing on the
Stage can be turned into a button.
The Color Palettes window
The Digital Video window
The Script window
The Library Palette
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