Director Tutorial

Converting Your Movie to a Projector
and
Shocking Your Movie for the Web

 
Converting Your Movie to a Projector
  Once you have created a movie (file with .dir), it is time to create a free-standing production.  Projectors are the only way to make a Director production a completely self-contained creation. 

  First SAVE all changes to the movie file and then proceed.

  From the FILE menu, select CREATE Projector.

 

 
  Navigate to the location where your source movie is stored to display in the source window. 

  Select the movie that you wish to add, then click the ADD button.

 
  The movie is listed in the file list field.  If you desire, you can include more than one movie in a projector and specify that the projector play them in the order they are listed in the window.

  Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to rearrange the order in which the movies are played. 

  Since is simple to use LINGO to link one movie to another, generally you will only place one movie in a projector and allow the LINGO to handle the rest.  The advantage is that the size of the projector will be smaller and allows it to load faster.  **NOTE:  You will still need to provide the other movies your are linking to in order that the LINGO will work. 

 
  In the Projector Options dialog box, you can change the playback and performance of the projector.  Below is a brief explanation of the different options.

  Play Every Movie - When this is NOT checked, the projector will play only the first movie listed - unless that movie contains LINGO that lauches subsequent movies.  Generally, this will be left UNCHECKED.

  Animate in Background - refers to the times when the projector itself is in the background.   If left unchecked, the projector will freeze when it is not active; if it is checked, the program will attempt to carry out any assigned tasks.

  Full Screen - displays the movie over the entire screen, concealing any other windows from view.  Selecting to show the movie in a window is the other choice.  Then select Show Title Bar as well.

 
Stage Size - Used when two or more movies are being bundled together that use different stage sizes. Use Movie Settings the stage appear in the same dimensions as when the movie was created.  Match First Movie - when selected, all subsequent movies will be placed on the same size STAGE as the first one.  Generally it is good to use the same size Stage for all movies of the same project.

  Center - Keeps the stage in the middle of the screen.  If this is not checked, the Stage will appear as determined by the Movie Properties settings.

  Player - Standard option creates a projector that contains all the files needed to run the movie in an uncompressed format. 

Compressed option creates all files needed to urn the movie in a compressed format.  It is about half the size of the standard player option, but it takes much longer to start playing because it has to be decompressed.

  Shockwave - creates a projector that assumes the user has Shockwave installed and uses Shockwave to play the movie.  Usually used for the Internet, which will be explained later in this tutorial. 

  Once all the options are choosen, Click the OK button.

 
  Once the movie (or movies) are imported and all the options have been choosen, select Create.

  Next you will see a dialog box asking where the projector will be placed and the name it should have.  The default name is Projector.

  Finally, Click SAVE.  You should see a status box while it complies the projector, when it is complete, you'll be returned to your movie.

  To try out the projector, quit Director and goto the location where the projector has been saved.  You will find a new file with its own icon.  Double-click the icon to launch the projector.  Now you should see your movie without the director support windows and menu choices. 

 
Publishing a Director Movie to the Web using Shockwave.
  If your presentation will be uploaded to the Internet, you can use Shockwave, which will create a compressed version of the original product.  Unlike a projector, a Shockwave movie is not a stand-alone application.    Tips for creating movies specifically for Shockwave.

  Minimize the number of Cast members - remove any Casts members that are not used in the movie.  Instead of using multiple versions of an image to indicate a change in color or size, use tweening, Lingo, ink effects, and sprite properties to modify the sprites of a single image. 
  Make images and sounds as low-res as is practical - This will make the product load quicker for viewing via the Internet.    Use images that can be compressed - Shockwave compression capability will compress images based on their complexity.
  Simplify while streaming - Avoid having complex animation going on at the same time that the movie will be streaming new data.  Use introductory scenes: Use a simple animation to hold the user's attention while other media is being loaded.    Test to see if the media is loaded - Loop simple animations until the media is needed for more complex scenes.  Use behaviors to test for the media before branching to the new scene. 
  Avoid long repeat - while loops - These can cause the system not to respond to the user, making it appear that the system is hung.   Don't loop continuously - If a movie has a permanent playback loop will use up a system's RAM as long as the page is open.  Free up RAM by having the movie pause after a certain period, or give the viewer the ability to pause it. 

 
 
Creating a Shockwave version of a movie to use on the Internet.
Once all changes to the movie has been made and the movie has been saved, choose File > Publish Settings.

  Under the Formats tab, select the HTML Template that you will use for the movie.  You may use the Shockwave Default.
  Then click OK.  From the FILE menu, select SAVE and Compact.  Save and Compact optimzes the movie by reordering elements of the movie, so that they more accurately reflect their order during playback.
  Then click OK.  Next choose File>>Publish>>OK to overwrite your previous file. 

  Once the publish process is done, you will notice that Director created two files with the same name as your director movie file. 

Filename.dir -- This is the director movie file you have been owrking on all the time. 

Filename.htm -- This is the HTML (webpage) file created by Director when you published it. This HTML file will launch the shockwave movie so it can be seen in the web. 

Filename.dcr -- This is the shockware version of your movie that will be uploaded on the net. 
Compressing the movie in Shockwave
  Just to give an idea of what Shockwave does...A movie that is 70k in size before being Saved and Published using Shockwave, becomes a presentation slightly under 25k. 

  If the average user can download 2k of data per second, the download time has been reduced from 35 seconds to 12 seconds.