Review: Macromedia
Director 8 Shockwave Studio
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by
Don Herion
4.5/5
Geeks
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The
last time I used Macromedia Director was with version 6.5. So I was very interested
in seeing the improvements made to this powerful multimedia program. For those
unfamiliar with this product, Director empowers designers to combine graphics,
sound, animation, text and video to build streaming, multiuser, interactive content
that can be viewed on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and the Web.
Flash
or Director - the Eternal Question
The debate of which program
you really need to create multimedia Internet content is being debated more and
more as Flash reaches a very mature level of capability. Macromedia sees Flash
as the program to use for creating Web navigation systems, Ecommerce stores, and
animation. Director is seen as the best tool for creating games, Internet kiosks
and product simulations due to its more sophisticated Lingo programming language.
Directoring
Your Movie
The interface for release 8 has not changed greatly. Most of
your work takes place in one of four windows; the stage, where you assemble your
project; the cast, where you store all graphic, multimedia, text and programming
elements; the score, where you edit your cast members (AKA sprites) location within
the timeline; and, property inspector, where you can edit specific properties
of individual sprites and the overall movie.
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| Screenshot of Director 8 - Improved but still cluttered |
