[SECTION 2.6] [TABLE OF CONTENTS]
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2 . 5 Macromedia Director Shockwave
Macromedia Director is one of the most successful multimedia authoring and delivery programs around. It has been used for a wide variety of "real world" products. Originally a Macintoshonly system it has migrated and become a first class PC application. Director multimedia content can be authored on one platform, either the Mac or PC, and played back on either.
As multimedia vendors start to wake up to the reality of the Web, both multimedia and Web developers are starting to cooperate in joint development and delivery systems. Netscape has announced a deal with Macromedia to allow "Director Player" documents to play in a Web page. It will accomplish this using Netscape's new plug-in architecture. Director Player documents do not have to be simply oneway playback windows, they can be fully interactive multimedia experiences.
First, a little background on Director. Back in the stone ages (you know, around 7 years ago), if you wanted to do complex animation on a Macintosh you had to use something called VideoWorks. VideoWorks eventually grew up to be called Director, and was ported to the PC platform. Today, if you want to create multimedia content playable on both the Mac and PC platforms, you would be wise to check out Macromedia's Director.
Its roots as an animation system are still quite evident. It lets you set up animations on a frame by frame basis; the frame is its unit of time. The items that move and make sounds in your multimedia presentation are called "cast members." You arrange the cast members in a "script," and the actions, you specify take place over time. Using a computing language called Lingo, similar in style to HyperTalk, you can program in an object oriented way, the actions and interactions of objects and the user. Director is not simple to use and has a big learning curve. It's been called the Swiss Army Knife of multimedia authoring packages. You can do almost anything with it. In the worst case, there are mechanisms to link with native C code. There is also a large user community; thousands of experienced people are using the system.
Shockwave is Macromedia's attempt to merge the capabilities of Director with the Web. Director version 5 includes Shockwave authoring capabilities. To view a Shockwave file, you first get the Shockwave (Netscape) plug-in. When you go to a page with a shockwave animation, it gets loaded and plays inline on the Web page. Director animations can have synchronized sounds and interactions, which should enhance a Web site when used judiciously. So far the main drawback is the amount of time it takes to load the Shockwave animation. Although it is often lengthy, it can be a valuable attentiongetter.
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