Adobe Director

Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director ) is an authoring system to create complex, interactive, multimedia Internet, DVD, CD -ROM and kiosk applications. It features the individual object oriented programming language Lingo ( and JavaScript) and integrates a variety of available media.

General Description

With Director, you can program for Windows and Mac OS generate ( cross-platform development). This Director applications can be streamed as. " DCR " over the Internet or downloaded for offline use and are platform independent used in Web browsers that have installed the free Shockwave plug-in. This browser plug-in has according to Adobe, a spread of 406 million installations (12/ 07).

Director can comfortably integrate a wealth of audiovisual media types, including Flash movies. In contrast to authoring programs such as Adobe Flash Director provides the ability to import real 3D objects and to control in real time. The quality always offered on the Internet 3D games and applications are usually realized with Director, as a Shockwave 3D. With Director interactive " Enhanced DVD " can be created. It takes Director of the DVD -ROM portion of a hybrid DVD to video DVD to part and thus can play back MPEG -2 videos present in the particular for the computer interactive application. Also, video - DVD content in the browser with online information can be linked via exports to the Shockwave format.

Many audio CDs also have a piece of data - inserted into a PC - turns the audio CD into a multimedia product. Such advanced features are also very often developed with Director.

The immense range of functions can be extended by additional modules. These additional modules are called Xtras. There are both free and paid Xtras. You can extend the functionality of the programming language Lingo, make more media types ( for example, PDF, QuickTime, databases, Photoshop image files) available or allow eg access and control of special devices. In addition, there Xtras that extend the functionality of the development environment. Xtras may include in the programming language C to be developed; Even the basic version includes numerous Director Xtras. This modular design allows the file size of programs director is only as large as necessary for the application.

Director continues to be the standard tool for creating multimedia kiosk, CD -ROM and DVD applications. It was formerly used for post production in film and is now in combination with the flash utility is a powerful tool to create sophisticated online and offline multimedia programs. A large, not previously achievable advantage of director compared to Flash is as mentioned the ability to incorporate real-time 3D - elements.

History

The company Macro Mind was founded in 1984 by Marc Canter, Jay Fenton and Mark Pierce. Developed for the Apple Macintosh, Animation Software Video Works, which was renamed two versions later in Director. The merger with the company Authorware Macromedia originated.

Under the umbrella of Macromedia Director has been continually developed by December 2005. In December 2005, Macromedia has been completely taken over by Adobe Systems. Director also appears there in the product portfolio.

Supported Media Formats

Director allows, among other things, integration, and control playback of DVD - Video content. Since the 1990s may typefaces (fonts ) can be integrated; which allows the text representation with a character set not installed on the target computer.

Text

  • XML ( Unicode since version 11)
  • RTF
  • Text
  • URL
  • HTML (limited)
  • Font ( font / font file )

Graphic

  • BMP
  • JPG
  • GIF
  • PNG
  • TGA
  • PCT
  • PSD

Audio

  • MP3
  • AIFF
  • WAV
  • AU
  • SWA

Video

  • QuickTime
  • Real Media
  • MPEG 1
  • AVI
  • WMV
  • FLC
  • DVD-Video
  • H.264
  • FLV
  • F4V

Special formats

  • DCR
  • SWF
  • Shockwave 3D
  • FLA
  • ActiveX Controls ( Windows only)

Versions

Adobe Director 11.5.9 (18 August 2011)

  • Parallax mapping
  • Cube mapping
  • Normal mapping
  • Render to texture
  • Importing Collada models

Adobe Director 11.5.8 (6 September 2010)

  • Character controller capabilities
  • Cloth simulation capabilities
  • Cross domain policy enhancements
  • New flash cast member property cdpCheckMode
  • New 3D hardware anti -aliasing
  • New audio compression properties
  • Support for Flash Player 10 / ActionScript 3 movies
  • Support for Flex / Flash Builder
  • Newer Mac 64- bit support for Shockwave Player

Adobe Director 11.5 (23 March 2009)

  • 10 Flash support
  • 3D hardware antialiasing
  • Shockwave for Mac 64 bit
  • Support for 5.1 sound
  • Real -time audio mixer
  • H.264, MPEG-4, FLV, F4V, and full-HD video support
  • Streaming support for audio and video over RTMP
  • Audio and bitmap filters applicable to Videos
  • Support for Mac OS X Leopard

Adobe Director 11 (February 2008)

  • Native Runtime Support for Windows Vista
  • Native Runtime Support for Macintosh Intel
  • Creating " Universal Binaries "
  • Unicode Support
  • DirectX9 support
  • Revival of the Multiuser Server / Xtras

Macromedia Director MX 2004 (10.1, 2004)

  • Redesigned user interface
  • Integration of DVD-Video
  • Integration of ECMAScript
  • For the first time, you can compile on Mac runtimes for the PC and vice versa

Macromedia Director MX (9.0, 2002)

  • Redesigned user interface
  • Runtime Support for Mac OS X

Macromedia Director 8.5 (2001)

  • Shockwave 3D
  • Runtime Support for Windows XP
  • Multiuser Server 3.0

Macromedia Director 8.0 ( 2000)

  • Imaging Lingo
  • Runtime Support for Windows 2000
  • Multiuser Server 2.0

Macromedia Director 7 (1999)

Complete revision of the Director - Engine

  • Introduction of Dot Syntax
  • Introduction of the multi-user server
  • 1000 sprite channels
  • Font embedding
  • Network functions

Macromedia Director 6.5 ( 1998)

  • Bugfixes

Macromedia Director 6 (1997)

  • Introduction of Behaviours
  • Tight integration of Shockwave

Macromedia Director 5 (1996 )

  • Introduction of Xtras
  • External CastLibs
  • 120 sprite channels?

Macromedia Director 4 (1994 )

  • Introduction of Shockwave ( with Afterburner )
  • Windows version of the authoring environment
  • Cross platform development

Macro Mind Director 3.0 (1991 )

  • QuickTime integration
  • Player for the Windows, OS / 2, Iris, 3DO, and other
  • Introduction of the xlibs ( forerunner of the Xtras )

Macro Mind Director 2.0 (1990 )

  • Introduction of language Lingo
  • Selecting the Video Works scripting language

Macro Mind Director / Interactive Video Works Pro ( 1988)

  • Support for additional media types

Macro Mind Video Works II / Video Works Interactive ( 1987)

  • Color support
  • Integration of a simple oriented Basic Script Language

Macro Video Mind Works ( 1985)

  • Initial Release

Examples

  • Phosphor - Networked first-person 3D shooter
  • 3D City - demo flight by Model City
  • Examples of games Shockwave
  • List with Shockwave3D Content ( version of 12 August 2004 on the Internet Archive )
  • Interactive learning software 1st to 4th grade - German, arithmetic, multiplication tables
  • Shockwave Game
Lingo (programming language) Medium CD-ROM Text (literary theory) Uniform Resource Locator PICT Audio Interchange File Format Au file format
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