Director Tutorials

 

Dean's Director FAQ

Another FAQ exists at MediaMacros, which is new and extensive.

Multimedia Design

1. Where can I see examples of good multimedia design and use of Director?

Performance

1. How can I maximise the performance of my Director movies on the widest range of computers?
2. What are the real minimum system requirements for a basic Director presentation to play on a ‘standard’ computers of today?

Cross platform and CD-ROM development

1. Can I create a Mac projector on a PC or a PC projector on a Mac?
2. How do you burn a Hybrid CD (that works on both a Mac and PC)?
3. How do you make a CD automatically start when placed in the CD-ROM?

Projectors and Display options

1. What is a stub projector and why should I use one?
2. How do you get rid of the black border around the Stage when playing a movie as 'full screen'?
3. How do you get projectors to resize to play full-screen (fill the monitor)?
4. How can I change the icon for my Director projector?
5. When I create a projector using the options In a Window and Show Title Bar, the name in the title bar is the same as the projector's file name. Is there a way to change the window's title bar text without renaming the projector?
6. How do I prevent users from starting 2 (or multiple) instances of a projector?

Director and the web

1. How can I make my shockwave small in file size?
2. Is it possible to save an Director Movie as an SWF file?
3. How can I send an email from Director?
4. How can I open a HTML page on a local drive or CD?
5. When would you use Director instead of Flash and what are the advantages of Director over Flash and vica versa?
6. How do you tell Director to wait until a Flash sprite is finished playing?
7. How can I export 3D files as flash members for use in Director?

Lingo

1. Why don't my scripts work?
2. How do I write a script for a screensaver and then convert my Director movie into one?
3. How can I write generic scripts?
4. What does the 'me' in scripts mean?
5. How do I write a simple behavior with parameters that I can set like the ones in the Behavior Library?
6. What standard cursors can Director use via Lingo?
7. How can I create my own custom cursor?
8. What are the keycode for all the KEYS including F1 to F12?
9. What's the difference between all the types of variables available? Often people seem to use global and property variables interchangeably, what are the advantages of using one over another?

Images

1. What is colour depth and palettes and how does it all affect my Director movie?
2. Why do some images sometimes get a "Halo" when set to background transparent on a dark background?
3. What is an alpha channel?
4. How can I import a vector based in EPS or Illustrator into Director?

Text

1. How can I get my text to display exactly the same as I move between Windows and Macintosh platforms?

PDFs

1. How can I use a pdf with Director?

Video

1. How do I record and edit video?
2. How do I get MPEG to play in Director?
3. What is the best video format to use in Director - AVI, QuickTime or MPEG?
4. What compression and settings are recommended?
5. Is there any way to protect my videos?
6. How do I add cue points to a QuickTime movie?
7. How can I detect if the user has QuickTime installed?
8. Can I package the QuickTime installer with my application?
9. How do I create QTVRs? Can this be done with Director? What software is available?

Sound

1. How do I record and edit sound from CD?
2. What programs can I use to insert cue points into my sound?
3. What is the best format for Director and how long can my sound be?
4. Why does my sound not work?
5. How do I convert sound into SWA?

Tutorials and resources

1. Tutorials and Director info site links
2. Games info links

Databases

1. How do you use a database with Director?

Misc Stuff

1. Misc articles