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Director
8.5 Shockwave Studio
at a Glance
Maker:
Macromedia
Price: $1,199 for the full version (Studio includes
Director 8.5, Fireworks 4, Shockwave Multiuser Server
3 and some freebie software); upgrades are also available
Platforms: Macintosh and Windows
URL: http://www.macromedia.com
Overall
Impression: It's difficult to generalize about a
suite as feature-rich as Director 8.5. This multimedia
authoring suite offers incredible flexibility and robust
scripting without being overly complicated. It allows
you to build Web content or standalone applications
with ease and with a great degree of sophistication.
Whether you're developing the latest D&D adventure
game or simply building a presentation to take on the
road with you, it would be difficult to find something
this powerful and easy to use.
Key
Benefits: Director 8.5 is the first viable platform
for total 3D and interactive authoring. The power is
incredible, as is the simplicity for some of the more
common functions. The ability to drag library behaviors
over objects makes this an incredibly valuable tool
for rapid multimedia development, while the Lingo scripting
offers essentially unlimited expandability for more
complex projects.
Disappointments:
In terms of library support, the 3D offerings are plentiful,
but you can't do as much with it. There are some playback
problems with QuickTime elements, and there's also artifacting
when you apply vector motions to 3D objects. (This last
one could be a graphics card issue with the ATI Rage
128 AGP.)
Recommendation:
Strong Buy as both an upgrade and a straight purchase.
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review
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AUGUST 2, 2001
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Macromedia
Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio
[Page 4 of 5]
I can't stress
enough the importance of ease of development. Straight 3D animation
can be tricky enough, with all the factors involved. Interactive
3D animation could conceivably be a nightmare. But with Director
8.5, you have a tool that makes it simple but doesn't compromise
on power.
3D triggers allow you to
decide what will cause an object to do
something. For example, the right arrow key could rotate an
object right, while the left arrow would rotate it left.
So that's
my favorite feature of Director 8.5's 3D authoring. But what
else is there? Well, there's a whole lot more. In fact, it
would take a couple pages just to list them with brief descriptions.
So here are some highlights.
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Various
shading options, including toon, newsprint and engraver.
-
Scriptable
animation of everything from cameras and lights to individual
bones in individual objects.
-
The
ability to build scenes from primitives with basically no
download time for the user because planes, boxes and cylinders
are already present on the client side (the player).
-
Similarly,
3D text is created on the client side for minimum download
time.
-
Same
with mesh deformations and particle systems, including smoke,
fire, rain, etc.
-
You
can create multiple versions of your 3D models, and the
client need only download a single one. This is called object
cloning and can be useful for crowd scenes, stampeding dinosaurs,
etc.
-
Picking
of 3D objects collisions can occur down at the polygon level,
so you can work with small portions of 3D objects.
-
Sending
geometry to the client can be done in two ways. To save
time on downloading, the client can be sent a lower-resolution
version of the 3D object, which scales up over time. Shockwave
3D also supports subdivision surfaces, which means that
low-resolution characters or objects and be smoothed out
on the client side.
-
-
Support
for motion blending (for smooth motions between keyframed
positions).
-
Support
for the Havok Rigid Body Dynamics Xtra, which is used for
realistic motion effects. For example, if a ball bounces
off a wall, Havok will squish the ball as it hits the wall
and bring it back to normal as it bounces away.
-
Support
for some OpenGL hardware acceleration, as well as rendering
in software and DirectX 7.
More
about Director and Shockwave 3D
Just so I don't confuse anybody, I should point out two things.
First, you might be asking, well, what's the difference between
3D in Flash and 3D in Shockwave? I whole bunch of 3D developers
have released Flash exporters, so I can just present my 3D
in the Flash format without buying any additional software,
right?
Here's
the thing: 3D in the Flash format is not actually 3D. It just
looks like 3D because it was created in a 3D program. But
with Flash 3D, you can't actually manipulate 3D objects on
the user end. Sure, you can fudge it. And maybe it would be
worth it for you to do that. But with Shockwave 3D, the user
is actually downloading your 3D objects to his or her machine
and is able to manipulate them that way through the Shockwave
Player.
The other
important thing to mention about is that Director is not a
3D modeling program. You can do some things associated with
modeling and even manipulate models once you've imported them,
but you will not get the kind of modeling tools that you'd
find in a true modeler. What you need is a separate 3D program
that supports the Shockwave 3D format so that you can export
your 3D content to the Shockwave 3D format for use in Director.
On the Mac side, the most recent releases of NewTek LightWave
and Maxon Cinema 4D XL support the format, and Electric Image
is working on an exporter for Universe 3.x. On the Windows
side, the exporter is also supported by Discreet's 3ds max
4.
Director
8.5 is supposed to support the OBJ file format as well, but
I haven't had any luck with it. Various programs do handle
OBJ export differently though, which could be the problem.
I'll bring you an update on this when I find out more.
So that
about does it for 3D. There's really a lot more to it, so
I suggest going to Macromedia's site to read all of the features.
New
media support and Flash 5 integration
As if the 3D component weren't enough to justify a half version
upgrade, Macromedia has also tightened up its integration
with Flash 5 and added support for Real Networks formats.
One of the most important changes is the ability to control
individual elements within an embedded SWF file. This means
you not only have control over Flash frames and overall playback,
but also the ability to work within a clip. Other enhancements
to Director's Flash integration include:
-
Director
can also supplement Flash's processing of XML data and even
use the XMLSocket object in Macromedia Flash for XML applications.
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You
can also call functions in a Flash movie frame and retrieve
the value.
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Finally,
the Shockwave 8.5 player allows users on the client side
to print Flash objects embedded in a Shockwave file on an
HTML page.
Now, in
terms of new media types, in addition to Apple's QuickTime,
Director now supports Real Audio and Real Video. This is an
area I haven't been able to test owing to the fact Real content
doesn't work very well on the Mac platform, and I don't have
a service for streaming Real content. However, according to
Macromedia, you can composite video sprites with other sprites;
grab an individual frame from the video stream and manipulate
it with special effects or use it as a 3D texture; and you
can control sound in Real Audio with features like volume,
pan, mixing and sound effects.
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