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MacroMind Director has been the leading tool for creating interactive multimedia presentations, desktop video productions, and other creative visualizations since its introduction in April 1989. With the release of Director 3.0, MacroMind incorporates many major enhancements to an already mature product.
MacroMind Director 3.0 joins MacroMind's Three-D, Accelerator, and MediaMaker products to form a line of tools that can turn your Macintosh into a professional multimedia production studio. In addition, the upcoming merger with Paracomp will add 3-D modeling to round out MacroMind's fine product line.
The major enhancements to Director focus on sound, memory management, and enhancements to Lingo (Director's scripting language). In concert, these features allow Director's movies to blend together seamlessly as they increase in size and sport greater interactivity. Other enhancements include full 32-bit color support, anti-aliased text and graphics, and access to many external devices for input of media elements and output of completed productions.
FEATURES:
Director 3.0 still consists of two integrated modules: Studio and Overview. The Studio module gives you a micro view of your production: You design individual characters and work on single frames. The Overview module is the macro view: You work on the production with a series of objects that represent film clips, sound sequences, or special transition effects, and tie them together in a single presentation.
The Studio module lets you create and manipulate text, characters, animation sequences, and other elements of your presentation. It contains bit-mapped paint tools and basic object-oriented drawing tools for creating and modifying cast members (also known as sprites). After a cast member is created or copied from another source, it is stored in a Cast window where it rests until you move it onto Director's stage. Once cast members are on the stage, they can be moved about in many different manners, creating interesting animated effects.
At the heart of the Studio module is the Score window. The Score window is the master control for the whole production. The window consists of a grid with rows (or channels) and columns. Inside every channel is one particular element in a presentation: sound, special effects, individual text items, backgrounds, cast members, or a series of animation sequences. Each column represents a single frame in your movie. Within a single...