Macromedia Director Review Notes Paint Window Basics Animation Techniques Placing Cast members onto the Stage Keyboard Shortcuts Extended Keyboard Keypad Commands Paint Window Basics Holding down the Option key while dragging any selection will make a copy of it. (Note: this is true in all Macintosh applications.) To stretch or compress a selection hold down the Command key, click anywhere in the selection and drag the mouse. To stretch or compress while constraining the selection's proportions, hold down the Command and Shift keys while dragging. Double click on the Rectangle Selection tool to select the entire paint object. To create a gradient in the Paint window, select the filled Rectangle, Paintbrush, Paint bucket, Ellipse or Polygon tool. Select a first color on the left side under the Gradient box. Select a second color on the right side below the Gradient box. Draw the object with the selected tool. It will appear filled with a gradient. Use the Gradients controls from the Paint pull-down menu to fine tune your gradient. You can set direction, number of cycles, dithering method, spread and which object to apply the gradient to. The box in the upper left hand corner gives you a preview of your current selections. Animation Techniques Step recording In the Score, click the desired frame in which to start your animation. Drag a cast member onto the Stage. As soon as you do this, a red recording light appears next to the channel number. This light indicates that you are in Step record mode. Click once on the Step Forward button in the Control Panel. This will copy the cast member to the next frame and advance the playback head as well. Simply re-position the cast member to the desired new location. Continue doing this until you have achieved the movement you desire. Note: You can toggle Step Recording on or off by clicking the red ball or the are to the right of the channel number while holding down the Option key. Note: You can Step Record a sprite that is already on the Stage by clicking it to select it. Click it again while holding down the Option key. Step recording is turned on in the channel that contains this sprite. Note: You can Step Record several sprites in different channels at once by using method (e.) above while also holding down the Shift key. Real Time Recording Real time recording records your motion as you drag a cast member around on the Stage. In the Cast window, select the cast member you wish to animate. Hold down the Control and Spacebar keys to select Real time recording. Click the mouse on the Stage and the selected cast member appears. Begin dragging the cast member holding down the mouse button. When you are finished, release the mouse button to stop Real time recording. To control the amount of animation which you will record, use the Control Panel Selected Frames button to set a specific range of frames. Be sure to click this button OFF when you are finished or only the selected frames will play. Note: Real Time Recording requires that you select a cast member from the Cast window, but not to drag it onto the Stage. If you do you will get duplicate sprites. Note: you can create handwriting effects by selecting the cells of your animation then clicking the Trails checkbox in the Score. As your sprite moves across the Stage it will leave a trail. In Between (Linear) Select a start frame. Place a cast member in this frame. Copy the cast member and paste into a frame about 10 frames later in the same channel. Select In Between from the Score pull-down menu or use the keyboard shortcut Command-B. The frames in between the first and last frames are generated automatically for you. In Between Special You can animate a sprite stretching or compressing while moving across the Stage by combining two In-between aspects at the same time. These controls are found in the In-Between Special command found under the Score pull-down menu. Note: The score must be selected to use this command. The In Between Special dialog box lets you combine the In-betweening of location, size, foreground, background, and blend of sprites. Placing Cast members onto the Stage Cast to Time Cast to Time will center any cast member in the exact center of the Stage in the following two ways: 1) Select a cast member from the Cast window. Select the Cast to Time command under the Cast pull-down menu. This will position the cast member on the stage in the exact center. 2) Drag any cast member out onto the Stage. While the object is still selected (with the rectangle around it) AND the Cast window is still the active window, choose Cast to Time. This will re-position the object in the exact center of the Stage. Cast to Time is most generally used to place cast members into sequential order in frames. This makes it easy to set up animations. Select the cast members from the Cast window holding down the Shift key. Make sure they are in the order you wish them to appear in the animation sequence. If the cast members are spread out in the Cast use the Command key to select for example cast member 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 as shown below. Once you have made your selection, choose Cast to Time from the Cast pull-down menu. Your selection will appear in the score as follows: You can do the same thing by using the following shortcut: Hold down the Option key while dragging your selected cast members out onto the Stage. (See below.) Dragging multiple cast members from the Cast window to the Stage places each cast member in the same frame of your score but in different channels of that frame. (See below.) Dragging multiple cast members from the Cast window to the Stage WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE OPTION KEY places each cast member in separate frames of the same channel. (See below.) Lingo First Lingo Command - go to the frame Use "go to the frame" to loop continuously on the same frame. This sets up the basis for all interactivity. It essentially waits on the single frame forever or until the user has performed some action with the mouse that can be tested. Keyboard Shortcuts to memorize: Stage Command-1 Control Panel Command-2 Cast Command-3 Score Command-4 Paint Command-5 Text Command-6 In Between Command-B Save Command-S Copy Command-C Paste Command-V Undo Command-Z Import Command-J Select All Command-A Extended Keyboard Keypad Commands: Start/Stop Movie Enter Stop Movie = Rewind 0 Step Back 1 Step Forward 2 Mute Sound 7 Loop 8