MULTM-
Schedule
(subject to change)

 

 

Internet Resources-Links
Week 1
  

Introduction
Syllabus Overview - Expectations, Requirements, Objectives
Best Practices - File Backup and Use

 

Assignment:

Email account exchange - email my account (john@basearts.com) with DVC-Interactive in the subject line for the purposes of a class email list.

Review Internet Resources - Director resources as well as others for sites of interest. Submit 3-5 internet destinations you find compelling.

 

 
 

Reading:
Please investigate the links below for interesting demos, games, ideas, etc...
Director Web
Director Online
Director Dev
Shocknet
Updatestage
 
Week 2
  

Begin basic functions:

File open, New File, Save, Save As.

Customizing preferences, workspace and movie properties.

CAST: Importing Cast members, media types ... and populating the cast.

STAGE/ SCORE: Placing sprites, beginning animations.

 

Assignment:

Working with the Rolling.dir animation.
Reanimate or modify the animation and Add:
bitmap elements: photo and paint object
text element
vector shape

 
 

Reading:

A must see hotlink!

Can You Spell R.O.C.K.?

When Vuk Cosic combined his ascii movie making skills with Alexei Shulgin's midi pop rock skills, the genre of ascii music videos was born. Now c404's Yoshi Sodeoka continues the tradition in gloriously green Quicktime with 'ASCII Rock'. Sabbath, Zeppelin, Hendrix, AC/DC, and more are all given a lo-res ascii/midi audio-visual massage. Angus Young's signature gyrations are remarkably recognizable, even when rendered in animated letter form. Finally, rock icons get the iconic treatment they deserve. - Curt Cloninger

http://www.c404.tv/ascii_index.html

Technical / Supporting Links - also available on the internet resources page
friendsofed
http://www.friendsofed.com/books/foundation/director/index.html
Macromedia – User Forums
http://webforums.macromedia.com/director/
Macromedia - Tutorials and Samples
http://www.macromedia.com/software/director/productinfo/tutorials/
Macromedia – Support Center
http://www.macromedia.com/support/director/
Webmonkey – Developer Resources for Director and Flash
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/multimedia/shockwave_flash/
 
Week 3
  

Review interactive samples from my collections as well as the findings from your investigations on the internet.

Review previous class work - Rolling.dir

Assignment:

Review functions from Rolling.dir - begin use of lingo in script channel and as a button or attached to a sprite. See tutorial file Sappington0903.dir in Materials directory for examples. Integrate scripts from tutorial file into rolling.dir or a new movie of your making.

 

EMAIL ME FOR Addition to Class email List!
 

Reading:

Meta-Music for a Future Age
In 1995, an interviewer asked ambient music godfather Brian Eno, 'If you could make anything, what would it be?' Eno answered, 'an Eno box that would create its own music in my style.' Technology has finally caught up with Eno's theories, enabling him to created 'Generative Music 1.' Also termed 'unfinished music,' each piece plays out differently every time, but always within the same artist-defined paramemters. Tired of the way a particular iteration is going? Just hit refresh -- each composition is infinitely long, and infinitely varied. How will they copyright this? - Curt Cloninger

http://www.sseyo.com/products/artist_titles/genmus1.html

Viva La Lo-Tek!
Lfoundation.org is a collection of old Shockwave engines created by the off-the-wall pranksters at crtrlaltdel.org. Unlike the lush, intricate Shockwave environments at turux.org and submeta.free.fr, these experiments are decidedly old school (which is still cool). Big, chunky, primary color blocks, audio that sounds like it came from an analog Moog synth, ultra-thin file sizes, and lots of blinking are all par for the course. Proof positive that interesting audio-visual aesthetics are still achievable at dial-up speeds. - Curt Cloninger

http://crtrlaltdel.org
http://www.Lfoundation.org
http://turux.org
http://submeta.free.fr

 

 
Week 4
  

 

Lab / Technical Reviews

 

 

Assignment:

Submit first modified tutorial from Rolling.dir with scripts.

Project Descriptions
 

Reading:

Random Flowcharting Links
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/rta/flowchart/
http://www.atsf.co.uk/manmult/ch_103_index.html
http://www.q-skills.com/flowchrt.html
 
Week 5
  

Discuss guidelines with regards to text treatment in an interactive presentations.

Working with Text / Typography in menus.
Buttons and navigational graphics.

Assignment:
Build menu to Project from Project Description.
Identifying major content areas, logic and linkages.
Use as outline to overall movie.
 

Reading:

 

 
 
Week 6
  

Time Based Media - Audio / Video - basics

Assignment:

Menu as outline to ...
Projects Projects Projects

 

 
 

Reading:
Director and DVD - Macromedia Technote:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/director/ts/documents/director_and_dvd.htm

---

Taken from Director Help
Using Director > Packaging Movies for Distribution > About distribution formats

About distribution formats

Before deciding how to distribute a movie, it helps to understand how Director plays movies. Director movies play either with the Shockwave player or through a projector player. The Shockwave player is a system component that plays movies in Web browsers and also outside browsers as stand-alone applications. A projector player can only play movies independent of a Web browser.

You can distribute movies as Shockwave movies (with the DCR extension), projectors, protected movies (DXRs), or Java applets. You should not distribute source movies (DIRs) unless you want your users to be able to change the movie in the Director authoring environment.

 

A Shockwave movie is a compressed version of a movie's data and does not include a player. Shockwave movies are created primarily to distribute over the Internet for playback in a Web browser. Another reason to create a Shockwave movie is to compress it for distribution on a disk when the movie is contained in a projector. In addition to compressing the data, saving a movie in the Shockwave format removes all information necessary to edit the movie.

 

A projector is a movie intended for play outside of a Web browser. A projector can include a player (called the Standard player), Xtras, multiple casts, and linked media in a single file. A projector can also include several different movie files. Configured in this way, a projector can be a completely stand-alone application.

You can use the Shockwave player projector option to make a much smaller projector. A Shockwave projector uses an installed Shockwave player on the user's system to play a movie instead of including the player code in the projector itself. If no Shockwave player is installed on the user's system, the user must download a copy. A Shockwave projector is excellent for distributing movies on the Internet that you don't want to play in a Web browser.

You can also reduce the file size of a projector by turning on projector options that compress the movie data, the player code, or both. In Windows, compressing the player code reduces the minimum projector size from approximately 2.1 MB to 1.1 MB for a projector, and to about 60K for a Shockwave projector.

 

Protected movies (DXRs) are uncompressed movies that users can't open for editing. These can be useful when you want to distribute uncompressed movies on a disk, but you don't want users to edit the source file. Protected movies may play faster than Shockwave movies from a disk because they do not need to be decompressed. These movies are preferable if disk space isn't limited. Like Shockwave movies, protected movies do not include the information necessary to edit the movie or the software that plays the movie. They can be played only by a projector, a movie in a window, or the Shockwave player.

 

A Java applet created by Director is a movie converted to Java. Java applets do not require the Shockwave player and provide an alternative for playing simple movies at Web sites where plug-ins are not allowed. Not all Director features are available when saving as Java; you have a number of authoring issues to consider when converting a movie to Java. For a complete description of Java authoring issues, see Save as Java in the Director Support Center. You cannot include Java applets in a projector or play them as a movie in a window.

 
Week 7
  

Lab

Advanced workflow tips and methods.

Assignment:

Continued work with projects.
 

Reading:
Follow the hyperlinks...
Text / Typography
Audio
Video
 
Week 8
  

Lab

Assignment:

Continued work with projects.
 

Reading:

 

 
 
Week 9
  

Mid-Term

 Assignment:
  Review/Critique of current project status individually.