Adobe Director
Encyclopedia
Adobe Director is a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia
—now part of Adobe Systems
. It allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor
, with the user as the "director" of the movie. Originally designed for creating animation sequences, the addition of a scripting language called Lingo made it a popular choice for creating CD-ROMs and standalone kiosks and web content using Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects.
have been the subject of much discussion, especially in the Director development community. Extensibility is one of the main differences between the two, as are some of the sundry codecs that can be imported. Director has tended to be the larger of the two, but that footprint has been part of its weakness. This weakness manifest into the erosion of Director's ubiquity as the leader of authoring tools, especially in the critical window of 1998 - 2000. The download footprint of the Director Shockwave plugin was significantly larger than the Shockwave Flash download footprint. Additionally, Macromedia partnered with distributors such as Dell, Apple, etc. to have the Flash plugin pre-installed on machines for users, so that they would not be prompted to install any additional software. At that point in time (1998–2000), broadband internet access was not the norm for most users, and the fivefold difference in size was significant.
"VideoWorks", an application for the original Apple Macintosh. Animations were initially limited to the black and white of early Macintosh screens.
The name was changed to "Director" in 1987, with the addition of new capabilities and the Lingo scripting language in 1988. A Windows
version was available in the early 1990s.
From 1995 to 1997 a competing multimedia authoring program appeared called mTropolis
(from mFactory). In 1997 mTropolis was purchased and buried by Quark, Inc.
, who had its own plans into multimedia authoring with Quark Immedia.
9 and Unicode
support and extended 3D capabilities based on the NVIDIA
PhysX
engine, as well as bitmap filters, enhanced video, audio and image file formats support, and Adobe Flash
CS3 integration. Shockwave Player 11 was also released.
Version 11.5 added 5.1 channel surround sound audio capabilities, real-time mixing, audio effects and DSP filters. Also, there is added support for H.264-video integration for full-screen and high-definition playback. Other supported formats include: 3D importer for Google SketchUp, streaming support using RTMP and ByteArray datatypes.
Macromedia
Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
—now part of Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
. It allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor
Interface metaphor
An Interface metaphor is a set of user interface visuals, actions and procedures that exploit specific knowledge that users already have of other domains. The purpose of the interface metaphor is to give the user instantaneous knowledge about how to interact with the user interface...
, with the user as the "director" of the movie. Originally designed for creating animation sequences, the addition of a scripting language called Lingo made it a popular choice for creating CD-ROMs and standalone kiosks and web content using Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Director supports both 2D and 3D multimedia projects.
Comparing Director to Flash
The differences between Director and FlashAdobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
have been the subject of much discussion, especially in the Director development community. Extensibility is one of the main differences between the two, as are some of the sundry codecs that can be imported. Director has tended to be the larger of the two, but that footprint has been part of its weakness. This weakness manifest into the erosion of Director's ubiquity as the leader of authoring tools, especially in the critical window of 1998 - 2000. The download footprint of the Director Shockwave plugin was significantly larger than the Shockwave Flash download footprint. Additionally, Macromedia partnered with distributors such as Dell, Apple, etc. to have the Flash plugin pre-installed on machines for users, so that they would not be prompted to install any additional software. At that point in time (1998–2000), broadband internet access was not the norm for most users, and the fivefold difference in size was significant.
History
Director started out as MacroMindMacroMind
MacroMind was an Apple Macintosh software company founded in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Canter, Jay Fenton and Mark Stephen Pierce. The company's first product was SoundVision, a combined music and graphics editor. Before the release, the graphics editor was removed, and SoundVision became MusicWorks...
"VideoWorks", an application for the original Apple Macintosh. Animations were initially limited to the black and white of early Macintosh screens.
The name was changed to "Director" in 1987, with the addition of new capabilities and the Lingo scripting language in 1988. A Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version was available in the early 1990s.
From 1995 to 1997 a competing multimedia authoring program appeared called mTropolis
MTropolis
mTropolis was an award-winning, open-architecture multimedia programming application aimed at enabling rapid development of multimedia titles. It was developed by mFactory and introduced in 1995. It introduced object-oriented concepts such as reusable objects, modifiers and behaviors into the...
(from mFactory). In 1997 mTropolis was purchased and buried by Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc.
Quark, Inc. is a privately owned software company best known for QuarkXPress. It is called Quark because the company's goal is to "create software that would be the platform for publishing", just as quarks are the basis for all matter.As of August 2011, Quark's offerings include:* QuarkXPress -...
, who had its own plans into multimedia authoring with Quark Immedia.
Product Timeline
- 1985: VideoWorks
- 1988: Named Director 1.0
- 1993: Macromind Director became Macromedia Director (v 3.1.3)
- 1994: Macromedia Director 4 was released (Windows and Powermac support)
- 1996: Macromedia Director 5 was released (Shockwave)
- 1997: Macromedia Director 6 was released (Behavior support)
- 1997: Macromedia Director 6.5 was also released later that year
- November 16, 1998: Macromedia Director 7 was released
- 2000: Macromedia Director 8 was released
- 2001: Macromedia Director 8.5 was released (Shockwave3D)
- 2002: Macromedia Director MX was released (Also known as Director 9)
- January 5, 2004: Macromedia Director MX 2004 was released (Also known as Director 10)
- March 25, 2008: Adobe Director 11 was released
- March 23, 2009: Adobe Director 11.5 was released
- September 6, 2010: Adobe Director 11.5.8 was released
Adobe Director 11.x
The first Director release under the Adobe brand (v. 11) featured DirectXDirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
9 and Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
support and extended 3D capabilities based on the NVIDIA
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
PhysX
PhysX
PhysX is a proprietary realtime physics engine middleware SDK developed by Ageia with the purchase of ETH Zurich spin-off NovodeX in 2004...
engine, as well as bitmap filters, enhanced video, audio and image file formats support, and Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
CS3 integration. Shockwave Player 11 was also released.
Version 11.5 added 5.1 channel surround sound audio capabilities, real-time mixing, audio effects and DSP filters. Also, there is added support for H.264-video integration for full-screen and high-definition playback. Other supported formats include: 3D importer for Google SketchUp, streaming support using RTMP and ByteArray datatypes.