Director MX 2004

If it weren't for (the outstanding) Flash MX 2004, Macromedia would have been all but dead to me right around the first of this year. Between the messes that were Director MX and Dreamweaver MX 2004, I had become quite down on what was formerly one of my favorite software companies. But times change quickly, and with the recent tandem of Macromedia's Dreamweaver update patch and the release of Director MX 2004, the former MacroMind is very, very quickly getting back into my good graces. But enough with everything else—we're here to talk Director MX 2004, and talk DMX04 we shall.

First of all, I'm really going to try very hard not to sound insulting to you poor souls out there who shelled out hard-earned green for Director MX about a year ago (especially in a tight economy), because, frankly, you got taken. In my opinion, Director MX was one of the biggest non-upgrades I've ever seen, offering very little apart from Mac OS X compatibility. For those of you who feel similarly, I'm sure you're already plenty peeved at the way things have panned out, so I'll leave it at a simple "ya shoulda waited." I'm glad I did, because Director MX 2004 is what Director MX should have been. So while I realize that I may not be filled with the bile and/or raw hatred that some of you may be reserving for Macromedia right now, all I can ultimately say is that Macromedia has made some serious amends with DMX04.

Finding its niche

Director has been around in some form for close to two decades(!), which puts to shame even the "mere" eleven years that I've been using it. Recent Director history, however, has been uncertain at best. As Macromedia began to place its considerable resources squarely behind Flash, many users began to wonder if Director would be left to just wither and die (or, at least assume Authorware-like "cult" status). After all, Flash seemed to be encroaching more and more onto Director's traditional turf with each release, and it appeared for a while there that Macromedia couldn't figure out where Director fit into the picture.

That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. To put it in terms that, say, Alexander de Large could understand, if Flash is milk, Director is "milk plus." Macromedia has made the integration between Flash and Director so tight these days that it's not a stretch to say that Director's main raison d'être is to serve as a "Flash Wrapper" application, picking up where Flash leaves off. But that's not all Director is good for, as Macromedia has made a few major enhancements that have reinvigorated what could have been called a tired product.

What it does

First, let me say that I'm not going to cover features that have been in Director for ages, because as a 10.0 product, Director has been around the block more a few times (and a great many of you have likely been around the block with it). Therefore, I'm going to hit a few of the new and/or notable features in Director MX 2004 pretty much exclusively. That said, however, indulge me for a moment in a quick overview of what Director does in general.

Director, put simply, is an industrial-strength multimedia authoring program, and, for a time, it was pretty much the only game in town. Oh, sure—you had programs like Mtropolis and Quark Immedia and Supercard and Apple Media Tool (and so on) come and go, but Director was the best at what it did. "What it did," and still does, is combine images, text, movies, animation, and interactivity together into multimedia programs. Over the years, Shockwave came along and allowed you to put Director movies on the Web, and then Flash rolled around and more or less shot up the joint. Historically, though, what set Director apart was the sheer power under the hood, which married VideoWorks (the animation program Director started life as) with a scripting language for us mere mortals (Lingo), the result being one of the most entrenched and widely used multimedia programs to date. But ho-hum, lots of programs these days can do at least some of what Director does, and as the perpetrator of "Boobygate" once sang, what have you done for me lately? So let's look at where DMX04 begins to take us, which, I'm happy to report, is in a direction that gives Director fresh legs along with a much-needed shot of extra relevancy.

Cross-platform publishing

In the normal course of events, I would put an unsexy feature like publishing dead last in a review (if I even mention it at all), but I've only been waiting for this one for, oh, seven or eight years now, so it gets bumped to the top of the list. To bring the unfamiliar up to speed, Director went cross-platform circa 1994 (if memory serves, which it often does not these days), and ever since then if you wanted to publish a hybrid CD containing Projectors for both Mac and Windows, you had to buy two complete copies of Director. That meant double the initial outlay, and for every upgrade, you had to multiply the upgrade cost by two just to stay current. A typical Director upgrade would therefore cost up to $800, which ain't exactly chump change for most folks. Frankly, I went looking for other authoring options because of this, well, extortion on Macromedia's part. I needed Mac OS X authoring and Windows playback, and was sick of paying the "Director tax" twice just to do so. Thankfully, Macromedia listened to the outcry, because you can now publish Mac Projectors from Windows, and vice-versa. So the long nightmare is finally over.

The Projector publishing process has been folded into DMX04's new Publish Settings panel (fig. 1), adding Projectors to the HTML and Shockwave options that were already present in previous versions (and, more importantly, eliminating the often-cumbersome "Create Projector" process). You'll notice from the screenshot that you can still save Mac OS 9 "Classic" Projectors, but you can only do this from the Mac version. The Windows version will just let you save OS X Projectors, an omission which I suspect will not cause a huge fuss amongst developers.

Figure 1: Projector publishing has been incorporated into the Publish Settings box.

But what of Xtras in this brave new cross-platform world? Glad I asked. You can embed both versions of a particular Xtra into a DMX04 movie by utilizing the new Cross Platform Resources folder and the xtrainfo.txt file (fig. 2) to tell Director what's what. It's a bit of a hassle at first, but one you add one or two this way it's not really a big deal. You then embed Xtras into your movie as usual, and when it's time to publish, Director will package up the appropriate version into the relevant Projector automatically. Of course, this new freedom to publish wherever you damn well please doesn't relieve you of your responsibility to test thoroughly on both platforms, as the usual platform-specific "gotchas" (such as path delimiters) will still rear their ugly heads. But what's important is that your Director investment can now be in your single platform of choice, and you can publish where you like. Woo-hoo.

Figure 2: Cross-platform Xtras go in the Cross Platform Resources folder (top), and are referenced in the xtrainfo.txt file (bottom).

Embracing JavaScript

I remember back to those youthful days when I first started learning ActionScript, and lamenting to my coworkers that it wasn't more like Lingo. It's funny (not funny ha-ha but funny hmmm...) how things turn around sometimes, because once I got decent enough with ActionScript, I was annoyed that I had to revert back to Lingo when working in Director. DMX04 avoids the issue entirely by letting you use both (fig. 3). Old school Lingo person? You're covered. Coming from Flash and want a familiar language? Use JavaScript. You can even mix and match in the same Director movie, although you do have to keep it to one or the other within individual scripts.

Figure 3: The basic "go to the frame" script, presented as both Lingo and JavaScript. The choice is yours.

One more nicety I'll mention here (though not directly JavaScript-related) is that DMX04 finally features sprite and channel naming (fig. 4), which is LOOOONNNNNGGGG overdue. You're no longer constrained to using hardcoded sprite channels or (member of sprite) Lingo to call sprites. Anyone who has had to move a sprite up or down in the score and having long scripts break on them can certainly agree that the new naming feature is a most welcome one.

Figure 3: Sprite (left) and channel (right) naming—"better late than never" is the phrase that comes to mind here.

DVD-Video

The "much-needed shot of extra relevancy" I alluded to earlier certainly applies to one of the biggest new features in DMX04—the ability to play and interact with DVD-Video. At first glance, I was a little skeptical that DVD-Video was anything worth crowing about, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get about where Director is headed. Let me paint a picture here: you've just brought home [insert name big-studio movie here] on DVD, and noticed that it has enhanced content on the DVD ROM portion of the disc. You pop it into your computer, and if you're on the Mac, you'll probably get miffed because you can't get at the stuff you just bought since it's not Mac-compatible. Or, if you're on Windows, maybe you're not real keen about having to install some custom DVD player that may or may not wreak havoc on your system. DMX04's DVD-Video feature has the potential to change all of that, provided developers choose to author their DVD ROM content for cross-platform playback with Director. Titles could conceivably be "equally abled" on both Mac and Windows boxes, and Projectors can be launched directly from the DVD without requiring a separate install. I'm hoping DVD authors out there are paying attention.

Here's how DVD-Video works in DMX04: first, you either pop in a DVD or mount a DVD image stored on your hard drive, which enables DVD asset additions into your movie (fig. 5). Director uses its own embedded DVD player, and you can navigate around the DVD the way you would in your usual player. Give the asset a name, and your DVD-Video shows up in the Cast as a regular ol' Member, which you can place in your movie and manipulate as you would anything else.

Figure 5: Your very own DVD player, right in Director.

Of course, having DVD-Video in your movie isn't much good without a way to add interactivity (which is what Director is around to do in the first place, after all). From the included, full-featured DVD Controller component (fig. 6), to a slew of Lingo commands just for DVD (fig. 7), you've got plenty of options for coders and non-coders alike. Macromedia has even included an Xtra called the DVD Event Manager, which is an interactive tool that allows you to set overall DVD playback options (fig. 8) as well as define trigger points and assign actions such as loading HTML pages and executing Lingo code to those triggers (fig. 9).

Figure 6: The DVD Controller is actually a Flash Component that you can drag and drop into movies along with your DVD-Video Castmember.

Figure 7: There's no shortage of DVD-specific Lingo.

Figure 8: Step one of the DVD Event Manager—general DVD playback options.

Figure 9: Step two of the DVD Event Manager—defining triggers and actions.

As far as publishing goes, at the end of the process you can output to a Projector or a Shockwave movie that you can include on the DVD ROM portion of a hybrid DVD. Again, the potential is there for an identical experience for DVD ROM content for Mac and Windows users alike, and I'll again offer my hope that more DVD publishers will take note of what DMX04 can do in the DVD area.

Flash integration

OK, along with the DVD stuff, we're really getting to the meat of what DMX04 has become. I alluded to its status as a "Flash wrapper" application already, because that's what Macromedia has really positioned Director as. Little bits and pieces of Flash influence are scattered throughout DMX04:

• DMX04 now sports a Flash mode in the toolbar for adding little Flash widgets (fig. 10). In reality, these widgets are Flash V2 Components, some of which now work natively in DMX04.
• The Library panel has been overhauled to resemble its Flash counterpart (fig. 11).
• The Stage is now dockable, giving you the ability to more closely mimic the default Flash setup (fig. 12).
• While not exclusive to Flash, DMX04 adds the Panel Sets functionality present in the rest of the MX2004 line.

Figure 10: Common Flash Components are accessible right from Director's Tools panel.

Figure 11: Look familiar? The Library now has been given a Flash-like makeover.

Figure 12: The Stage is finally dockable to other panels.

Now that's all fine and good, but where the rubber meets the road is just how good of a host Director is for Flash content. As it turns out, it's a pretty gracious one. First of all, DMX04 fully supports Flash MX 2004 movies and the V2 Component architecture I alluded to earlier. The DMX04 Library and Flash toolbar have some of these Components available right off the bat for you to use, and setting the properties of a Flash component is similar to setting them directly in Flash (fig. 13).

Figure 13: The layout may be a little different, but all the Flash Component settings are available from within Director.

Second, Flash playback is WAY faster than in previous versions. Expect better frame rates across the board, and with the tried-and-true Direct to Stage option coupled with the new ability to have Flash assets play with a single instance of the Flash Asset Xtra (rather than spawning a new one for each Flash asset), Director is now a much more reliable and speedy Flash container. DMX04 is therefore the perfect vehicle to bust Flash out of the browser and fill in for some of Flash's weak spots, such as when you need native QuickTime support or greater access to the host system.

Lastly, there are more options for "talking" to Flash content than in previous versions. No longer do you have to wade through getVariable() calls just to interface with a Flash sprite—you can just call it directly the way you would if you were in Flash itself. Macromedia has also removed the annoying "read only" status for properties like x and y coordinates, opacity, and text field population (yay!), and now permits you to get and set such properties directly from Lingo/JavaScript (whichever is your bag). Without belaboring the point any more than I already have, Flash and Director finally go together like peas and carrots, which is a symbiosis that Macromedia may have intended for a long time but is only now up to snuff in DMX04.

More video support

A real quick note, but an important one: in addition to the excellent QuickTime support Director has had for a long time and the getting exellent-er (to butcher a phrase) Real Media support Director has added in recent versions, DMX04 now rounds out the "big three" with native support for Windows Media. There's a catch, though: Windows Media is only supported in the Windows version of DMX04. I'm not sure why this absolutely has to be the case, since the Windows Media 9 player is available for Mac OS X; my guess is that the implementation is tied to some sort of dependence on DirectShow calls and therefore not portable to the Mac. But whatever the reason, all the native support for the big video formats adds to Director's already legendary status as an excellent tool for interactive long-form video.

Disappointments

I've got a few pet peeves with DMX04, but nothing as showstopping as the "nothing to see here, move along" problem I had Director MX. First up, I would like to have seen some form of Score nesting to further merge the Director and Flash paradigms. I suppose the fact that the two are so intertwined in DMX04 will have to do for now, but fully interactive Movie Clips (a la Flash) would be a welcome addition to Director.

Another letdown is that Director's 3D features are still inordinately difficult to implement. Looking at DMX04's 3D feature fresh on the heels of my review of Anark Studio 2.5 (which makes interactive 3D incredibly easy, yet doesn't skimp on power), I'm very disappointed that Director 3D is essentially unchanged from when it was first introduced in version 8.5. It's almost like Macromedia has decided that the true programmer can figure it out, and is leaving it up on a shelf for everyone else to just stare at. I know it can be made easier to use, because Anark did it, so unless Macromedia is really hanging 3D out to dry in favor of positioning Director solely as a complement to Flash, I would have liked to see an overhaul of the 3D functionality with an eye towards more general usability.

I also found the interface to be a little buggy—there were a few redraw errors and the like, with the biggest problem seeming to be that DMX04 doesn't acknowledge input from the numeric pad on the Mac. That's kind of a curveball to get around, and I would only hope that a Director MX 2004 10.01 update is forthcoming.

And, as promised, I'm continuing my recently-started tradition of warning you when a product contains some sort of activation scheme. DMX04 does require you to activate the software before you use it, and shares the same activation process as the rest of the MX04 line. That means you're allowed two installs (only using one at a time), but you can use the license transfer option to move computers quickly and easily. I had problems putting it on my PowerBook, though, as it complained that I had already met my license quota (even though I only had activated it on my desktop machine), so I'm still scratching my head about that. Overall, though, it's a fair system as far as activation goes, and on the one occasion I reinstalled Panther without deactivating my machine first, the Macromedia operator reset my account quickly and only needed my serial number to proceed (no name or other identifying information required). But it is still activation, so consider yourself warned.

I've saved the worst, such as it is, for last. My biggest annoyance with DMX04 is the continuation of the recent and very contemptible Macromedia tradition of shipping with unbelievably poor documentation. One might think that shelling out more than a grand for a new copy of Director would buy more printed manuals than the "Getting Started" leaflet one actually receives, but it turns out that one would be quite wrong in thinking so. Macromedia has turned printed manuals into a profit center, which is a pretty disgusting practice. Plus, useful tutorials are few and far between on the Macromedia site—you'll have better luck finding a windy white paper or some other such nonsense touting new features but not really demonstrating how to use them. This is a complaint for all of Macromedia's product line, though, but Macromedia is loath to do anything about it since they're pretty much getting away with it. Shameful.

The bottom line

Maybe my expectations for DMX04 were low after the debacle of Director MX, but man, Macromedia sure clawed its way back with this one. Quite simply, they nailed it. DMX04 has some great new features, is a more economical product for cross-platform publishers, and, most importantly, has a real future. As for a rating, I'm sure I could break it down into user categories the way I did with the Flash MX 2004 review, but it wouldn't change the fact that DMX04 is in the rarified air of "Must Buy" status for just about everyone (even in the face of the ugly documentation situation). Sure, some of you Director MX purchasers may still be smarting, but try and find a way to overcome your fear this time. You'll thank yourself. But don't just take my word for it (most don't anyway)—go ahead and download your very own 30-day trial version from the Macromedia Web site and see for yourself.

Director MX 2004 is available now for Mac and Windows. A full copy will run you $1,199.00, with upgrades from Director 8.5 going for $399.00.

Filed under: Review on March 26th, 2004

^ Top of Page

Got Feedback? to send an email. I'll do my best to answer. Really.