Macromedia's Director 6.5 Multimedia Studio

Emedia Professional, Oct, 1998 by Stephen Ellerin

In the redesigned score, the playback indicator displays in every channel, and key information about selected sprites appears at the top of the score. New views offer zoomed or expanded views of your movie, while multiple score windows let you view your data in different ways at the same time.

Sprite "overlays" pop up to display the most important sprite information directly on the stage. Double-click in the relevant part of an overlay to open key editing windows, or edit key sprite properties in a floating Sprite Inspector.

A revamped "Help" section includes an interactive tutorial produced in Director. In addition, several "Show Me" movies teach key concepts like cast members and sprites, tweening, film loops, and behaviors.

Finally, Director 6.5 allows you to link to media on the Internet as you would link to media on disk. New Lingo commands include frame-Ready and getNetText for Internet functions, and new scripting commands integrate Shockwave movies more tightly with Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Visual Basic.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO ...

With Director 6.5's dynamic set of features, its true competitors are few and far between. On the whole, version 6.5 proved more than capable of handling this would-be director's visions of movie magic. It can do the same for yours.

RELATED ARTICLE: Macromedia's Director 6.5 Multimedia Studio

Synopsis: Director 6.5 lets you import, integrate, and synchronize text, graphics, animation, digital video, and sound--in most standard multimedia formats--and then blend these raw materials into an interactive, computer-based "movie." You can create simple animations, complete demonstrations, kiosk presentations, tutorials, applications, and even Web games that will play on most major platforms, including Windows 95, 3.1, and NT, as well as on the Macintosh and the Web. And in version 6.5, you can do almost all of it without writing a single line of Lingo script.

Price: $999; $199 to upgrade from Director 6.0; $499 from Director 4.0 or Director 5.0

For more information, contact: Macromedia, Inc.

600 Townsend Street, Suite 310W, San Francisco, CA 94103; 800/326-2128, 415/252-2000; Fax 415/626-0554; http://www. macromedia.com; Infolink #414

Stephen Ellerin (gramps3000@aol.com) directs The Great American Publishing Society from Greenwich, Connecticut.