This example does not employ any scripting. It illustrates how easy it is to create a basic
animation where a cast member (a ball graphic) is placed at different locations in the scene.
We also introduce some features of Director that we have not yet met (these should be fairly
straightforward to understand). Note: there are still many features of Director we will
have not touched.
Draw an ellipse (circle) about the size of the Vector
Shape Window - don't worry about being exact, we will be
changing the size of it later.
Click on the Gradient fill button. This fills the ellipse
with the default colours, which happen to be a light grey to
red (unless someone has changed it on your computer).
To change the colours, click the colour box on the left
side of the Gradient colour control and choose a sky blue
from the colour menu. You will notice the Fill colour chip changes
too. Change the colour on the right side of the Gradient
Colours to a dark blue.
Change the Gradient type pull-down menu at the top of your window from Linear to Radial.
Change the Stroke Colour to white - notice how the outline of the ellipse disappears.
3.
Now let us change a few other properties of this ellipse - for us to compare these
changes, we will make a copy of
this cast member.
Close the Vector Shape window.
In the Cast Window, select the ellipse. Choose Edit > Duplicate (Shortcut = Command+D). A
copy of the cast member is
produced in the next available cast slot. Double click the new cast, which opens it in the Vector Shape Tool.
Change the Cycles to 3 and the Spread to 200.
Click the Previous Cast
button and compare the 2 ellipses. Experiment with different cycles and spreads to get an idea of what they mean.
Name the latest ellipse to 'bouncing ball' - this can either be done at in the Vector
Shape window or the Cast Member
Window.
4.
Now we are going to animate the ball.
Drag 'bouncing ball' from the cast member window to the stage. You could drag and drop it
straight into the score,
which would automatically centre it on the stage.
You will notice the sprite (the object that appears in the score) is extended over 20
frames. This is a default setting that we
can change. Drag the right end of the sprite to frame 40.
Click anywhere in the middle of the sprite to select it. We are now going to resize the
ellipse. Click on the top of the stage
window to make it active. Press Shift and while still holding down, click on a corner handle of the spite and drag it in to make
it smaller. Holding down Shift lets us resize the object in proportion to its original dimensions. Resize the sprite to
approximately the size shown in diagram 2, and move it to the left side of the stage.
Click on frame 40 in channel 1 (the end of the sprite), hold down Option and shift and
drag the ellipse to the right end of the stage.
(Holding down shift restricts the movement to 90 degrees). With Option selected
You will notice a line being drawn on the stage - this is the animation
path. Rewind and play the movie to see what you made.
To curve the path, we are going to insert keyframes within the sprite. Click on frame 10 of
the sprite and choose Insert >
Keyframe (Shortcut = Command+Option+K) Create keyframes at frame 20 and 30.
You will notice at each keyframe, a circle appears on the path shown on the stage. Click
on the keyframe 10 circle and drag
it up.
Do the same with keyframe 30, producing a path similar to that shown below. Rewind and play the
movie.
(Optional) Click on keyframe 40 in the score and drag it to frame 60, notice how all the
keyframes spread out
proportionally.
(Optional) Click on the keyframes in the score and adjust the path if you feel like it.
While moving the keyframes, resize the balls so they slowly get smaller. Notice while you
resize the balls, the path changes
and you will need to edit the path again.
Click on the keyframes in the score, and
change the Foreground colour chip to different colours.
Changing the foreground colour (refer to Fig 3.15) is like
putting a coloured film over your object. The resulting colour is a mixture of the
object's original colour and the 'film'. For this reason, light colours work better than dark colours for this effect..
