For those that develop games and are going to the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco next week be sure to go to the Director-related session. It will be held on Wednesday March 25, 2009 from 10:30-11:30am. The session description says:
Allen Partridge, Adobe Systems, hosts professional 3D game developers Pieter Albers and Diederick Groesbeek, Xform Games, Malachy Duffin, CanDo Interactive, Steve Becerra and Richard Chala, Mockworld, and David Mullich, Spin Master demonstrating & discussing design and development strategies for creating profitable, high-performance games for the web. Topics include technology challenges, design approach, business advantage & browser-based 3D.
I wonder if Director 11.5 will get shown at that time? Hmm…fits in well with the April 4th shipping date on Amazon.
March 15th, 2009
This past week a FOSE 2009 took place. I’m not sure what FOSE stands for but the event was a technology tradeshow and conference for government IT. Someone from Adobe was speaking and said that there are about 200,000 Director developers.
Is that number larger than you thought? Smaller? Needless to say, this sparked a bit of discussion on the Direct-L mailing list this week. Does the number indicate “active” developers? People that occasionally use Director to maintain old content? Hard to say.
Several people that run sites talked about their stats*, and that brought up more issues. I personally know that stats can “show” most anything you choose. Using Google stats you can at least be sure you have the same program doing the analysis. 
German Directorforum
Absolute Unique Visitors: 290,512 (1 year)
International Directorforum
Absolute Unique Visitors: 22,195 (11 months since launch)
Dean’s Director Tutorials
Absolute Unique Visitors: almost 65,000 (1 year)
And here at Director @ Night
Absolute Unique Visitors: 18,484 (11 months, was down for 1 month)
So what does this mean? Hard to say. I do know that this site does very little, but I still get visitors. I’d love to see stats on the Adobe Forums. Personally I think the 200k number is a bit high, but I would be willing to go with 100k. The bigger item of interest (to us Director developers) will be what happens to this number in the next few years as the new versions of Director get released. Amazon still shows Director 11.5 for April 4th. Adobe has been at the Game Developers Conference the past two years, so marketing is increasing. I even saw an ad for Director on my gmail page.
So are there 200,000 Director developers out there? As a Magic 8-ball might say, “Ask again later.”
*Stats are from Martin and Dean on Direct-L
March 15th, 2009
Every now and then I have to create an installer for a project I did with Director. I mostly work online and my mind usually goes blank when I need to create one. I’m certainly used to seeing them every day as I install new software to try it out.
On the Mac I typically see the lovely “drag this to applications” statement underneath a folder, and on the PC I get led through a standard sequence of steps where I can place shortcuts in lists, icons in docks, and about five other things I never really glance at (can you tell I’m a Mac guy?). Of course, I also see the dreaded click-thru installer on the Mac…life can’t be perfect.
My tools of choice are both free/donation-ware.
On the Mac you need to install the developer tools that are included on the Mac OSX DVD. Once you’ve done that you can go to HardDrive/Developer/Applications/Utilities and you will find the application called PackageMaker. This is rather easy to use (at least for simple installers), but one of the key things to notice is when the first start the program you have to enter your organization. This line MUST start with a ‘com.yadayada’ statement. A typical example might be “com.myCompany.productName”
After that you can drag content to have it included in the package (usually just one folder full of stuff in my case). You can click on the Edit Interface button to setup the readme text that will get displayed and the software license. After everything is done you click on the Build button.
On the PC side of things you can use Inno Setup. The setup wizard will lead you through all the things that can be included with the installer that you will create including the readme file, options for names in the shortcut menu, folder full of content, the executable of the content, etc.
After going through the steps you can save also go through a build step to create the setup.exe file. The program uses a tagged text file to build the final executable, and making minor edits in that text file are relatively easy if there is a small typo in a name or you decide to change the shortcut menu name.
Both products make it rather easy to create the installers.
February 22nd, 2009
As reported on Direct-L, there have been two sightings of Director 11.5 which is now available for pre-ordering.
On Directorforum you can see a link that shows a release date of March 22, 2009, and on Amazon it shows April 4, 2009.
Seems as if Director has nine lives. Or maybe more than eleven and a half
Image from Amazon
February 16th, 2009
There was a discussion on Direct-L last week about books that are good when trying to learn Flash (and in particular AS3). Several nice ones were mentioned.
I picked up ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University the other day and am starting to work my way through it. I feel that learning a new language by programming simple games is a good idea, since you always have a true goal in mind. Even better, a bit of physics gets thrown in so that aliens can behave in a realistic fashion when moving through varying gravitational fields
The book was written by Gary Rosenzweig, who many might know from years on various Director lists. Be sure to drop by the site that goes along with book called FlashGameU.
February 3rd, 2009
People occasionally have questions when trying to find a ceiling or floor function in the Lingo library so I figured I’d post it here for future googlers.
Lingo didn’t include these two math functions, but you can write your own functions and keep them in your personal library of goodies.
on floor aFloat
return integer(aFloat) - (aFloat < integer(aFloat))
end
on ceil aFloat
return integer(aFloat) + (aFloat > integer(aFloat))
end
If you are working with Javascript these functions are built in:
Math.ceil(aFloat);
Math.floor(aFloat);
February 3rd, 2009
I had this comment come in the other day but figured I’d make it a post since this is a big issue that has been popping up for years at my workplace.
Is there anybody who can tell me how to fix shockwave 11 it says it is installed, however it is not on my program list and when I try to play games that require it, it pops up saying 1 or more shockwave files are missing! Is there anyone out there that actually knows how to fix this! I am beginning to hate windows vista!
thank you
Lori
I can’t say much about Vista, and I could go in to great detail about what could be happening in some cases, but the short answer is this: download the Shockwave uninstaller, run it on your computer, and then download the FULL INSTALLER and not the default “slim” installer.
If that does not work, then it could be due to the content you are viewing. Some people use Xtras in the content, and many of those Xtras have not been updated to work with Shockwave 11.
In any event, running the uninstaller, followed by a full installation solves this sort of problem for the vast number of users that have issues like the one you described. Hope that helps out.
Note: On the Mac version the uninstaller is bundled with the installer, but for Windows you’ll have to download the uninstaller separately.
January 15th, 2009
I’ve been rather silent on the web lately, but I’m back. Where have I been? Here is the quick story…just for fun
In November the site got hacked a bit. That caused a bit of downtime. In mid-November my site went down for almost two weeks when I was on the road at MAX. I’d been hosting the site in my house on a Mac Mini, but my internet provider decided to make a change to my DSL-modem at a very bad time. The good side is that I moved the site to a real provider so I don’t have to worry when the power goes out here in town (which happens a lot!).
As December rolled around life in my office was a bit stressful. We had a deadline that had to get done. I started dreaming about Lingo. Since I hadn’t taken a day off all year I was supposed to be done as of December 1, but I got called in for one bonus week to do one last Gizmo. It was close, but it got done.
A day later I headed off to Minneapolis to teach an Introduction to Director course (see…Director isn’t dead!) for a week. I got to enjoy a snowstorm that was going on the night I got in to town, and then some good sub-zero weather. I really loved the skywalk system they had in the downtown area. I also enjoyed getting a chance to teach, since I hadn’t done that in a few years.
After a week in Minneapolis I headed off to Boulder, Colorado. I was housesitting and got to take care of a few dogs, a few cats, and a few plants. Relaxing. Got to enjoy a few good hikes in the mountains, and a few good evenings at the local pubs.
While out at MAX I bought an iPhone. While in Minneapolis and in Boulder I found myself using various features constantly. I can’t believe I lived so long without buying one, and can’t picture not having one ever again. I barely use the actual “phone” part of the device, but the rest makes it worth it.
Some of the apps are amazing. I downloaded the iPhone SDK the other day and installed it. I wonder how long it takes to create a simple app in my spare moments…guess I’ll find out in the next few months.
Vacation is now over. I’m back at work. This year I’ll be learning far more Flash, still doing lots in Director, and maybe creating something for the iPhone. I’m also waiting for Adobe CS4 to show up in my office. Gotta love new toys at the start of the year. And with the new year, it is time to get this site back in shape after the hack/downtime. Stay tuned…
Director @ Night is back from vacation
January 13th, 2009
Sorry for the site being down for so long. Right when I left for Adobe MAX my host made some changes…and things got messed up. But we are both back. More news in the next few days, and I have to start digging around with my new host to see if anything got broken.
November 22nd, 2008
An updated version of Shockwave was posted last week, and a hotfix for Director will be posted early this week.
Release Notes for Shockwave 11.0.3.470.
Release Notes for Shockwave 11.0.3.470
Shockwave build number: 11.0.3.470
1) Kerning was not available in Director 11.
Kerning is implemented for the font types supported by Director 11.
2) There were additional spaces at the end of the line when text was justified.
Bug is fixed. Justification of text correctly takes into account spaces at the end of the line.
3) When the sprite width was greater than 1536 pixels, text was not rendered properly. A black patch appeared in the text window\text sprite in some cases.
This issue is fixed for text sprites whose width and the height is greater than 1536 pixels.
4) Director used to crash when the following fonts were applied to the text sprite. (Mac OS 10.5)
- ApplySymbols
- Papyrus
- Papyrus condensed
- STHeiti( Light)
- STHeiti( Regular )
- Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro
- Hiragino Mincho Pro
- STFangSong
- LiSong Pro
- STSong
- STKaiti
This issue has been fixed.
5) Certain custom icons appeared fuzzy on the projector.
This issue has been fixed.
6) Changes to the value for friction and restitution of rigid bodies after collision did not have any effect on the Physics World.
This issue has been fixed.
7) When force was applied to a rigid body in a Physics World, a spin was observed.
This is because the rigid body always has an affinity towards the world axis.
A new rigid body property, called axisAffinity, has been added. The value of the axisAffinity property is true by default. The affinity towards the world axis is compensated by setting the property to false. When you set the property to false, the spin is not observed.
The computations are more when axisAffinity is false; set the property to false only when required.
Sample code snippet
aball = pDynamiks.createRigidBody(ball.name,ball.name,#sphere,#dynamic)
aball.mass=1000
aball.sleepThreshold = 100
aball.friction= 1
aball.restitution = 0
aball.axisAffinity = false
8 ) The Maintain Proportion option in the Sprite’s scale dialog box, and Transform bitmap dialog box, did not produce the required results in Director on a MAC 10.4 G5 machine.
This issue has been fixed for both the dialog boxes.
9) Externally linked Scripts got deleted when external files had MAC line ending characters.
This problem occurred when a text file created on MAC with MAC line endings was imported to a Windows machine and saved. This issue has been fixed.
10) On a computer running on Windows Vista, Flash and Shockwave content on the same HTML page were not able to communicate.
This issue has been fixed.
11) The value of timestep and substep was not ignored in the Automatic time step mode while initializing the Physics body.
Automatic time step is supposed to take the elapsed time for advancing the Physics World simulation. This was not working properly for all values of time step.
12) Physics Xtra throws an error when the value for the timestep and substep parameters is zero in the Automatic time step mode.
This is a valid value for automatic time step and no error is thrown when you specify a value of zero. However, zero values for timestep and substep are invalid for other modes and the error will be shown.
13) Memory leak when models were cloned using cloneModelFromCastMember() and resetworld()
Models and texture files were not cleaned as intended when cloneModelFromCastMember() and resetworld() were used. This resulted in a small memory leak.
14) Downloading a new version of the custom Xtra did not replace the previous version after the user closed the browser
When a user plays a Shockwave movie that requires the latest version of a custom Xtra, the custom Xtra is downloaded to the user’s computer in the same location as the previous version of the Xtra. The new Xtra is placed in a folder named New. This happens only when a previous version of the custom Xtra exists on the computer.
When the user closes the browser, the new version should replace the previous custom Xtra and the “New†folder should get deleted. This was not happening and has been fixed now.
The new custom Xtra replaces the previous version when:
- The user closes the browser.
- The Shockwave player is opened in a new instance of the browser. This happens, if for some reason, the Shockwave player did not unload the new Custom Xtra when the user closed the browser.
Feature Enhancement
rayCastAll method in Physics(Dynamiks xtra) takes an optional parameter for sorting the returned list.
Usage
<list> world.rayCastAll(vector origin,vector direction,[[#sorted:#distance]])
Description
This method returns references of all the rigid bodies or terrains that are found along the ray from the specified origin and specified direction. The method also returns the point of contact, contact normal, and the distance from the origin of the ray.
Parameters
parameter Description
Origin Required. Vector that specifies the origin of the raycast direction Required. Vector that specifies the direction of the raycast.
[#sorted:#distance] Optional list. Specifies that the returned list should be sorted on distance
Return parameter
This method returns a list containing a list having the following information:
- Rigid body / Terrain reference
- Contact Point
- Contact Normal
- Distance of the rigid body or terrain, from the origin of the ray.
Example
â€â€Lingo Syntax
lstraycast = member(“PhysicsWorld”).rayCastAll (vector(10,0,0),vector(0,0,1))
â€â€Returns an unsorted list containing the above parameters
put lstraycast
lstraycast = member(“PhysicsWorld”).rayCastAll (vector(10,0,0),vector(0,0,1),[#sorted:#distance])
â€â€Returns an sorted list containing the above parameters
put lstraycast
//JavaScript Syntax
var lstraycast = member(“PhysicsWorld”).rayCastAll (vector(10,0,0),vector(0,0,1));
â€â€Returns a unsorted list containing the above parameters
put(lstraycast);
lstraycast = member(“PhysicsWorld”).rayCastAll (vector(10,0,0),vector(0,0,1),
propList(symbol(“sorted”),symbol(“distance”)));
//Returns a sorted list containing the above parameters
put(lstraycast);
November 10th, 2008
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