[BNM] Director within Flash

[james]

oh goodie director vs. flash this hasn't come up for ages :)

back in the day director rocked and flash was frankly ... PANTS

BUT broadband didn't exist for most people and flash had a much smaller 
plug-in and generally smaller file sizes as it was all vector art

so every tom dick and web agency ceo (the guilty ones know who they are) 
fell arse over tit to flog flash not director although director continued to 
excel for web based games mainly because it was 1) faster, 2) handled 
bitmaps well and 3) lingo was a more powerful language than actionscript, or 
rather simply 'actions' as they were then known

but to be honest the gap has closed and whilst i agree on a lot of what matt 
sez (hello matt, say hello to howellsy tomorrow, jim x) i think flash is now 
a viable professional platform, cd-rom delivery included, but ... it's only 
really impressed me with Pro8, mx was getting there, but Pro8, the imminent 
as3.0/flex etc is starting to look impressive

>I'm a full-time ActionScripter these days, but only because no-one wants
>Lingo any more.

likewise tho to be honest i'd much rather code in as2.0 than lingo these 
days

what has director got that flash hasn't?

more flexible video support
faster bitmap handling (i did speed comparisons between the lingo bitmap api 
and the new flash bitmap api the other day ... result? director was about 
7-8x faster for identical tasks, go figure)
infact it's STILL just faster full stop
xtras architecture, lots of people still use director simply because it can 
import and display .pdfs (an important format for many sectors)
built in 3D engine

what has flash got that director hasn't?

more advanced IDE (director still doesn't have multple undo ... 
HUUULLLLOOOO!!!!)
an ECMA compliant fully OOP programming language
great support for vector graphics
hierarchical/object-oriented movieclip model (whenever i return to director 
i really really miss this)

and so on

it's really hard to predict the future of director, it may well be 'none at 
all'. particularly with adobe at the helm

for the creative media sectors adobe have an impressive portfolio now

flash
premiere
photoshop
after effects

we'll start to see that lot much more tightly integrated over the next few 
years and to be honest i don't quite see where director, in it's current 
form at least, fits in ?

jim


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Dussek" <tomdussek at hotmail.com>
To: "Brighton New Media" <bnmlist at brightonnewmedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: [BNM] Director within Flash


Gooooooooooooo-on, Matt! Exactly, precisely and spot on. On a more serious
note, does anyone have a resource of what the more tricksy differences
between Flash and Director are? (Obviously, apart from the obvious) It might
be interesting to do some sort of audit, as these recent issues (Flash has
no Xtra/plug-in support, has not very good 'timing' abilities, can't import
Director files) are certainly helpful to me when trying to persuade clients
not to spec Flash for their non-web project simply because their mate who is
A Web Designer said Director was rubbish and they have heard of Flash from
some animation festival.

Or something.

Tom Dussek

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "matt zb" <bnm at zenbullets.com>
To: <bnmlist at brightonnewmedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:11 PM
Subject: Re: [BNM] Director within Flash



> If this is an internet based resource then the user will need a shockwave
> plugin as well as their flash plugin (if it is at all possible), and
> shockwave distribution is still quite low.

It's all web, web, web with you people ;) Try doing a CD-Rom with any degree
of professionalism with only Flash. Even in 2006, with Flash on version 8,
it's still not as powerful and flexible as Director (which hasn't had a
significant update since 2001) for platforms other than the web.

> It is oddly refreshing to hear "Flash cannot do that" after sooooo many
> years of "Director is rubbish".

It saddens me the way Director has been increasingly side-lined over the
last few years in favour of Flash. Flash, for all it's web2.0 grooviness, is
still seriously limited in some respects.

I'm a full-time ActionScripter these days, but only because no-one wants
Lingo any more.



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