Page 159 - DCAP303_MULTIMEDIA_SYSTEMS

Unit 9: Working with Animation

While ImageQ does not provide the robust slide design tools that competing products include, notes
it does import a wide variety of graphics formats. Once the images have been imported into an
ImageQ presentation, they can then kept in their native formats or saved as BMP or HKF files.
Whenever images are imported into an ImageQ presentation, it involves only creation of thumb
nails and slide references, the images themselves remain as separate files. The List of filenames
and the control and transition settings are stored in a file with an IMQ extension, which serves
as the main file for the presentation. ImageQ’s programming language is awkward to work with,
because it uses unconventional syntax and event handlers. For example, ImageQ uses lines like
“add X to Y”, put 150 into X for adding the two values in a single statement and assigning the
value to 150 to X, respectively.
Though ImageQ lacks design and programming tools, it does well with distribution. It is easy to
build portable presentations as standalone exe files that include the ImageQ runtime. The ImageQ
is really a presentation package in an authoring system’s clothing. Its real strength lies in ability
to create traditional slide shows with prebuilt images and distribute them with no royalty. Yet
the product’s lack of interactive design tools and its clumsy programming languages ultimately
make it a poor choice for robust multimedia applications development.
Macromedia Director

Macromedia Director 4.04 is better suited to multimedia presentations and kiosk applications than
CBT or interactive catalogues that require more database work. This product offers a lot.

(i) Central scoring component that provides precise timing control,
(ii) Cross-platform compatibility,
(iii) Strong yet intuitive animation features, and

(iv) As extensive architecture to add functionality.
The application in Director’s user interface is a movie, the playback screen is the stages, and
the various elements in the movie are cast members. A Director movie consists of frames that
comprise many separate, individual channels, each of which can hold a sprite or sound, custom
palette, and the like. Each sprite is an instance of a cast member, such as a piece of text, a bit-
mapped image, or a digital video clip. As all of the sprites can be accessed during each frame
of the movie, so an ultimate time-based control can be achieved. Director has 48 separate sprite
channels available in each frame. Sprites are only copies of the cast members so their look can be
modified in a particular frame without affecting the original cast member. Each channel number
represents a stage layer so the sprites can be moved between layers by simply suffering them up
and down. Some special channels exist to refer to each frame; transition, palette, tempo, script and
two sound channels. One of Director’s strongest features is its cross-platform compatibility. The
Windows and Macintosh versions of the products are binary compatible so the Director movies
can be transferred between them by simply moving the file.
Director imports an impressively broad range of graphics formats. When a file is imported, it
automatically becomes a cast member and receives a number. Version 4.04 has the ability to mix
sound files sampled at different rates and sizes but it is not possible to mix AIF and WAV files
with the audio in digital movie clips. An animation feature which is one of Director’s strongest
suits allows setting the sprites in motion differently.
Director lets the non-programmer arrange cast members frequently and put them in motion,
but robust movies need some coding. (Director’s language, Lingo, uses English like phrases for
commands, but getting used to it takes some time). Director has been proved to be very useful
for implementing linear presentations but weak for complex programming.

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