RE: [flasher] Flash vrs Director

[Pradeep K. Nair]

You're right about Director having to have most of its elements brough in from

other applications, but that's part of the beauty of it - for people who are

used to making their graphics somewhere else, or their audio elsewhere, etc. -

they can get them all together in one central place.  It may be a minus that you

can't author (or rather, can't do a good job of authoring) these elements inside

Director, but it's a huge plus that you can use the tools that you're familiar

with to do it, and still be able to use them in Director.


As for it's other plusses, Director has Xtras - Flash doesn't.  That means that

you can build plug-ins for Director and have them usable in ways that Flash can

only dream of at this point.  For example, have a look at BuddyAPI or DirectOS -

those Xtras allow you direct access to functions that would freak out the

average Flash developer.  Plus, database interactivity without the need of a

monster like Oracle and a scripting engine like JSP to talk between them (just

as an example) - instead, you have neat, tight little Xtras like V12-DBE and

Valentina.  Can you stick video in Flash?  Not without faking it.  But you can

in Director.  Can you put PDFs in Flash?  No, but you can in Director.  Can you

do relatively advanced handling of QuickTime movies in Flash?  Well, in Director

you can.  Now, don't get me wrong - I absolutely love Flash.  But I know full

well that there are times when Director is the better tool.  If I was going to

create a demo-CD or portfolio of my work, I'd probably do it in Director -

because I would be able to tell what applications the end user had on their

machine, and what assets I should use to pull up my items (for example, if they

have Photoshop on my machine, I could open it up and let them load up an action

that I created, or if they had Napster, I could automatically invoke a search

for a certain mp3 that I created so they could see how popular it was, etc.).

That's just one example.  Of course, if I wanted to have a Web portfolio, I'd do

it in Flash.  Director sucks on the web.  It's not widely used, it's a

relatively heavy download, etc.  It's just a matter of your target market.


Another thing is that there is a lot of overlap between the two applications -

Flash and Director.  But some of the things you can do in both are easier to do

in one.  For example, I could create a crazy-ass animation all within Director.

But it would take me probably 3-4 times as long as doing the same in Flash.

Whereas, I could create a database-driven CD-ROM application which loads up

images, animations, sounds, etc., dynamically from a database using Flash and

HTML.  I wouldn't do it, though - just too long and a total hack in Flash.  I'd

prefer to do it in Director.


Anyway, I think you've written off Director without really knowing what it's

capable of.  If you're looking at it as another version of Flash, you're looking

at it all wrong - it won't be able to compare if you look at it that way.  But

if you look at it based on what it can do and what market you're targetting,

you'll see where its uses come in.


Just my $0.02 CDN. :)


HTH

-Deep (just a guy)


# -----Original Message-----

# From: illOgic [

illogicinterx2 [dot] com (mailto:illogicinterx2 [dot] com)

]

# Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 11:31 AM

# To: flasher from chinwag

# Subject: [flasher] Flash vrs Director

#

#

# I have seen this argument many times on this list and have read all the

# emails.

# but until this point I have not used or even touched director. I am

# currently building a CD prez for a client who insists that the CD be done in

# director. because if he wanted it in flash, he would "do it himself".

#

# From what I have used night and day for the past week and a half, this

# program is absolute sh**.

#

# everything needs to come from other program, I.E. animations,transitions,

# and the lingo for this cant do anything that flash cant do, that I can see.

# I might be wrong, but before mud starts being thrown, I would just like to

# know if there is one thing that can be said that is good about director.

#

# i hate it.

# thats just me.

# any comments?

#

#

# i l l O g i c

#

#

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