Tutorial 11 - Digital Video This tutorial introduces you to using digital video in you movie. You will learn how to import, insert, get information from and sequence other media elements to digital video. 1. Open a new movie, set the stage size to 340x380, set the stage colour to white and save this movie as DVtutorial.dir. 2. Next, import the digital video Clapper.avi into the cast. Download Clapper.avi here 3. Now click and drag the cast member Clapper and place it in the score starting at channel 1 frame 1. Position the sprite in the top portion of the stage. 4. Extend the length of the sprite to 10 frames. Figure 11.1: Extend the Clapper sprite over 10 frames 5. Ensure that the "Loop Playback" option is disabled: select Control and remove the tick from the left side of the Loop Playback menu item. Figure 11.2: Deselecting the Loop Playback Option 6. Now play the movie, you will see that the Director movie ends before the digital movie ends, this is because the playback head reached frame 10 before the digital video has a chance to run it's course but this is OK since we are going to use two different methods of sequencing with digital video: Cue Points and the movieTime.   Cue Points A Cue point is marker that can be embedded in digital video or sound file. Director is capable or recognising these markers and a message is send at a specific time in the play cycle. Let's use the end cue point in the Clapper digital video to prevent the play-head from ending the movie until the entire video has played. 7. In frame 10 (the last frame in the movie), double click in the tempo channel to open the tempo property box. Figure 11.3: Wait for Cue Point 8. Select the "Wait for Cue Point" radio button. 9. From the channel drop-down option list select "1:Clapper". 10 From the Cue Point drop-down option list select "{End}". This will instruct director to remain at frame 10 until the END cue point has been reached, or until the video has finished playing. 11. Play your movie. You will now be able to view the entire video!   The movieTime The movieTime is a lingo property that allows us to set ant test the position of the play-head inside a digital video. MovieTime is counted in ticks (1/60th of a second) so for example if a digital video plays at 15fps for 60 seconds (i.e. 1500 frames) the movie will end at tick 3600 and will run at 4 ticks per frame. We are going to use the movieTime property to find out exactly when certain events occur within the video and based on the information we will sequence some sound and text with the video. 12. Extend the length of sprite 12 to frame 40 and remove the tempo setting by selecting it and pressing the delete key 13. Create a button and call it "MovieTime". Position the button in the bottom left corner of the stage. We will use this button to get the movieTime for the events we want. 14. Open the Message window (Ctrl. M or Window > Message). The message window is very useful for testing code, setting properties and getting information from director. 15. Click on the button in the cast and open the cast member script window. We are going to write some code that will print the movieTime in the message window, to do this we will use the "PUT" command. 16. Type the following code: on mouseUp put the movieTime of sprite 1 end This code will print the movieTime on the video in Channel 1 at the precise time the mouseUp event occurs. 17. Ensuring that the message window is visible, play the movie and click on the button when the the clapper is slammed shut, in or around 290 you should find. We will use this information to tell Director to play an explosion sound at the exact moment when the clapper slams shut. 18. Let's import the sound files we'll need to complete this tutorial: Party.aif Explosion.aif Clapping.aif 19. Import these files into your cast. 20. Create 3 text cast members: "PARTY", "EXPLOSION" and "CLAPPING" 21. Let's start the video with the party sound, double-click in frame 1 of the script channel to open the frame script editor and type the following code: on exitFrame puppetsound 2, "party" end Refer to tutorial 10 for further information on puppetSound 22. Double-click in frame 15 of the script channel to open the frame script editor, we are going to get Director to wait at this frame until the movieTime is larger than 290. Once this time has been reached we want Director to stop playing the Party sound and play the Explosion sound AND move onto the next frame! So, type the following code: on exitFrame if the movieTime of sprite 1 < 290 then go the frame else puppetSound 2, "explosion" go the frame+1 end if end Working from the top down: on exitFrame -- this script will run when the play-head attempts to leave or exit the frame if the movieTime of sprite 1 < 290 then-- the is the first line of a conditional IF statement (if a condition is true then do an action), here the condition is if the movieTime is less than 290. go the frame--this is the action, which is go to the beginning of the same frame, effectively loop in the same frame else-- every other case (i.e. when the movieTime is no longer less than 290) puppetSound 2, "explosion"-- Play the sound file "explosion" in channel 2, since the party sound was also playing in channel two that will now be stopped to make way for the explosion sound file. Go the frame+1-- go the the NEXT frame end if-- every IF statement MUST end with the words end if end-- every handler must end with the word end 23. Test your movie, the party sound starts when you start the movie & when the clapper shuts the explosion sound takes over. Let's add a clapping sound once the explosion sound has finished, to achieve this we will use the soundBusy property to check if a sound is still playing. 24. Double-click in frame 30 of the script channel to open the frame script editor and type the following code: on exitFrame if soundbusy(2) then go the frame else puppetSound 2, "clapping" go the frame+1 end if end Follow the code line by line, you'll see that it is checking to see if channel 2 is busy (soundBusy(2)). Once it is free Direct will play the Clapping sound file, again in channel 2. Let's finish the movie off with an alert box to tell our user that the movie has finished. 25. Double-click in frame 35 of the script channel to open the frame script editor and type the following code: on exitFrame if soundbusy(2) then go the frame else alert "This Movie has come to an end!!" go the frame+1 end if end Lot's of familiar code here, we're checking for a sound in channel 2, once all's quite we will display an alert box the will say "This Movie has come to an end!!". Once our user clicks the OK button on the alert box director will go to the next frame and finish. 26. Test your movie! 27. Finally, insert the 3 pieces of text in the relevant frames in the score   In this tutorial you have learned how to: import digital video control digital files using Cue points get the movieTime of a sprite sequence sound and text using the movieTime and soundBusy properties Create a simple alert box Click here for the .DIR file for this tutorial Back to director tutorials