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Software

Many useful multimedia examples and links to multimedia web sites can be found through the home pages of the software packages we are using in IT82:

Adobe Systems (Photoshop, Premiere)

Macromedia (Director, Authorware)

Hash (Animation Master)

Syntrillium (CoolEdit)

For many other examples of using Macromedia's Director for multimedia authoring, see the sites:

The Director Web

Director User Group

Storyboards

Storyboarding software: StoryBoard Quick

Using Director for storyboarding: Example (click anywhere on each page to see the next storyboard)

Multimedia Examples

Some stand-alone examples of multimedia, graphics, animation etc are to be found in the Groups on Wide\IT82\Examples folder. Open this folder in Windows and follow the instructions below to view any of the examples. Please let me know of any problems viewing any of these examples.

Navigation in Director:A simple example of "button clicking" navigation in Director is to be found in Groups on Wide\IT82\Examples\ExampNav. Copy this entire folder to your file space then investigate the movie (.dir file) to see how it works - pay attention to the behaviours added to the image sprites on the two screens, and the "Hold on current frame" behaviours added to the script channel to stop the movie on particular frames.

Learning English: a multimedia presentation build using Macromedia's Director. To run it, open the folder, Lee_demo, and double click on Lee32.exe (and ignore the error message that appears!).

Particle system: an example of particle system graphics for realistic smoke. Double click on PD.exe to run it (and wait! it takes a little time to load).

Morphing: an AVI movie of a morphing example. Double click on Morph.avi

Animation: a QuickTime movie of a space ship. Double click on SpaceShip.mov

Animation and Sound: an AVI movie of changing a car wiper blade. Double click on Wiper.avi

Assigment Examples

Some examples of multimedia assignments from 31N5 and IT82 are to be found as stand-alone applications in the Groups on Wide folders for your course (either Groups on Wide\IT82\Examples or Groups on Wide\31N5\Examples). Open this folder in Windows and double click on the ".exe" file to view a presentation (see list below). Others are available on-line as ShockWave movies - just click on the links below (and ignore error messages that appear when they load!). Please let me know of any problems viewing any of these examples. Note that all these examples were produced using Director, and are provided as a source of ideas only - I DO NOT regard them as perfect prototypes!

William Wallace: Courtesy of William Cameron. To run it double click on wcaWW.exe.

University of Stirling: Courtesy of Stuart Mains. To run it double click on smsUniv.exe.

Buying a Computer: Courtesy of David Mcatamney. To run it double click on dmcComp.exe.

The Moon: Courtesy of Gail Brown. Click here.

Microsoft Paint: Courtesy of Glen Buchan. Click here.

Columbo: Courtesy of Adam Winstanley. Click here.

Books

Title: Multimedia Making it Work
Author: Tay Vaughan
ISBN: 0078825520
Price: 31.99 from Amazon
Edition: 4th
Publisher:
Year: 1996

This is a good general introductory text to multimedia authoring. It has an informal and anecdotal style which may not suit all, and attempts to cover a wide variety of subjects, many by necessity at a superficial level. It has a companion CD which offers the reader sample programs of authoring tools etc., which can prove useful for the home PC owner.

Title: Managing Multimedia
Author: Elaine England and Andy Finney
ISBN: 0201360586
Price: 35.99 from Amazon
Publisher: Addison Wesley
Year: 1998

This book addresses the whole area of management of the overall multimedia production cycle. It is an essential starting point for any multimedia design to define its goals and limits etc. This book illustrates some of the pitfalls that a multimedia professional must be aware of.