Andrew M. Phelps

The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and the Information Technology Department where I teach, has long been a user of Macromedia products, from Dreamweaver to Director and most things in between. Recently, there has been some debate as to the future of Director's role, considering the increasing use of Flash in the marketplace for Web graphics and interactive displays. While we have moved some of our efforts to Flash technologies, RIT and the IT Department remain committed to the use of Director, because currently no other product on the market can meet our specific needs for an easy-to-script, but performance-aware 3D system capable of delivery on the Web and via downloadable executable. The shift to ECMAScript syntax represents a major advance in the Director ... (more)

Greetings, Faith, Reviews, and Seafood

Hello! I wanted to wait and formally greet you from the Macromedia MAX Conference in New Orleans. Some of you might know me from my writing at Director-Online, or from the Macromedia DevNet Center. Others are probably reading this and saying to themselves "Hey... wait a minute... where's James..." In any event, I wanted to report on the conference, give you a taste of what happened in ca... (more)

Using Multiple Cameras

Shockwave3D (S3D), despite a number of advantages such as delivery on the Web and small plug-in size, suffers from a few disadvantages in terms of its architecture. One of the "classic problems" with regard to the way S3D is built is the inability of the developer to manipulate exactly when objects are drawn to the screen, or more correctly the order in which they are drawn to the screen... (more)

One From the Vault: How I Rolled My Own Collision Detection

Recently in a Shockwave3D project, I had some problems with the modelsUnderRay command. More precisely, modelsUnderRay seemed to have some problems of its own. Occasionally it just didn't give the correct result, it would miss a model somehow. In the particular application I was building (a landscape that let the user's drive a car around on the surface), this was dramatic because the wh... (more)

And My Magic 8-Ball Says...

Director has three things going for it that are unique in both the Macromedia and Adobe product lines: Imaging Lingo (or JavaScript), Shockwave 3D, and DVD support It's the middle of summer, and it's particularly hot this year. I suppose the same could be said of multimedia content tools. I've seen a ton of new products this year, each of which looks interesting in its own way. In prepp... (more)