MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX, Use Manual

Page: 157 / 624

157
CHAPTER 5
Sprites
A sprite is an object that controls when, where, and how cast members appear in a Macromedia
Director MX movie. Multiple sprites can use the same cast member. You can also switch the cast
member assigned to a sprite as the movie plays. You use the Stage to control where a sprite
appears, and you use the Score to control when it appears in your movie.
Sprites display on the Stage layered according to the channel in which they’re in the Score. Sprites
in higher-numbered channels appear in front of sprites in lower-numbered channels. A movie can
include as many as 1000 sprite channels. Use the Movie tab of the Property inspector to control
the number of channels. See “Setting Stage and movie properties” on page 27.
Sprite properties include the sprite’s size and location, the cast member assigned to the sprite, and
the frames in which the sprite occurs. Different properties can alter the appearance of a sprite. You
can rotate, skew, flip, and change the color of sprites without affecting cast members. You can
change sprite properties with the Property inspector or Lingo.
In Lingo, some properties are available only for certain types of sprites. Such properties typically
are characteristics that are related to the specific sprite type. For example, Lingo has several digital
video properties that determine the contents of tracks in digital video sprites.
To control the way a sprite’s colors appear on the Stage, you use sprite inks. By selecting
Background Transparent ink in the Property inspector, for example, you turn all white pixels
transparent and remove the white border (the bounding rectangle) around bitmap images
(assuming the sprite is over a white background). Other inks provide more complex and
interesting effects such as reversed colors or colors that change in different ways depending on the
background color.
Creating sprites
You create a sprite by dragging a cast member to either the Stage or the Score; the sprite appears in
both places. New sprites, by default, span 28 frames. To change the default sprite duration, select
Edit > Preferences > Sprite; see “Changing sprite preferences” on page 158.
To create a new sprite:
1
Click to select the frame in the Score where you want the sprite to begin.
2
From the Cast window, in either List or Thumbnail view, do one of the following:
•
Drag a cast member to the position on the Stage where you want to place the sprite.
•
Drag a cast member to the Score. Director places the new sprite in the center of the Stage.
•
To create a sprite one frame long, press Alt (Windows) or Option (Macintosh) and drag a cast
member to the Stage or Score.