Using real world objects in your Director project

The idea of this tutorial is to use real world objects to create imagery for your Director interactive CD-ROM. These can be anything you like; I shall guide you through the way that Nick Cope worked but substitute the use of a scanner for Nick’s Web-cam. I recommend that you work on this tutorial in groups due to the number of scanners. Should you want to try this out in your own time, then you could use a Web Cam, scanner, digital video or still camera. You might even want to try using an ordinary photographic camera.
Rollover - Take your object and place it onto the scanner, If the object might damage or mark the scanner glass then you should use some acetate between the object and the scanner glass. Position the object as you would like the default version of the image/button to be and proceed to scan one image. For scanning instructions use the Scanner wizard in the scanning software. - Save the image onto your student hard drive as Image1.PSD and prepare the scanner to scan again. - Reposition the object in the scanner, this image will act as the rollover state, therefore you need to make only a minor adjustment. It your object is a pair of scissors open the blades out, if it is a pen take the top off, for example. When changing this be sure to move the position of the object as a whole as little as possible. - Once your object is positioned you can scan a single image. Save the image as Image2.PSD. You have now finished with the scanner for the time being. - Open up both of your image files in PhotoShop to begin processing them. If you want to have a transparent background in Director you will require your image file to have a pure white background. - Mask off any area which need to be transparent using either the Quick mask tool or the Magic wand mask tool. You will need to use the Options Tab on the right of the screen to set the tolerance level of the Magic want. Once masked you can paint all of the masked areas white. - Click on the foreground colour to get to the colour swatch and choose a pure white colour. R 255, G 255, B 255. Now click OK and using the Paintbrush tool and a large brush size paint over the masked area. This should leave you with your object in the middle of a white page. - Once happy with it save the file as Image1_trans.PSD. Repeat the same operation of whitening the background for the second image and save as Image2_trans.PSD. - I would advise against cropping either image down at this stage as this may cause problems with the two of them lining up in Director properly. - You could now proceed to scan in another object for a background, a circuit board for example, and use PhotoShop to process it. - Open up Director and import your two images Image1_trans.PSD and Image2_trans.PSD. You can also import a background if you have prepared one, if not import any picture for you background. You imported members should appear in the Cast window. - Drag your background image onto the Stage and reposition it appropriately. - Drag Image1_trans.PSD onto the Stage and again resize and reposition it suitably. You will also need to set the transparency. Click on the image in the Stage window and go to the first Tab on the Property Inspector. In the drop down that defaults as ‘Copy’ choose Background transparent. Your image should now have a transparency so there should be areas of the background showing through. - Go to Window/Library Palette and in the window that appears choose Animated/Interactive. Maximise the window slightly and choose the Rollover Member Change Behavior. - In the window that pops up select Image2_trans, as this will be the rollover state. - You can now click play and the rollover should work. Save you work if you wish.
Animated Using much the same technique it is possible to create your own animated sequence. This would involve scanning in a larger number of images. - Position a piece of acetate onto the scanner glass and layout a series of paperclips in any arrangement you wish. Using the same technique as the first part of the tutorial scan in a single image. Save it as Image1.PSD. - Slightly reposition some of the paperclips and scan in another single image. Save this as Image2.PSD. - Continue repositioning the paperclips on the scanner and saving each scan as Image3, Image4, Image5 and so on until you have 15 to 20 scans. - Depending on the quality of the scans you may want to take each of them into PhotoShop and resample them. You may also wish to set them up to have a pure white background in order to use the transparency feature of Director. I will leave this up to you to decide. Follow the outline of Part one of the tutorial if you choose to do so. - Open Director or go to File/New - Movie and import all 15 – 20 images into your cast. Select all of the images and go to Modify/Cast To Time. - This will automatically position them all onto your stage as a single animation element. It is advisable to set the background as transparent here, if you what to have a transparency. Select the element on the stage, go to the property inspector and change the drop down from ‘Copy’ to Background Transparent. - Click the play button to test that the animated sequence works. - If you wanted to you could use this animated sequence as a roll over state I exactly the same way as the animated rollover we created in the tutorial 2 weeks ago. See the Animated Rollovers link on the left of the page. Good luck with it Darren