Using Director > Using Interactive Media Types > Using Flash Movies > Adding a Flash movie cast member |  |

Adding a Flash movie cast member

All Flash cast members added to a Director movie must have been created with Flash 2.0 or later and saved in Flash format (SWF).

The following procedure explains how to create a Flash cast member and set properties for it at the same time. You can also import a cast member by using File > Import or by dragging and dropping.

To add a Flash movie as a cast member:

1 | Choose Insert > Media Element > Flash Movie.
2 | In the Flash Asset Properties dialog box, select the Flash movie (SWF) file you want to add to your Director cast.
| To add a file from your computer or from a network drive, click Browse, select the file, and click Open.
| To add a file from a location on the Internet, click Internet, type the URL of the file, and click OK.
| Type the pathname or the URL of the file in the Link File box.
3 | Set Media options:
| Select Linked to leave the actual media of the Flash movie stored in an external file. When a sprite created with this cast member appears on the stage in a Director movie, Director will automatically load the file into memory by looking in the location specified in the Link File box. Deselect Linked to have Director copy the Flash movie into the cast.
| Select Preload to require Director to load the entire Flash movie into memory before playing the movie's first frame. Deselect Preload to have Director start playing the movie immediately while continuing to stream the cast member into memory. This option is available if you selected Linked.
4 | Select Playback options to control how a Flash movie sprite plays in a Director projector, in a Shockwave Director movie, and while you are authoring in Director:
| Image displays images from the Flash movie when it plays. When Image is deselected, the images are invisible.
| Sound enables any sound in the Flash movie to play. When Sound is deselected, the movie plays without sound.
| Paused displays only the first frame of the movie without playing the movie. When Paused is deselected, the movie begins playing immediately when it appears on the Director Stage.
| Loop makes the movie play again from frame 1 once it finishes. When Loop is deselected, the movie plays once and stops.
| Direct to Stage displays the movie when it appears on the stage with the fastest, smoothest playback. Deselect Direct to Stage to have Director draw the entire sprite first in memory with other sprites and apply ink effects before actually displaying it. The disadvantage of Direct to Stage is that the movie always appears on top of other sprites, regardless of the channel in which it appears in the Score, and ink effects don't work.
5 | Specify a Scale value by typing the percentage to scale the cast member.
6 | Specify a Quality value:
| Select a high-quality setting to have the Flash movie play with anti-aliasing turned on, which slows down performance; choose Auto-High to have Director start playing the movie with anti-aliasing on but turn it off if it can't play the movie at the required frame rate.
| Select a low-quality setting to turn off anti-aliasing but speed up performance; choose Auto-Low to have Director start playing the movie without anti-aliasing but turn on anti-aliasing if it can do so and continue playing the movie at the required frame rate.
7 | Select a Scale Mode value to control how the Flash movie's sprites are scaled on Stage:
| Show All maintains the movie's aspect ratio and, if necessary, fills in any gaps along the horizontal or vertical dimension using the movie's background color.
| No Border maintains the movie's aspect ratio by cropping the horizontal or vertical dimension as necessary without leaving a border.
| Exact Fit stretches the movie to fit the sprite exactly, disregarding the aspect ratio.
| Auto-Size adjusts the sprite's bounding rectangle to fit the movie when it is rotated, skewed, or flipped. This option always sets the scale to 100% in the Director score.
| No Scale places the movie on the Stage with no scaling. The movie stays the same size no matter how you resize the sprite, even if it means cropping the movie.
8 | Select a Rate value to control the tempo at which Director tries to play the Flash movie:
| Normal plays the Flash movie at the tempo stored in the Flash movie.
| Fixed plays the movie at a rate you specify by typing a value in the entry box.
| Lock-Step plays a frame of the Flash movie for each Director frame.

Note: A Flash movie will not play faster than the frame rate set in the Director movie.

9 | When you have finished selecting options, click OK.
| Director adds the Flash movie to the cast.

Note: You can also use Lingo extensions to adjust these and other properties of the Flash movie. See Controlling a Flash movie with Lingo.