What's New in Director 8.5 > 3D Basics > From 2D to 3D |  |

From 2D to 3D

Because Director 8.5 is an evolutionary development, most of what you know about Director still holds true. The following are the main components common to Director 8.5 and earlier versions:

| The Stage is the authoring area in which the Director movie is assembled.
| The Score is an arrangement of channels that organize, display, and control the movie over time.
| Because 3D is primarily Lingo-controlled, it involves much less direct manipulation of the Score than other Director features.
| The Cast window is where all cast members, including the 3D cast members, are stored.
| Cast members are the media in your movies, such as sounds, text, graphics, and 3D scenes.
| Sprites are instances of cast members that appear on the Stage with individual properties and attributes.
| A sprite of a 3D cast member displays a particular camera's view into the 3D world. The 3D cast member contains models, which are individual objects inside the 3D cast member itself. For more information about models, see The 3D world. Also see The 3D cast member overview and Working with models and model resources overview.

| The Stage, Score, and Cast window in Director
| The Property Inspector is a tabbed panel that lets you view and control properties of multiple objects in your movie.
| The Property Inspector has been modified to include a 3D Model tab. See Using the Property Inspector for 3D.
| The Behavior Library lets you select the behaviors you want to use.
| The Behavior Inspector lets you create and modify behaviors.
| For an introduction to the Behavior Inspector, see 3D behaviors. For a full discussion, see Using 3D behaviors overview. Also see Director 8.5 tutorial overview.
| Director 8.5 provides easy but powerful 3D text handling.
| For more information, see 3D text. For details, see Using 3D text overview.
| Lingo is Director's scripting language. It can be used to create movies that are more complex and interactive.
| For detailed Lingo information, see The 3D cast member overview, 3D basics overview, Working with lights and cameras overview, and Controlling the 3D world overview.
| 3D Lingo commands and properties are covered according to function in each of these chapters. They are also presented in dictionary form, with syntax guidelines, definitions, and examples, in 3D Lingo Dictionary.