Comments on: Director 11 Released - R.I.P. Director http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/ Education, Interactivity, Play and Emerging Cultural Forms from Andy Polaine. Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:53:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc By: Andy Polaine http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5815 Andy Polaine Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:08:09 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5815 <p>Yes, it's a real pain. I stupidly sold my old Pismo Powerbook for almost nothing on eBay and doubly stupidly just upgraded my G5 iMac to Leopard. so no Classic on there anymore.</p> <p>The only option seems to be something like <a href="http://gwenole.beauchesne.info//en/projects/sheepshaver" rel="nofollow">SheepShaver</a> that emulates the PowerPC runtime environment so you can run Classic.</p> <p>Mac Companion has <a href="http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/archives/December2007/Columns/AccordingtoHoyle.htm" rel="nofollow">a good guide on how to set-up various Classic emulators under OS X Leopard</a>. I haven't tried them yet though, but if they work well enough, it would be handy when teaching a bit of that new media history.</p> Yes, it’s a real pain. I stupidly sold my old Pismo Powerbook for almost nothing on eBay and doubly stupidly just upgraded my G5 iMac to Leopard. so no Classic on there anymore.

The only option seems to be something like SheepShaver that emulates the PowerPC runtime environment so you can run Classic.

Mac Companion has a good guide on how to set-up various Classic emulators under OS X Leopard. I haven’t tried them yet though, but if they work well enough, it would be handy when teaching a bit of that new media history.

]]> By: Yves Bernard http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5814 Yves Bernard Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:27:29 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5814 <p>Although i did many projects in Director since 1992 in another life (see www.magic.be), i know it is dead for many years... However, this was the best tool for us, early interaction designers and developers, and the first platform on which the beginning of interaction design could start concretely in the early 90's. Today i teach Flash (i hate its clumsy interface for scripting), and i do projects in Processing, Max, or javascript/html... but i know artists who still use Director as their only development environment...</p> <p>What's worrrying me is how all those early interactive pionnering works from the 90's on cdrom or installations could be preserved... Would be great if Adobe when deciding to stop it, will disclose its source code so we can still port it to future platforms...</p> Although i did many projects in Director since 1992 in another life (see http://www.magic.be), i know it is dead for many years… However, this was the best tool for us, early interaction designers and developers, and the first platform on which the beginning of interaction design could start concretely in the early 90’s. Today i teach Flash (i hate its clumsy interface for scripting), and i do projects in Processing, Max, or javascript/html… but i know artists who still use Director as their only development environment…

What’s worrrying me is how all those early interactive pionnering works from the 90’s on cdrom or installations could be preserved… Would be great if Adobe when deciding to stop it, will disclose its source code so we can still port it to future platforms…

]]> By: Andy Polaine http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5796 Andy Polaine Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:24:57 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5796 <p>Flash was really more about traditional animation I think, though it soon got used for banner ads. Director was also an animation tool originally when it was Videoworks. Adobe still hosts quite an interesting <a href="http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/story/" rel="nofollow">history of Macromedia</a>.</p> <p>There still appears to be quite a Director community out there though:</p> <p>http://director-online.com/ http://www.directorforum.com/</p> <p>and who can forget: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/ ?</p> Flash was really more about traditional animation I think, though it soon got used for banner ads. Director was also an animation tool originally when it was Videoworks. Adobe still hosts quite an interesting history of Macromedia.

There still appears to be quite a Director community out there though:

http://director-online.com/
http://www.directorforum.com/

and who can forget: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/ ?

]]> By: Karl DD http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5795 Karl DD Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:44:06 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5795 <p>If you look at the founding fathers/roots of each of these applications it tells you quite a lot about their biases:</p> <p>Processing (Ben/Casey) - Data Visualisation & Generative Art OpenFrameworks (Zach/Theo) - Computer Vision Flash - Animation i.e. banner ads Director - Offline media Max/Msp/Jitter - MIDI/DSP/Matrixes!</p> If you look at the founding fathers/roots of each of these applications it tells you quite a lot about their biases:

Processing (Ben/Casey) - Data Visualisation & Generative Art
OpenFrameworks (Zach/Theo) - Computer Vision
Flash - Animation i.e. banner ads
Director - Offline media
Max/Msp/Jitter - MIDI/DSP/Matrixes!

]]> By: Andy Polaine http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5794 Andy Polaine Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:52:30 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5794 <p>I agree - I still think it performs better on CD-ROM/DVD than Flash and prefer the production path.</p> <p>Overall I think it's a much better designed application than Flash. Flash is really the bastard step-child of a clunky animation application that happened to use vectors, but it's testament to its usefulness that so many people put up with its utterly crap interface and early scripting problems for so long. It's much better now, but still frustrating.</p> <p>I think, also, that Flash coincided with a lot of web designers (read: graphic designers) being frustrated with the browser nightmares of the late 90s and 'discovering' interactivity for the first time. Their sights had been focussed solely on online and they had dismissed/ignored offline 'multimedia' as a dead form and really remained ignorant of a lot of interaction design. Much of it got re-invented and is still being re-invented with the discovery of pixels in Flash. No wonder everyone went particle effect crazy recently.</p> I agree - I still think it performs better on CD-ROM/DVD than Flash and prefer the production path.

Overall I think it’s a much better designed application than Flash. Flash is really the bastard step-child of a clunky animation application that happened to use vectors, but it’s testament to its usefulness that so many people put up with its utterly crap interface and early scripting problems for so long. It’s much better now, but still frustrating.

I think, also, that Flash coincided with a lot of web designers (read: graphic designers) being frustrated with the browser nightmares of the late 90s and ‘discovering’ interactivity for the first time. Their sights had been focussed solely on online and they had dismissed/ignored offline ‘multimedia’ as a dead form and really remained ignorant of a lot of interaction design. Much of it got re-invented and is still being re-invented with the discovery of pixels in Flash. No wonder everyone went particle effect crazy recently.

]]> By: Matt D http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5793 Matt D Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:56:04 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5793 <p>Ah director, my first love.</p> <p>It does seem a shame to focus on the 3d online game market, I think they should have re-embraced their roots as a offline media platform, on CDs,Dvds, In-store displays and Eyelights. Flash has never really been optimized for that scale, and the proliferation of the player isn't a bonus.</p> <p>RIP Director</p> Ah director, my first love.

It does seem a shame to focus on the 3d online game market, I think they should have re-embraced their roots as a offline media platform, on CDs,Dvds, In-store displays and Eyelights. Flash has never really been optimized for that scale, and the proliferation of the player isn’t a bonus.

RIP Director

]]> By: Andy Polaine http://www.polaine.com/playpen/2008/06/03/director-11-released-rip-director/#comment-5792 Andy Polaine Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:51:01 +0000 http://www.polaine.com/playpen/?p=775#comment-5792 <p>Yeah, I nearly made a special Die icon.</p> <p>I can sympathise with Toshio. I've been thinking of updating all the Antirom files to get it to run cross-platform and not just in Classic, but it's a massive amount of work really.</p> <p>It's the problem with interactive media in general - I think you have to be pretty zen-like about the whole thing and just let it go like the haiku writers who put their best ones in bottles and sent them out on the ocean.</p> <p>The other alternative is of course Max/MSP, but I find all the Max stuff I see tends to look the same (though the same is often true of Processing).</p> Yeah, I nearly made a special Die icon.

I can sympathise with Toshio. I’ve been thinking of updating all the Antirom files to get it to run cross-platform and not just in Classic, but it’s a massive amount of work really.

It’s the problem with interactive media in general - I think you have to be pretty zen-like about the whole thing and just let it go like the haiku writers who put their best ones in bottles and sent them out on the ocean.

The other alternative is of course Max/MSP, but I find all the Max stuff I see tends to look the same (though the same is often true of Processing).

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