IGF web games finalists... 2 Director games, 1Flash! No Java, no nuthin'

Recently Tom Higgins wrote:

> Obviously I cannot provide feature specifics but the
goal is 
> to focus our efforts on what we hope to have as our
core 
> businesses going forward. Along with games development
(which 
> includes "simulations" for the
training/education set too) we 
> are looking to focus on a few other core areas (app 
> development and to serve as a proper Flash wrapping 
> technology to name the other 2 biggies) so features/bug
fixes 
> will be decided upon that hopefully address all of
those 
> development types.

Tom, I'm glad you prefaced "Flash wrapping
technology" with the word
"proper".  I just finished (phase 1) of a CD
project that I had to create in
Flash (not my choice) and my first thought was to use
Director as a wrapper
to do a number of things including covering up the desktop,
locating and
launching a PowerPoint, etc.  Things Director does well,
Flash not so well.
At any rate, it was a very rushed project so Director
*seemed* like the
natural choice for me in that I was not at all familiar with
other wrapper
apps like Zinc.  Unfortunately, I had a number of problems
using Director
for a wrapper so that I had to abandon it and come up with
another solution.
Two of the biggest problems were that about halfway through
the project, the
Flash started importing into Director at about half-size (so
for example, if
the Flash was 640x480 it would come in at 320x240) and when
I scaled it up
it looked just awful. The other major problem was that none
of the Flash
video I was using would play through when the .swf was
imported into
Director.  Any way, like I said it was such a rush project
that I did not
have time to explore why these things were happening, but I
certainly would
be willing to send you samples if you or your team wanted to
see them (just
contact me off-list).

Another big concern I have for Director as a Flash wrapper
is the cost.  I
can't imagine many Flash developers who would drop $1,200 to
buy a wrapper
program (regardless of how many other things it might do)
when the program
they are wrapping is only $700 and there are other options
(like Zinc --
which I think is around $300) available.  I'm sure you must
have thought of
this, but if not, you are going to need to have a more
competitive price
point such as, if you already own Flash, you can get
Director for a much
reduced price (<$400, at least I would think -- and
preferably a price
matching Zinc).

I'd love to see Director as a "proper Flash wrapping
technology" because it
would give legs to this wonderful (not to mention historic)
product, but as
it stands now (functionally and pricing-wise) it just isn't
there.

But, you know all this already, right?  Because you used the
word "proper".


Bob

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> But, you know all this already, right?  Because you
used the 
> word "proper".
> 

Yup, I do, most of it.  Also think
that for the extra heavy cost of
Director you get a ton more than those other wrapper tools
out there.
Part of our efforts now surround getting to know the
"wrapper" business,
what are folks looking for, what do they really need, what
would they
buy? There are a lot of those sorts of questions that we
haven't yet
looked at closely enough to say we _know_ our way around
there. I think
we too have loosely clung to the idea that "well of
course Director is
the natural choice for wrapping SWFs" but we've never
done a competitive
analysis against ScreenWeaver, Zinc, etc. So there's a lot
to sort out
there, how to message our product, how to position us
against those
other tools given the price difference, etc. I honestly
believe that we
have enough value over those other tools that we could
compete better in
that market, but it will take some research so we know how
to speak to
that group effectively if we hope to do well.


As to your other issues:

1. Flash movies not scaling well? I don't know what to say
there, our
Xtra is the Flash player and so we just feed that player its
draw rect
and it handles the scaling. Hmph. 
2. FLVs are usable in Director but you may need to be aware
of relative
path issues and Director's/Shockwave's dswMedia folder
limitations.


Cheers,
Tom Higgins | Product Manager | Director & the Shockwave
Player
Adobe Systems Incorporated

http://weblog
s.macromedia.com/thiggins/

... 

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