MacroMedia Director and CD-ROM
Chad Ray McDaniel
by it. Mostly this was because I realized my game-playing experience
could have been much better if Director was not used. I do believe that
Director is an amazing piece of software, but it just isn't up to the
job for games and is in major need of an update (I still think that it
has a system 6.0x feel to it.)
Okay, maybe the JP wouldn't have even been made if it wasn't for
director, but I am almost certain that MD limited the scope of the game
as far as pacing and interactivity. The graphics were great (except that
they were 8-bit system palletted) and the sound worked well for the most
part; but I could see the seems that were left when they put it
together.
I have seen many things made with MD and have been impressed, but these
have mostly been interface mock-ups and multimedia slide-shows like
Alice to Ocean. MD just can't cope with the demands that most games put
on the computer.
I do no that the next time I think of buying a CD-ROM game, i will want
to know whether it was made with MacroMind director.
What opinions do the rest of you have?
-chad
Richard Johnson
>I recently played the Journeyman Project and i was somewhat dissapointed
>by it. Mostly this was because I realized my game-playing experience
>could have been much better if Director was not used. I do believe that
>...
Interesting comment! Putting together a game like the Journeyman Project
is a hell of a lot of work, even without also writing all the graphics and
other code in C. This is kinda like why most folks write in C instead of
in assembly. And why other folks write in assembly rather than flipping
switches on the front of their PDP 11/20s. But you obviously realize
that...
>Okay, maybe the JP wouldn't have even been made if it wasn't for
>director, but I am almost certain that MD limited the scope of the game
>as far as pacing and interactivity. The graphics were great (except that
>they were 8-bit system palletted) and the sound worked well for the most
>part; but I could see the seems that were left when they put it
>together.
The game was made with the installed base of Macs in mind. All the stuff
I produce for general consumption uses 8-bit graphics, or 1 bit when I
don't need color. Most Mac users (the "market") don't have accelerated
24 bit video, which is necessary for 'fast' action in 24 bit color. I
thought the authors of the game did a darned good job of selecting a
pallette that works well for most of their pictures (though Director
does do that nicely and automagically).
As things stand with the Journeyman Project, the root cause of the limits
to the pacing (ie, the slow speed) is the CD-ROM delivery medium. Of
course, if the authors weren't trying to push so darned much stuff through
that little pipe, the game would be faster. (Just think of the lag you'd
have if they were trying to push three times as much for 24 bit graphics!)
However, I have heard folks complaining that the sounds play synchronously,
meaning that even when playing from a lightning fast SCSI-2 hard drive,
walking around the Journeyman world can be a halt-step thing.
I thought the interactivity was fantastic. It's a heck of a lot better
than any other games I've played, though I've only had about half an hour
so far on Journeyman. What specifically did you think the shortcomings
were?
I did notice seams between sections, mostly because of the sounds that
begin playing whenever you enter certain areas. Actually, that was kind
of nice, because it helps keep you from getting lost. What other seams
did you notice?
>I have seen many things made with MD and have been impressed, but these
>have mostly been interface mock-ups and multimedia slide-shows like
>Alice to Ocean. MD just can't cope with the demands that most games put
>on the computer.
Perhaps you just prefer more slam-bang high-adrenaline action, like in
'traditional' video games? Me, I prefer puzzles and strategy, and grow
bored quickly with games like Lunatic Fringer, Maelstrom, etc.
>-chad
Richard
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Speaker to avalanche dragons. Do you really think they listen?
Peter Creath
Journeyman Project is slow because of MACROMIND DIRECTOR, not because of the
CD-ROM.
I copied the entire CD onto my hard drive, and it was STILL painfully slow.
I thought the game was great, but the response time between clicking and
seeing a button highlight was far too long to be acceptable.
Even Iron Helix, which is markedly faster, has the same problem. You have to
hold down your arrow key until you see the corresponding indicator light up in
order for your keypress to register.
Now to those of you in comp.sys.mac.programmer who are wondering why the hell
I cross-posted this seemingly inappropriate message:
Why not petition MacroMedia to write a compiler for MMDir scripts? I mean
really, the self-running movies are parsing on the fly! Accelerator doesn't
even tokenize the scripts! Surely, since they know the interface for their
object-handling routines and the full syntax for their scripting language,
they can write a 680x0 compiler for the scripts. (And PPC when it comes out).
The increase in speed would be astounding! Especially on loops...
Anyway, I want to combine forces here: the programmers who use MacroMind
Director and the game-players who put up with slow games written in it.
Let's see if we can't convince them there's a market for it...
Now does anybody have their address?
Bill Williams
NO!!!!
If Journeyman Project could be written by non-programmers skilled in
multimedia tools advanced developers everywhere may have their jobs
endangered. Hollywood and computers are coming closer each year and
developers know that writing tools to obsolete themeselves is foolish.
Band together everyone! We all know how Hypercard enabled thousands of
non-professionals to make CRAP. Many people I know will not load a
hypercard stack on their computers no matter what because ALL stacks are
stigmitized by a general acceptance that it may have been programmed by a
novice and is probably a useless tool. A Macromind compiler for
multimedia CD-ROM games (virtual valerie II, Iron Helix, Journeyman
Project, etc. etc.) will just make it possible for crude and unpolished
"programs" to displace hand crafted code by professional developers. This
is one case where enabling the masses to write shrink-wrapped product will
just make the whole Mac/MS Windows market suffer from shlock.
I am serious. For example when the Mac came out *ALL* of its programs were
superb quality compared to the Mess DOS (Pee Cee clones) offerings... why?
Well it was a sexy platform but the real reason was that NOVICE
PROGRAMMERS WERE NOT PERMITTED TO PARTICIPATE! Complexity is good it weeds
out the inept with a slightly higher cost of goods as a result.
I shudder to think of the day when every CD-ROM came uses a macromid
compiler.
Fact: Macromind games take over the platform (screen) completely and do
not permit other programs of its type from running. Running in a windowe
is never an option.
Fact: Macromind games usually violate Apples "200 millisecond" visual
feedback time limit for contol activation.
Fact: Macromind games always make you wait looking at an ugly black (or
white) screen for a while while loading.
Fact: Macromind games generally never use screen real estate intelligently
keeping everything centered in the very small center of my 24 inch monitor.
Fact: Macromind games are usually written with total disregard for
allowing the menubar to be accessed and desk accessories to be used.
Fact: Macromind games generally un-intelligently keep pre-fetching CD-ROM
picture data for potential path directions that the user usually does not
persue and when entering another area of the "world" more redundant data
is un-intelligently preloaded.
Fact: Macromind games generally require **UNACCEPTABLE** amounts of RAM
(sometimes 8 megabytes!)
Fact: Because of Journeyman Project's pathetic speed many many people are
beginning to loathe the idea of buying Director scripted games, and they
fantasize about compilers for Director and such but the real problem in my
opinion is still the above complaints spread throughout this post.
=Bill Williams
Mark Kern
>regarding writing real compiler for LINGO and Director stuff.....
>
>
>NO!!!!
>
>If Journeyman Project could be written by non-programmers skilled in
>multimedia tools advanced developers everywhere may have their jobs
>endangered. Hollywood and computers are coming closer each year and
>developers know that writing tools to obsolete themeselves is foolish.
>
>Band together everyone! We all know how Hypercard enabled thousands of
>non-professionals to make CRAP. Many people I know will not load a
>hypercard stack on their computers no matter what because ALL stacks are
>stigmitized by a general acceptance that it may have been programmed by a
>novice and is probably a useless tool. A Macromind compiler for
>multimedia CD-ROM games (virtual valerie II, Iron Helix, Journeyman
>Project, etc. etc.) will just make it possible for crude and unpolished
>"programs" to displace hand crafted code by professional developers. This
>is one case where enabling the masses to write shrink-wrapped product will
>just make the whole Mac/MS Windows market suffer from shlock.
This is the same reason they had against the Macintosh. They told us that
even idiots would be able to use a computer and the whole industry would
suffer. If anything the Mac has instead gone on to inspire a new generation
of easy to use software. Its made the mouse and windows a mandatory device
on all machines.
This was also the reason against desk top publishing. Now any fool can
fire up Pagemaker and have himself a newsletter. Instead, we now have better
school newspapers, and a huge avenue for utilizing the right to free speech.
Have you checked out the many fine 'zines that are available? Our ability to
communicate on a mass scale has been greatly empowered, and now even those with
small budgets can have their often worthy ideas distributed widely.
Maybe we should have stuck with our 8 inch floppies...no, even that was too
easy. We should have stuck with punch cards. That way, the computer industry
would still be in the hands of the high priests of computing. Yeah, that's it,
they REALLY knew what they were doing. Everything has just gone downhill since
they invented the personal computer - the device that made it easy for even
amatuers to get into computing.
>
>I am serious. For example when the Mac came out *ALL* of its programs were
>superb quality compared to the Mess DOS (Pee Cee clones) offerings... why?
>Well it was a sexy platform but the real reason was that NOVICE
>PROGRAMMERS WERE NOT PERMITTED TO PARTICIPATE! Complexity is good it weeds
>out the inept with a slightly higher cost of goods as a result.
>I shudder to think of the day when every CD-ROM came uses a macromid
>compiler.
Hmmm, when the Mac first game out, all the applications were extremely
buggy, crash prone and had minimal features sets compared to the IBM version.
The only redeeming ones were the applications that didn't exist yet on the IBM
(mouse based MacPaint) and the improvement of the interface all in a way that
had never been done before. You didn't enjoy the first Mac, you endured it
for what it promised down the road.
Sure, easy tools allow more people
to get involved, sometimes people who have no talent or patience or whatever
it to produce a good multimedia system. But this event will not drag the
quality of multimedia games down, it will improve it. This is because there
are many artistic people in many mediums (music, movie industry, theater,
novels, comic books) who DO have all the skills to produce great multi-media,
except for the programming skills. Giving them an easy tool would be doing
us a favor. Sure, we probably will get 'schlock' too, and the general noise
level may increase. However, we will have a proportionately higher rate of
extremely good products as well, more than could be acheived if we didn't have
easy tools.
Easy tools gives people capabilities and opportunities that they might
never have had. Suddenly people are empowered to create things that were just
recently beyond their ability. Many of these people discover that they have
a talent for using these tools and go on to amaze us all with great products,
programs, artwork, etc. These same people may never have discovered or been
able to bring their talents to the field without easy tools.
Isn't this what the Mac is all about?
>
>Fact: Macromind games take over the platform (screen) completely and do
>not permit other programs of its type from running. Running in a windowe
>is never an option.
>
>[more complaints about Macromind deleted]
If your complaint is about the current tools, then this is a seperate
issue. Yes, Macromind is slow. But there will be better tools. Right now,
everyone is complaining about speed and there are developers who are
listening. Consumers are complaining, game developers are complaining...
This can only result in better tools as the companies respond to fill demand.
I not only have complaints about speed, but I'd like to see it even easier
to use than it is now.
To keep things complicated would only retard the growth of multimedia and
of quality products. Make it easy, and they will come.
Markus
trix
> NO!!!!
> If Journeyman Project could be written by non-programmers skilled in
> multimedia tools advanced developers everywhere may have their jobs
> endangered. Hollywood and computers are coming closer each year and
> developers know that writing tools to obsolete themeselves is foolish.
> [more diatribes against novice programming omitted]
While I agree that most of the MM Director produced CD-ROM games are not
interactive enough, I think that this fear of tools is elitist and counter-
productive. I've been writing multimedia authoring tools for three
years and it has definitely not endangered any jobs - if anything, it
has made my services, and other programmers' more in demand.
As a general statement, I am in favor of giving people as much as
possible in the form of tools - I think computers should be a force of
empowerment, not a meal ticket for a few programmers.
So why are so many CD-ROM games so bad? Because they are on CD-ROM.
And this not only affects the performance, it affects the way the
games are designed and produced. They are usually designed by people
with great artistic sensibilities and no programming ability.
Similarly, many arcade games play great but look like crap. What is
needed are true Leanardos - people with good technical and artistic
ability - and there are precious few of these.
Incidentally, I've also met quite a few "multimedia designers" with no
artistic nor technical ability. These are really scary.
> Fact: Macromind games take over the platform (screen) completely and do
> not permit other programs of its type from running. Running in a windowe
> is never an option.
> Fact: Macromind games are usually written with total disregard for
> allowing the menubar to be accessed and desk accessories to be used.
These games are usually intentionally designed this way. Many artists
don't like sharing screen space with a menu - they find it
distracting.
Personally, I think there is *some* merit to this. I think Apple's
User Interface Guidelines make more sense for traditional applications
than for games. Wowever, I do think the menubar should be available -
I thought Spaceship Warlock did a good job of this - making the
menubar appear when you move the mouse up there.
> Fact: Macromind games usually violate Apples "200 millisecond" visual
> feedback time limit for contol activation.
Most CD-ROM titles violate this rule, since it takes 300 or more milliseconds
to do a seek on a typical CD-ROM drive. Of course, MM Director makes the
problem worse. This is why many games try to predict your destination
and preload it.
> Fact: Macromind games always make you wait looking at an ugly black (or
> white) screen for a while while loading.
I've never cared for this either - I also don't like the ugly
blurb that MM Dir throws up when you exit "This presentation was prepared
with..."
> Fact: Macromind games generally never use screen real estate intelligently
> keeping everything centered in the very small center of my 24 inch monitor.
These games are based on raster art, so they can't "expand to fit" the way
some video games can. Again, the games are designed by artists who treat
the screen as a canvas that they have complete control over. Since the
games must run on a reasonable population of machines, this excludes
24" monitors. Apple made this problem worse when they introduced the LC
with the 12" monitor. My company dealt with that particular problem by
ignoring it - most of our titles require a 13" monitor or larger.
> Fact: Macromind games generally un-intelligently keep pre-fetching CD-ROM
> picture data for potential path directions that the user usually does not
> persue and when entering another area of the "world" more redundant data
> is un-intelligently preloaded.
As stated above, this is an attempt to compensate for the slow access times.
In my experience, however, this is the exception to the rule. Most of the
MM Dir games I have used wait for you click and then load the destination,
which takes forever.
> Fact: Macromind games generally require **UNACCEPTABLE** amounts of RAM
> (sometimes 8 megabytes!)
MM Director is a memory hog. Generally, a multimedia cd-rom game is
going to require more memory than an arcade game because of lots of
raster art and long sounds. I have tried to get all the products I
have worked on to run in a 2.2 meg partition and have usually been
successful. Fortunately, I have not had to contend with Director
on these titles.
But again, the tools themselves are not the problem here. I think we need
better tools, but more importantly, more well-rounded designers. Finally,
I should mention that while I personally don't like a lot of these games -
I don't find them engaging because of the lack of interactivity - a lot of
people *do* like them, as some of the messages in comp.sys.mac.games will
attest.
--
-- Jim Bumgardner | jb...@netcom.com
-- Time Warner Interactive Group | twig...@applelink.apple.com
--
--
-- Jim Bumgardner | jb...@netcom.com
-- Time Warner Interactive Group | twig...@applelink.apple.com
E. Kontei
> regarding writing real compiler for LINGO and Director stuff.....
>
> NO!!!!
>
> If Journeyman Project could be written by non-programmers skilled in
> possible for crude and unpolished "programs" to displace hand crafted
> code by professional developers.
I remember some assembly-language developers
used similar arguments against compilers. :-/
--
E n r i q u e C o n t y
"He's a playful fellow who draws attention just by walking down the street"
co...@cbnewsl.att.com jes...@ihlpm.att.com
Disclaimer: You're not dealing with AT&T
Peter Creath
) writes:
> regarding writing real compiler for LINGO and Director stuff.....
>
> NO!!!!
>
[...]
> If Journeyman Project could be written by non-programmers skilled in
> A Macromind compiler for multimedia CD-ROM games will just make it
> possible for crude and unpolished "programs" to displace hand crafted
> code by professional developers.
I remember some assembly-language developers
used similar arguments against compilers. :-/
-----------------
Indeed! I'm a professional developer, and if you think I want to be shackled
to obsolete development tools, pull your head out and smell the slightly more
pleasant aroma! Hell, I've done database development on PC's, and I can tell
you, I'd LOVE to see what NeXT has done used more widely!
I mean, with NeXT you can do in 5 minutes what it takes us 2-3 days to hand-
code on Advanced Revelation or uniVerse/System Builder.
If I apply what you're advocating, I shouldn't even be using the Mac Toolbox!
What you call "crude and unpolished" are limited more by the on-the-fly
parsing than by any ineptitude on the programmer's part. Granted, Journeyman
Project does have a really stupid method of saving games, but then again, the
1-2 second delay between keypress and response is NOT due to dumb programmers
(well, maybe MacroMedia's...)
(Hell, I can't wait 'til Pink comes out! I hope they have great developer
platforms!)
[I've used my quota of "!"'s for the evening...signing off...]
anarch
>So why are so many CD-ROM games so bad? Because they are on CD-ROM.
Hmmm...I played Journeyman from a hard drive and it still sucked. Play-
from-disk for sounds and Quicktime was improved, but I didn't find the
gameplay significantly faster. I do blame the tools for this, and I
think a MacroMind compiler or something similar would go a long way
towards solving these problems.
>And this not only affects the performance, it affects the way the
>games are designed and produced. They are usually designed by people
>with great artistic sensibilities and no programming ability.
>Similarly, many arcade games play great but look like crap. What is
>needed are true Leanardos - people with good technical and artistic
>ability - and there are precious few of these.
I think there are *three* broad classes of ability required for quality
game-writing: technical and artistic, of course, but also a game design
ability distinct from both of these--the ability to devise engaging,
entertaining activites to form the basis of the game. I think Project
Journeyman fell down in both the technical and the design areas; even
if its response had been lightning-fast, I doubt I would hvae enjoyed it
much, just because I found the puzzles and plotting boringly simple.
In fact, I might have enjoyed it *less*, because I would have had less
time to admire all the scenery! In the artistic domain, at least, PJ
was excellent.
--
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-...@tortuga.dartmouth.edu-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
"The Walpurgisnacht has become synonomous with any general revelry, and
particularly for the breaking out of demonic lewdness and disorder."
D I S C L A I M E R : E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
Bill Williams
mistaken by customers as professionally written programs.......
I noticed that no-one jumping in and calling me too "high-preist" oriented
wanted to touch the only proof I offered that such identifiable programs
were despised by many. So I say again, most people I know will not accept
any type of hypercard stack based program, under any condition, because of
a generally accepted assumption that it might have been programmed by a
novice.
A Macromind Director compiler allowing people to avoid using skilled
programming professionals completely in creating mediocre "interactive"
games, will soon be stigmatized as well.
I can hear it now " Hey Fred, check out this cool new ware, its not just
another crappy compiled Macromind loop, I swear, really, try it, its just
as awesome as games used to be. Really, please try it, you just think it
might be another compiled Macromind director game by an Art major but its
really not!"
Geez.
Complexity keeps out the inept. Thats why I accept it as a barrier,
otherwise lots and lots of schlock will soon be choking the software market
and overall quality of the offerings will be dropping fast.
I use Hypercard as my proof and I defy anyone to touch that line of argument.
=Bill
Jim Bumgardner
: regarding tools that allow novices to create products that might be
: mistaken by customers as professionally written programs.......
: I noticed that no-one jumping in and calling me too "high-preist" oriented
: wanted to touch the only proof I offered that such identifiable programs
: were despised by many. So I say again, most people I know will not accept
: any type of hypercard stack based program, under any condition, because of
: a generally accepted assumption that it might have been programmed by a
: novice.
: I use Hypercard as my proof and I defy anyone to touch that line of argument.
If you're talking arcade games, I agree with you. However, if you're willing
to broaden the category a bit... I think Cosmic Osmo (which used both
Hypercard and Director) is still one of the best childrens titles available
-- even in glorious black and white.
I also like the various music-education titles such as Voyager's
"Beethoven's 9th" or Warner New Media's "Brahm's A German Requium".
- Jim
T. Kephart
bwil...@iat.holonet.net writes:
>regarding tools that allow novices to create products that might be
>mistaken by customers as professionally written programs.......
>
>were despised by many. So I say again, most people I know will not accept
>any type of hypercard stack based program, under any condition, because of
>a generally accepted assumption that it might have been programmed by a
>novice.
>
>Complexity keeps out the inept. Thats why I accept it as a barrier,
>otherwise lots and lots of schlock will soon be choking the software market
>and overall quality of the offerings will be dropping fast.
>
>I use Hypercard as my proof and I defy anyone to touch that line of argument.
Well Bill,
I was going to stay out of this one, but I'll add my $0.02 worth. You
are right about Hypercard, the novelty wore off for me about 3 months
after I first started using it, and since then I trash any share/freeware
I download the appears as a Hypercard stack. I don't know where I ever
got the impression that Hypercard based _documents_ were all crap, but I
guess I did pick it up. But, I think the reason I feel this way is a
resentment to the fact that I have to have the _application_ to run a
program that should be it's own _application_. Dammit, I have to keep
the damn Hypercard application around eating disk space, just in case
ther's some really important item that some bozo couldn't make into a
real application. But, (correct me if I'm wrong) aren't Macromind based
applications stand-alone? I have the Newton demo, which is a Macromind
Director based demo, and it will run _on it's own_.
I agree with you, I hate Hypercard stacks, and for the most part,
Macromind stuff, but if Macromind can optimise to the point where
animation is _fast_, then I don't have a problem with it being simple.
As long as I don't have to keep Macromind Director and all it's
associated files (14.9MB on the local file server) on my drive to play a
game! Sure, right now I wouldn't touch a game from MMD, but speed it up,
and it ought to be pretty good. Then again, start making MMD games, and
they are sure to make it better.
Like I said, just my $0.02 worth... send flames/needless comments to
comp.ibm.games... they ought to eat it up.
-t
David Hartman
Yet the much touted game MYST is suppost to be HC based and noone is saying
Don't Buy This It's HyperCard.
In fact what they are saying is BUY THIS!!!! it looks great.
There now you have been defied, feel better.
David &)
--
"Unfortunately, this assault weapon issue is a symbolic issue that doesn't
at all address crime" Tony Meeker, State Treasurer, Oregon.
David Hartman
Dav...@ims.com