Director vs Flash

The Differences
Ahh yes, the differences between the two....Well this is where things get really fuzzy. At this point it still looks like Macromedia , well Adobe now, is not sure what to do with these animals. Director has been a flagship product for many years and for that time has been the most extensive of the two. Of course this is subjective and depends on what you are trying to do.

Flash on the other hand cost less and has better player penetration at 98%. Flash is also acquiring new features in every version that make the call of "what to use when" even tougher.

The newer versions of Director MX have seamless integration with Flash so even flash's built in video player and unique movie clip concept can be harnessed within a director project.

Those of you who you have seen Macromedia's Terminology Comparison Chart on their site undoubtedly are aware that half of the terms used between the two programs are the same. However there are just enough differences to make the two confusing. It kind of makes you wonder why they don't just decide on one common term for something and make it common. That aside, there is one major difference that is noticeable, and that is in the way each program treats nested animations. For Director it is the film loop and for Flash it is the movie clip.

Those of you familiar with these elements already know that the movie clip is a far greater improvement over Director's old film loop concept. You can nest animations as deep as you want, add scripts within those clips and control those scripts from anywhere in the project. However, film loops do accomplish most nested requirements from a basic standpoint. In addition, they do have a simplicity to them that may cater better to beginners. A flash class I attended actually started training on director for this reason. As your skills improve, you will eventually run into a time when when only a movie clip will do. With that, you will find that knowledge of Flash invaluable.

Another trend I have seen working with both programs is that Flash appears to take more steps on the average than the same task in director. To see what I mean, here are two basic tasks and how each would be accomplished in the two programs:

Example 1- Creating or editing a hyperlink in flash (6 steps)

  1. Select the button graphic from the stage only (lock other graphics if they are in the same location so you do not select them instead. This is because selection of a button direct from the timeline is not permitted)
  2. Drag the “on” command from “movie control” under the actions palette to the script window (the syntax will show)
  3. For the event checkbox, select “release” or however you want to trigger it
  4. From “browser network” category in the action pallet, drag the “get URL” command to the window
  5. Type in the desired URL from in the option field as well as well as how you want it to open (_self replaces the page with the new link).
  6. Test

and in Director....

  1. Drag the "go to URL" behavior, under “navigation” from the behavior library to your button
  2. Type in your URL
  3. Test

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Example 2 - Creating an image rollover in flash (8 steps)

  1. Import up and over images
  2. Delete over image from stage
  3. Convert up image to a button
  4. Double click up image to see button timeline
  5. Select over frame
  6. Select the over image via the "instance swap" button (property palette)
  7. Close button timeline view
  8. Test (will only work in the test movie or publish mode)

…..and in Director (4 steps)

  1. Import up & over images - confirm over image is immediately after the up image in the cast palette (director's library)
  2. Drag up image to stage
  3. Drag "rollover behavior" to up image and accept default setting
  4. Test

The amount of "Steps to do something" is not the only thing that is increased in Flash. The scripting syntax is 4X more lines of code on the average as well. Below we will take a look at the required code to delay the timeline for 2 sec. and then move on. The difference here becomes very important as scripts become long as less syntax leaves less room for error for the coder.

Flash

pauseDuration = 1*1200;
framesInLoop = 1;
if (startTime == null) {
startTime = getTimer();
gotoAndPlay(_currentframe-framesInLoop);
} else {
lapsedTime = getTimer()-startTime;
if (lapsedTime<pauseDuration) {
gotoAndPlay(_currentframe-framesInLoop);
} else {
startTime = null;
}
}

and Director....

on exitFrame
delay 120
end

In conclusion I will say that flash is a pretty slick program for the price and that 98% web audience is a big selling point. With that, Flash is undoubtedly the most popular, but the learning curve may be more of a challenge to tackle then director's (lingo). Outside of their scripting language both programs use pretty much the same interface and function very similar. The argument then as to "who is better" can only be left up to personal preference as it really depends on your background. If you are a multimedia developer now, you will , without a doubt, eventually be asked to at least experiment with one or the other. For such a case, I have created a "Lingo to Actionscript Translator" section to help the cause (see section link from the left.)