Director Shockwave Studio Developer's Guide

Surely one of the most complex tasks a programmer can take on is learning how to program 3-D environments. You barely learn the basics like worlds, objects, and textures before you have to face dauting tasks like understanding how to place and move things along three axes (x, y, and z). This is stuff that wasn't covered in your Euclidian geometry course, but Newton explains it so clearly that you find yourself nodding and thinking, "of course!" Other topics such as imaging Lingo and the Multi User Server are covered in equal depth, and with equal clarity.

This is not the book for a beginner, but you don't have to be a Lingo expert to get a lot out of it. If you understand the basics of programming in Director, you should have no problem understanding the book. Likewise, if you are an advanced, or even expert, programmer, there is such a wealth of detail and depth of coverage that you can't help learning all sorts of new techniques--and all in such a painless, easy-to-understand way.


Director Shockwave Studio Developer's Guide   June 27, 2002
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I did not pick this book up to learn Director's 3D and imaging features with any particular project in mind. Rather, I wanted to understand what you can do with these tools and what their limitations might be. Mission accomplished.

However, the content is much deeper than a simple overview. The book's intent is to present enough of the math and physics behind 3D, and the color theory behind imaging to give the developer a deeper understanding, and therefore, a broader base for problem-solving. To this end, an awful lot of work and thought went into the content design. There are example movies for every covered feature, and the material in advanced chapters is arranged to build on previous concepts. There is also a great deal of non-tutorial information on the merits of various methods to accomplish the same thing, and on clever ways to use features that you may not have thought of.

In addition to the example movies there are several utility movies that are particularly useful. Macromedia did not provide much in the way of a visual interface to 3D Lingo, or imaging Lingo. The utility movies, such as the 3D shader/texture explorer and copyPixels image explorer let you adjust and see the interplay of hundreds of different parameter values in real time, on your own image or model. This is quite a timesaver and worth the cost of the book all by itself.

My one regret is that my hazy memory of high school math was not enough of a foundation to understand much of the math presented in the 3D sections. But there are books for that too.


A Must Have   May 27, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The one essential book for Director users. The others are nice to have - this one is essential.


Great book. Loads of diagrams and tools!   May 24, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

The thing that is most mind boggling about the stock documentation for Director 8.5 is that it doens't contain a single diagram.

In order to visualize and understand programming in 3D, you need a lot of drawings, and James' book has tons. For me, the value of these can't be overstated and are one of the reasons that this is currently my favorite director book.

Many chapters include a demonstration movie that allows you to change properties relating to the current topic. Being able to change values and see the effects in realtime is a great way to learn about a particular feature.

A number of tools are included that will help directly during development. For example, an FPS monitor MIAW, and a shader builder MIAW.

Finally, the book is more focused and in-depth than anything else I've found. Instead of devoting a chapter or two to 3D, it has nine (with the balance focusing on imaging lingo).


Solid Gold   April 9, 2002
This is an excellent addition to all lingo developers' libraries. While James covers only(!) imaging and 3D lingo, he covers it in more depth and with greater detail than I've seen in other publications. If you want to understand how to get the most from the copyPixels() function, how to build transitions using imaging, or how to tame that pesky collision modifier then you need look no further. Director is a huge tool, and we can always learn more about it - this book is a great place to start.