Adobe Director 11

I was asked to write a review of Adobe Director 11 for PCPro magazine. Here’s a shortened version, check out the next issue of the magazine for the full review.

Adobe pitches Director 11 at three main target audiences: multimedia authors, elearning developers and game developers. Version 8.5 added 3D capabilities to Director specifically targeted at the games market and version 11 aims to extend these by adding DirectX9 native 3D rendering and the AGEIA PhysX engine to handle multiple object collisions.

Director uses a timeline-based approach that bears only a passing resemblance to that of Flash CS3 and productions are put together using a combination of imported media, text and scripts. These scripts can be created using Director’s own basic-like Lingo scripting language or an enhanced version of Javascript that resembles ActionScript.

For me, the most welcome improvements in this version are to the scripting interface. Director users spend most of their time working in the script editor and being able to browse the list of available Lingo functions and double click to insert one is a welcome improvement. However, these improvements are too little too late and the script editor remains primitive and irritating compared with most other programming interfaces.

Indeed, this is an upgrade that feels as though it should be an incremental release. The “top ten new features” list provided by Adobe includes support for new media types including Quicktime 7, Windows Media and RealPlayer, support for Adobe’s own Flash CS3 and Unicode support which makes the development of multi-lingual applications simpler. As long as you don’t want text that displays right to left that is.

Director’s only real advantage over Flash is its native support for 3D making it an ideal choice for 3D games, most of which are online. However, Adobe’s AIR technology makes it possible to deploy Flash as a desktop application and there are vastly more Flash applications being deployed on CDROM or for download than Director applications.

So, when it comes to delivering online, Flash is likely to be the better choice in the vast majority of situations. For CDROM delivery, Flash is ideal for cross-platform delivery and tools such as Matchware’s Mediator 9 are vastly easier to use and more productive than Director for creating elearning and similar products.

Director 11, in my view, will be of interest to a limited market made up in the main of existing users who will appreciate the new support for recent file formats and platforms. Director’s extended 3D capabilities make it a good choice for game prototyping and learning materials that could make use of native 3D rendering.

For upgraders, a price of £209.00 (£252.89 incl VAT) may well stick in the throat given the lack of genuinely new features . The £705.00 (£828.38 incl VAT) price for new users is outrageous and made worse by including the usual premium for buying in sterling.

Overall, Director 11 is a missed opportunity and the latest in a long line of minor updates masquerading as upgrades. It seems aimed squarely at existing users since it offers little to newcomers compared with competing products. Chief among these is Adobe’s own Flash CS3. I switched to developing in Flash shortly after Director MX 2004 was released and there’s nothing about this latest version of Director to tempt me back.