Adobe Director Basics

ADOBE DIRECTOR BASICS
3D: Controlling appearance
Visibility: You can make a model visible only from the outside, only from the inside, visible from any position, or
completely invisible. An invisible model remains in the 3D world, and can participate in collision detection and
other physical interactions. See model.visibility.
Cloning from a different cast member: You can clone a model (and optionally all the objects in its child hierarchy
and those used to define its appearance), from a different cast member. See
member3D.cloneModelFromCastMember().
Sources
3D models can be created in a third-party 3D design application. See “Sources of 3D content” on page 63. You can also
use Director's built-in primitives to create model resources for models on the fly. For geometric shapes, see
“Primitives” on page 165. For extruded shapes, see “Creating an extruder resource” on page 166. To create meshes with
arbitrary shapes, see “Creating a mesh resource” on page 170. To create distorted 2D planes for use as terrains, see
“Creating a terrain mesh” on page 176.
Manipulating models
Models can behave in different ways.
Models can remain at a static location (like a building), or they can move around (like a ball). See “Translation” on
page 206.
Models can have fixed geometry or they can be animated or deformed (like a running avatar, a windmill, a crashing
car or a shower of particles). See “Pre-defined animations” on page 270, “Manipulating a mesh resource” on
page 182and “Particles” on page 197.
Models can mutate from one object to another. See “Model resources” on page 163.
Models can allow other models to pass through them or be made to react to collisions with other models. See
“Collisions” on page 323.
They can behave as if they had physical properties, such as mass and friction. See “Physics” on page 293.
Model resources
Director recognizes eight types of model resources:
#fromFile: Any model created in a third-party 3D design application, converted to W3D format and imported into
Director, has a model resource of the type #fromFile. The other seven types are Primitive resources that can be
generated on the fly at runtime in Director.
#sphere
#plane
#cylinder
#box
#extruder
#mesh
#particle
See “Primitives” on page 165 for more information on the first four, geometrical types. See “Creating an extruder
resource” on page 166 for information on the #extruder type. “Creating a mesh resource” on page 170 for information
on the #mesh type. See “Particles” on page 197 for information on the #particle type. See Model Resources for a full
list of the methods and properties of the different model resource types.
Last updated 8/26/2011
163