Tutorial - Saving As Shockwave 3D Template

Saving Cube Faces as a Shockwave 3D Template

This tutorial shows how to take a set of six cube faces and save them into a Director template ready to use in a project or publish as a Shockwave 3D cubic panorama.

Step 1

Import or create the cube faces to be used. For this tutorial, we are going to use the cube faces produced from a previous tutorial, Converting an Equirectangular Image. (That tutorial actually shows how to produce a QuickTime VR movie, but the cube faces are instantly available by simply returning to the Conversion area by clicking the tab.)

Step 2

Click the "Save As..." button at the bottom right of the window. In the file dialog that appears, choose "Shockwave 3D Template" from the Format popup menu.

Step 3

After choosing a location and saving, you will end up with a folder containing a number of files.

These files consist of the Director project and cube face images that will form the Shockwave 3D cubic panorama.

You can later discard the cube faces, but they are needed initially for Director to load into the project when first run.

NOTE: IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE DIRECTOR PROJECT IS PLAYED AT LEAST ONCE before publishing as a Shockwave file, otherwise the panorama will be blank.

Step 4

To publish a Shockwave 3D file, open the "cubic_panorama.dir" project in Director 8.5 or later.

You will notice that the first six cast members at the bottom left of the window are empty. These places are reserved for the cube faces to be loaded when the project is first run.

Step 5

Click the "Play" button on the Director toolbar to start.

Bring the stage to the foreground by clicking on it and test that the cubic panorama is working. You should be able to pan and tilt it by dragging in a similar way to a QuickTime VR movie. The directional arrows at the left and bottom should move the panorama appropriately, and the zoom buttons increase and decrease the field of view.

Step 6

When finished testing, click the "Stop" button on the Director toolbar.

After playing, you will notice that the first six cast members are now loaded with bitmap images. This means they will now be included when the Shockwave 3D project is published.

Step 7

To create the Shockwave 3D file, choose "Publish" from the File menu.

You will be prompted to save the project, then the Shockwave files will be written into the same folder as the template files.

You will notice that three additional files have been added:
   "cubic_panorama.dcr"
   "3D_progbar.dcr"
   "cubic_panorama.html"

These are the files that can be placed on a web server for displaying the Shockwave file through the internet.

Step 8

To test, drag the "cubic_panorama.html" onto Internet Explorer.

(At the time of writing this tutorial, the beta version of Safari has a problem showing Shockwave files from a local source such as the hard drive.)

Watch Movie of Tutorial Being Performed  [1:09]

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