Soundtrack completion using SoundEdit and Director

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To complete the soundtrack for our animation we will

For the first step we will return to SoundEdit; the following two steps will be done in Director; for the last step we will use a text editing program.


Sound Editing

  1. Re-open your sound file using SoundEdit.
  2. Adjust the waveform display to better see the parts you are interested in
  3. Click in the waveform display, and drag to highlight the portion of the sound that you want to modify.
  4. Verify that the selection matches the sound you want by using Play (in Control menu): only the selected portion of the sound will be heard.
  5. To easily identify and retrieve the selected portion of the sound, create a Label (in the Insert menu). When the highighted default label appears, enter a brief name for the selection.
  6. While the segment is selected, it can be color-coded using the Color submenu of the Modify menu.
  7. Once you are satisfied with your selection, apply to it one or more of the commands from the Effects menu. As always, make sure that you have a backup of your sound in case you cannot undo an experiment you end up not liking. Below are some examples based on this original waveform:
    Waveform before effects
  8. When done, make sure all your sounds are saved (as AIFF files), then quit SoundEdit to free up memory.

Assemble Soundtrack

  1. Launch Director and re-open your animation file.
  2. Use the Import command in the File menu to find and open the sounds you have edited. Make sure the file frmat pop-up menu is set to 'All Files' or 'Sounds', otherwise you won't be able to see your files.
  3. Display and scroll the Cast window, if necessary, to see the sound cast members that you just imported into your animation file (they will be marked with a loudspeaker icon).
  4. Click to select the sound that you intend to loop as background ambience. Click the button marked with an 'i' at the top of the Cast window:
    Info button in Cast window
  5. In the dialog that appears, turn on ('X') the 'Loop' checkbox. This will force the sound to repeat.
  6. Drag the sound from the cast window to the first frame of sound channel 1 in the Score:
    Drag sound from Cast to Score
  7. Fill the rest of the frames of sound channel 1 with the same sound, until you reach the end of the animation (you can use the same inbetweening technique that you used in a previous session to place the background image).
  8. Drag the hit sounds to the appropriate frames in the animation, in sound channel 2 of the Score.
  9. Play back the animation. If everything sounds OK, Save the file in preparation for conversion to Shockwave format.

Export to a Shockwave for Director file

  1. In the Xtras menu, choose the 'Shockwave for Audio Settings' command. In the dialog that appears, adjust the settings to minimize file size while retaining as much audio quality as possible:
  2. In the same Xtras menu, choose 'Afterburner'. When prompted to save the Shockwave file, find your folder on the desktop, then enter the filename (all lowercase) according to the following rules: Click 'Save'. A progress bar will appear while the Afterburner Xtra processes your animation.
  3. Before leaving Director, make a note of the size (in pixels) of your animation (see 'Width' and 'Height' in the Modify-->Movie-->Properties dialog).

Add a reference to the animation in the HTML file

  1. Open your HTML file in SimpleText (you can drag the icon of the HTML file and drop it on the icon of SimpleText).
  2. Scroll through the file until you find the spot where you want to see the animation. Click to place the insertion point.
  3. Enter the following HTML code:
  4. Save the HTML file. Make sure it is in the same folder as the dcr file.
  5. Test your work by dragging the icon of the HTML file and dropping it on Netscape Navigator's icon.
  6. When done, copy your HTML and dcr files only to the class folder on the file server, so that the instructor can post them to the web server.


Additional Info:


Copyright by Sandro Corsi. Last modified 6 APR 97.