« Tree Scattering Across a 3D Terrain | Main | LiFE with PhotoCinema »
May 31, 2005
Transparent MIAWs
For many releases now Director has provided the ability to mask MIAWs (Movies In A Window) opened by projectors, but that ability has been limited to using 1-bit black and white masking images. The development and release of Director MX 2004 saw some excellent improvements to the MIAW feature, but what didn't make the cut was >1bit masking. In exploring what would be possible in this area there was one little feature left in the Windows player (sorry Mac folks) and as with all undoc'd abilities it's untested and therefore something you should use carefully. That one feature is the ability to set a window's blend... :)
Setting the Blend of a Window
This undocumented property is really simple, it's called 'blend' and it's a window property that takes a numerical value from zero to one hundred:
-- create a window and set its blend property
tWindow = new window("Foo")
tWindow.blend = 50
Done. Give it a go, but remember that this property is only active in Director MX 2004 on Windows, and as always heed the disclaimer below. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I make no guarantees regarding validity or usefullness of the information contained in this post. This feature was left as undocumented, and therefore unsupported on purpose, it either wasn't fully developed and/or it wasn't fully tested. I suggest that you utilize this technique in experimental movies due to the potential risks involved. There is no guarantee that this undocumented feature will survive from release to release. Use this technique at your own risk!
Posted by thiggins at May 31, 2005 11:11 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mtadmin/mt-tb.cgi/6308