Subtitles of the Movie

Continuing my review of modifying vector shapes here in the Vector Shape window, you could also manipulate the points that make up or the vertices that make up all of your vector shapes, including adding a point in the middle of the shape, joining two curves, splitting two curves and changing the registration points. So let me demonstrate these techniques and more in this movie. To add a point in the middle of a shape, you'll want to use the Pen tool. If the shape is open, what you'll want to do is hold down the ALT key on the Windows Operating System or the option key on the Macintosh operating system, move the pointer between the two points and simply click. If the point is closed, the technique is slightly different; easier. All you do is take your Pen tool and move in between any two points and simply click. You may find that there are some unexpected consequences when you do add these points. As you saw, my rectangle shape got changed there. To add a new point that is connected to a certain end point, you'll want to click the Arrow tool and select an end point. Remember that the end point is, green is the first one, red is the last end point. So click on that point and then take the Pen tool and simply click and notice that it gets added to that end point. Notice that the difference is, when clicking on a line segment there, that's not the last end point. Remember, the last end point is always red. So again, you'll want to select the red end point and then click anywhere with the Pen tool to make that new point the new end point. Notice it doesn't have to be on the line either. It can be out here, so on. To join two curves, you want to select a vertex in each curve. So let's go ahead and create two shapes here and I'm going to use the Arrow tool to select two vertices; one there and one there. And then from the main menu choose Modify, Join Curves should be an option there. Probably because I didn't have two vertices selected. There we go. There are two vertices and I'm going to choose Modify, Join Curves. That's a little bit tricky. It's a little bit tricky in that you need to make sure there are two vertices selected and then use the main menu instead of the tools over here in the Vector Shape window. To split two curves you'll want to select adjacent vertices. Again, using the black Arrow tool there. Let's hold down the Shift Key and select these two. Make sure that they're both selected. That color should go clear. It should just have an outline there. So I have two vertices selected and now from the main menu choose Modify, Split Curves. And again, I didn't have two vertices selected. Choose one there and another one there. And they need to be adjacent vertices as well. So I'm still having trouble. Let's try selecting those two and choosing Modify, split curve and notice that I get now two objects that are separated. It's a little bit tricky. I think it might be easier to draw a marquee around your two adjacent vertices and then choose Modify, split curve from the main menu. I demonstrated how to change the registration point earlier, but to refresh your memory select the registration point and just click anywhere in the workspace. By default, the registration point will be right in the middle of the vector object, but that can be changed. You can also use the close shape option here in the interface. It's labeled closed to open or close a vector shape. If you start with a closed shape and disable the close shape option, turn off the closed option there. Notice that it will take out the last line and open up the shape. If you start with an open object and enable that option, it'll close the shape by adding a line segment between the first vertices and the last one. You can also delete vertices by selecting it and then pressing the delete key on the Macintosh operating system or the backspace key in windows. You can also draw marquees around multiple vertices and delete them or you can delete the entire object by drawing a marquee around all of the vertices and then pressing the backspace or delete keys. You can also scale your vector shapes. This is a little bit tricky in that you need to use keyword combination. On the Macintosh you'll use the COMMAND+OPTION and drag on a vertices to scale. On the Windows Operating System you'll press down the CONTROL and ALT keys, move your mouse over a vertices and then drag. You can also enter a scaling percentage for a vector shape by using the cast member's properties dialog box. This is probably easier. Choose Window, Property Inspector, then take the vector tab here and set a percentage in the box. Let's do this at 30 percent. To demonstrate this, let's open up the Stage here. Let's delete all the items and let's open up the Vector Shape window and drag a vector shape onto the Stage there. And let's scale this at one percent since it's so big. And it looks like it disappeared there. Let's do 20 percent. There we go. And now let's scale this down to ten percent. So you can see I'm changing the size here. Notice also it scales perfectly. No rough edges. Everything stays smooth. Let's keep going down to five percent; smaller and smaller. That's a little bit easier than pressing all those control keys. So there you have a review of the various methods of creating and modifying vector shapes in Director using the Vector Shape Window. Let me now move on to the next movie and talk about managing external casts. An external cast is a separate file that must be explicitly linked to a movie for the movie to use its cast members.