Training and e-learning continue to be a focus for Director. The London Observatory has used it for an interactive galaxy display, and it seems to work well in developing training applications such as those used for fast food employee types of business environments.  

Director’s extended 3D capabilities make it a good choice for game prototyping and learning materials that make use of native 3D rendering. 

Positives 

1. Market penetration. Adobe is the biggest multimedia company in the world. Shockwave still appears to have at least 40-50% market penetration, which is less than Flash Player.  However, market penetration for Unity, Virtools, Quest3D, and others is negligible. Shockwave still seems to be a favorite, for cross platform tools.  

2. Integration capabilities. Director has the ability to work with other media such as flash, as well as various video formats, in unique ways. Director still generally allows for a very flexible authoring environment. 

3. Cross platform capabilities. Unity3D is a much better tool, however, remains Mac exclusive.  While Virtools is considered one of the best, it is cost-prohibitive with unreasonable licensing parameters. Therefore, Director is the better choice for online 3d authoring.

The Verdict 

Version 11 extends Director MX 2004’s ability to create deliverables for both Mac and PC from either platform, to include Intel-based Macs and full Vista compatibility.  However, in order to view Director content online, an audience needs the 4.5MB Shockwave plug-in: a significant issue, given that Shockwave 8.5 or later is installed on less than 50% of European PCs. 
 
While improvements in the browse feature of the script editor are noted, the function  remains somewhat antiquated, in comparison to many other programming interfaces.  The list of errors and bugs found at web sites such as Director at Night, demonstrate that for some, Director 11 may not be the best option at this time.  

Where Shockwave still seems to be a cross platform tool favorite, Flash is likely to be the better choice in the vast majority of situations, such as CDROM delivery. Flash and Matchware’s Mediator 9 are much easier to use for creating e-learning and similar products.

Marketing position of the product overlaps that of Flash to such a degree that there are very few situations in which Director would be the preferred choice. In a broad sense, Flash is a natural choice for the Internet.  However, Director’s only real advantage over Flash is its native support for 3D, making it an ideal choice for 3D games, most of which are online.

Overall, the consensus seems to be that Director 11 is the latest in a long line of minor updates, which will benefit existing users much more than any new customers.  Adobe’s own Flash CS3 may ultimately be a better choice, for those who do not already own Director.  It looks like any developers who have already switched to Flash CS3, will need much more to justify returning to Developer, even with the new advances in version 11.

Finally, the cost, while not exorbitant, may still present issues for some, as upgrades will cost $299.  New purchases are priced at $999 (down from $1,199). The student version is only $99.  However, there is a free trial available, so that people can try it before committing to becoming a proud owner of Adobe’s Director 11.