Soundtrack completion using SoundEdit and Director

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To complete the soundtrack for our animation we will

• Modify the sounds you recorded in the previous session
• Combine the sounds with the animation visuals
• Export the animation to web-compatible Shockwave format
• Modify the HTML file to display the animation in the web page

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
   • Zoom in for a detailed view
     
   • Zoom back out to see the big picture
     
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.
   • If you later click on the Label, the sound segement will be selected again, so you can go back to working with it.
   • Labeled segments can be quickly selected and/or played using the Labels palette (Window menu).
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:
   
   • Amplify
     
   • Fade in
     
   • Fade out
     
   • You can also use commands in the Edit menu, such as Crop
     
   • And commands in the Insert menu, such as Silence
     
     Note that the commands in insert can also be used when an insertion point, rather than a selection, is active. Inserting the requested length of silence will increase the duration of the sound:
     
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:
   
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:
   
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:
   • Turn on the 'Enabled' checkbox for Compression.
   • Choose the lowest number from the Bit Rate pop-up menu
   • Turn on the 'High' option for Accuracy (this shouldn't make your wait too long if you kept your sounds small).
   • Click 'OK' to close the dialog box.
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:
   • your last name
   • followed by an underscore (shift-hyphen)
   • followed by your first name's initial
   • followed by a period
   • followed by dcr
   • as an example, Sam Sample's Shockwave file is called
     sample_s.dcr
   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.
   • Make sure the insertion point is not within a piece of text enclosed by angle brackets ('<' and '>').
3. Enter the following HTML code:
   • a left angle bracket (shift-comma)
   • followed by EMBED SRC=
   • followed by the name of your dcr file, enclosed in quotes
   • followed by a space
   • followed by WIDTH=
   • followed by the width of your animation in pixels
   • followed by a space
   • followed by HEIGHT=
   • followed by the height of your animation in pixels
   • followed by a right angle bracket (shift-period)
   • as an example, Sam Sample's HTML file contains this line
     <EMBED SRC="sample_s.dcr" WIDTH=240 HEIGHT=160>
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:

• The Art Computer Graphics program of Fullerton College offers a class covering the integration of various sound formats into HTML documents, ACG164-Multimedia Authoring, listed in the class schedule.