Chapter 9. Interactive Sound Design with Flash and Shockwave
Two of the most popular tools for delivering interactive multimedia on the Web are Macromedia Flash and Shockwave. Both technologies offer superior control over multimedia creation and playback across various browsers and platforms. If you are developing interactive content with motion graphics and sound, using Flash and Shockwave should be your first choice.
While RealAudio was instrumental in bringing the radio broadcasting
experience to the Web, Macromedia's influence on interactive
media began with the launch of Shockwave in 1995, a technology that
converted Macromedia Director presentations into a compressed format
for web delivery. About a year after Shockwave's release,
Macromedia acquired the technology that has become Flash, which uses
efficient vector graphics and compressed audio to create web
multimedia. While the two tools have some similar capabilities,
they're aimed at different types of projects. Shockwave takes
advantage of Director's scripting language, Lingo, to create
complex presentations and games. Flash, on the other hand, is handy
for simple button rollovers, presentations with basic branching
logic, and situations where download speed is critical. Both formats
provide the software components and authoring capabilities necessary
to build advanced interactive soundtracks and customized media.
Flash and Shockwave allow you to create an immersive multimedia
experience on your web site. Despite the introduction of RealSystem
G2 and SMIL, we found that Flash and Shockwave formats still provide
more creative, high-impact multimedia works.
9.1. Flash and Shockwave basics
At the core of Shockwave and Flash multimedia lies a sophisticated
authoring environment that exports various media elements into one
compressed binary movie file. Using a standalone authoring
environment to produce a self-contained media file has many
advantages over text-based markup language media formats such as SMIL
and Java. For example, the synchronization and playback of complex
Shockwave and Flash presentations is more reliable than SMIL-based
media. More important, the overall level of interaction between media
elements is much more advanced in Flash and Shockwave than in
text-based formats.
Although Shockwave was heavily promoted, it is not as ubiquitous on
web sites as RealAudio or Flash because of its large plug-in size and
higher bandwidth requirements. What
Shockwave does best is create rich
CD-ROM-like interactive multimedia. However, the result is often a
download that is too slow over 56 Kbps modem connections. While
Shockwave is a great multimedia-authoring environment, its
bandwidth-hungry video and audio are best experienced with the
throughput of xDSL or
at least a T1 line. However, if you are careful with preloading and
streaming, you can successfully create interesting Shockwave media
suitable for modem users. The Enigma III Shockwave mixer,
discussed later in this chapter, provides a good example of how you
can create engaging Shockwave media over limited bandwidths.
Flash and Shockwave
Originally developed by FutureWave Software as the FutureSplash Animator, Flash utilizes vector-based technology to deliver interactive real-time animation and sound over standard modem speeds. And with the addition of ActionScript in Flash 4, Flash pieces can offer more advanced interactivity.
Shockwave for Director is a software component that enables compatible browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 and up to play Director movies over the Web. Shockwave is designed to work with standard HTTP servers and is ideal for streaming short- to medium-length audio clips and for scripting more advanced multimedia presentations and games with Lingo.
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Flash has gained a broad
following, with its stripped-down and simplified authoring
environment, small plug-in sizes, and low-bandwidth-friendly vector
animation. Flash-based multimedia web sites are great for product or
service demos, educational tutorials, targeted branding campaigns,
and promotions that call for a high-impact, media-rich viewing
experience. Flash also works well embedded as a small animation
window in a standard text and graphics-based HTML page.
If a user does not have the Flash plug-in, you can use
Macromedia's Aftershock utility to easily generate
the HTML and
JavaScript to
automatically replace the Flash movie window with a static GIF image
(see Figure 9-1). The Aftershock utility is a key
breakthrough for web developers because it addresses their
trepidation over implementing plug-in-dependent media on a
high-traffic web site. The Aftershock utility also works with
Shockwave. Aftershock is a free utility available on the Macromedia
web site at http://www.macromedia.com.
Figure 9-1. The Macromedia Aftershock utility
Flash and Shockwave are designed to be served from a standard HTTP
web server like the rest of your web site content. On the upside,
Flash and Shockwave content is easy to broadcast because you do not
need to install special server software; the downside is that you do
not have the benefits that dedicated server software provides, such
as managing the delivery of streams to various target bandwidths.
Depending on server configuration, bandwidth throughput, and router
capacity, a standard HTTP server with a high-end system can broadcast
up to 100 or more simultaneous Shockwave or Flash streams. However,
with average bandwidth throughput, that same server cannot deliver
more than a dozen streams. You can get around this problem by using
QuickTime 4 to
broadcast your Flash content or by porting your Flash movies into
RealFlash and using the RealServer.
9.1.1. Drawbacks to Flash and Shockwave
Shockwave and
Flash
are not for everyone. Despite their exceptional interactive controls
and authoring environments, there are a few drawbacks and limitations
to using either technology:
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Creating multimedia. A proprietary
authoring environment such as Flash or Shockwave requires web
developers to learn an entirely new application as opposed to simply
adding a few HTML or SMIL tags. For most developers, this trade-off
is well worth it because they can create Flash and Shockwave
presentations that look exactly the same on various browsers and
platforms, and a standalone authoring application is infinitely more
powerful for creating complex interactive presentations.
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Replacing or revising content. If
developers want to revise content encapsulated within a binary movie
using Flash or Shockwave, they must re-export and then upload the
entire movie. While it is easier to upload a new audio or graphic
file and change a few tags, both Flash and Shockwave support linking
to external audio files as a workaround. For an example, check out
the SWA CD player application at Macromedia's site (http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave). It can
read an external text file to get the song list for a jukebox-style
Shockwave movie.
-
Scalable server solution for managing
streams. Macromedia does not provide server-side
management tools or dedicated servers for large-scale Flash and
Shockwave streaming. Macromedia does support streaming for long-form
audio files (audio clips more than a minute long) with RealAudio.
Flash animation can be turned into a RealFlash presentation with a
synchronized RealAudio clip. Recent versions of Director include a
RealAudio Extra that allows you to add RealAudio to Shockwave
presentations.
-
Server-side controls. Shockwave and
Flash do not have the server-side controls for random access to
different parts of an audio file. If a user connection breaks halfway
through an hour-long presentation, there is no way to resume playback
at the point where the audio dropped out. The RealAudio Player, by
contrast, offers random access to any portion of an audio file by
sending a request back to the RealAudio Server.
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Live encoding. Shockwave and Flash
do not support live encoding and broadcasting. If you want to stream
live content, use RealAudio. Flash and Shockwave's inability to
broadcast live events is not a problem, however, since interactive
content is not usually a live endeavor.
Shockwhat?
When Macromedia launched Shockwave, they labeled the players for all their authoring applications, including Authorware, FreeHand, Director, and Flash, as "Shockwave." By late 1998, Macromedia determined this practice was confusing to consumers and now refers only to the Director player and content exported from Director as Shockwave.
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