Adobe Makes 3-D Media Waves
The San Jose, Calif.-based maker of creativity software offers Director 11.5 in its arsenal, and the application is not due for an upgrade in this time period—as are other applications in its Creative Suite like Photoshop or InDesign. But solution providers may want to take a fresh look at Director 11.5 now given the emergence of six-core and eight-core CPUs into the marketplace as well as faster, better-performing components like Solid State Drives. Industry-standard PCs are now in position to support quick and easy 3-D media.
Director 11.5 is the latest iteration of Adobe's software that leverages the Shockwave platform for design and creativity. While Director 11.5 is more sophisticated than, say, Microsoft Paint, it's not as training-intensive as you might expect from CAD software in years past. With the emergence of better-performing processors early this year, Director 11.5 sits in a particularly strong place.
In the CRN Test Center lab, we tried out Director 11.5 on a PC built with a quad-core AMD Phenom 9550 CPU and 4 GB of RAM, running Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. It installed simply and easily, taking up only 500 MB of hard drive space. (A multicore CPU is listed as a system requirement, so it's not exactly a good fit for the netbooks out there.)
At most, while in use the application never appeared to consume more than 70,000 Kb of system memory. It was both a snap to install and snappy to run.
Director 11.5 is powerful in that it supports an incredibly long list of multimedia formats—from Bitmap images to .MP4, Flash, .AVI, Quicktime, Shockwave Flash and Shockwave 3-D. It's simple to import the media into the application-based production studio and manipulate, alter or add images and features. Still images can be saved as, in Adobe's parlance, "cast members;" keyframes can be added to create moving images.
One feature that is particularly compelling is Director 11.5's ability to import files from Google SketchUp—the free, PC-based application that allows for simple creation and manipulation of 3-D images. In a matter of minutes, it's possible to create a 3-D image in Google SketchUp, import it into Director 11.5, and create moving, 3-D animation that can be developed into games or powerful online tutorials.
Actually, it would have been nice if Adobe itself used a Sketch-Up-Director 11.5 mashup to create its own online, animated tutorial for the software. And while it's incredibly easy to get up and running quickly in Director 11.5, online tutorials are, ironically, an area where Adobe could perform a little better.
Adobe's list price on Director 11.5 is $299, while Google SketchUp is a free download.
The bottom line: Putting the power of developing 3-D and other multimedia into the hands of the masses might still be a rev or two away, but multimedia creation has never been more accessible in more scenarios than it is today. Many businesses or organizations, like schools, that may have never before considered 3-D and animation as a differentiator should certainly now begin to give it consideration. Adobe Director 11.5 is strong enough technology from a strong enough channel-focused vendor for the CRN Test Center to recommend, and we look forward to seeing more and better from Adobe in the coming weeks and months with CS5.
The advance of 3-D creation software, and its ability now to leverage industry-standard hardware, isn't completely new. In fact, last year the CRN Test Center rated highly AutoDesk's Inventor application as a particularly powerful and innovative approach to 3-D design and creation. And it's important to note that with the advent this month of Apple's iPad platform, which is primarily for content consumption, the development and improvement of software that AutoDesk, Google and Adobe are providing will ensure that the PC platform will continue to offer unparalleled value for those with creative needs. We expect new and less expensive creation software as the coming quarters advance.
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