Using Sprite Inks - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Use Manual

Using sprite inks

You can change a sprite's appearance on the Stage by applying inks. Sprite inks change the display
of a sprite's colors. Inks are most useful to hide white bounding rectangles around images, but
they can also create many compelling and useful color effects. Inks can reverse and alter colors,
make sprites change colors depending on the background, and create masks that obscure or reveal
portions of a background.
You change the ink for a sprite in the Property inspector or with Lingo or JavaScript syntax.
Sprite with Copy ink
To achieve the fastest animation rendering on the screen, use Copy ink; other ink types might
have a slight effect on performance.
To change a sprite's ink with the Property inspector:
Select the sprite.
1
Select the desired type of ink from the Ink pop-up menu on the Sprite tab in the
2
Property inspector.
To change a sprite's ink with script:
•
Set the sprite's
Reference topics in the Director Help Panel.
Note: If Background Transparent and Matte inks don't seem to work, the background of the
image might not be true white. Also, if the edges of the image have been blended or are fuzzy,
applying these inks might create a halo effect. Use the Paint window or an image-editing program
to change the background to true white and harden the edges. You can also re-create the image
with an alpha channel (transparency) and reimport the image.
Using Mask ink to create transparency effects
To reveal or tint certain parts of a sprite, you use Mask ink. Mask ink lets you define a mask cast
member, which controls the degree of transparency for parts of a sprite.
The original cast member, its mask, and the sprite with Mask ink applied.
Sprite with Matte ink
sprite property. For more information about this property, see the Scripting
ink
Using sprite inks 77