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NOVEMBER 11, 2002 Interactive QuickTime Authoring, Part 3
Movie Tracks. Movie tracks, video tracks, what's the stinkin' difference? At least that's what I thought at first. Turns out, there's a big difference. Movie tracks are externally-linked, full .mov files, meaning that you can nest a bunch of fully interactive QuickTime movies within a host .mov file, opening up interesting possibilities for interactive content a la Flash's Movie Clip model. Sprite Tracks. Sprite tracks are the BIG ones as far as QuickTime interactivity is concerned, at least if you don't have access to Flash (more on that later). While sprite tracks are pretty unwieldy when it comes time to animate them (you have to apply a wholly separate tween or modifier track to animate sprite tracks, which isn't even worth going into here), sprite tracks are the most "wire-able" of the native QuickTime tracks as far as scripting is concerned. You can either place a few images (or samples) in a sprite track and add scripting to them to make buttons (fig. 7), leave a sprite track blank and have it be a script-only track, or do any one of a bunch of other things a sprite track can accomplish. [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
Fig. 7: The sprite track panel, where you create sprites and wire them for interactivity. Flash Tracks. If you're also a Flash user, I would recommend that you completely avoid using the sprite track and all of its vagaries and arbitrary rules in favor of Flash tracks. Again, since LSP supports QuickTime 6, you get the ability to use Flash 5 media in your QuickTime movies instead of the old Flash 4 support in QuickTime 5. Flash 5, by the way, is pee-lenty good enough to do some really great things in QuickTime. In addition to being able to use vector animations natively, the Flash track is really superbly integrated into LSP, letting you add QScript calls to ActionScripts that you've already placed in your Flash movie (fig. 8). For my money, interactive QuickTime movies that make liberal use of Flash capabilities via the Flash track represent potentially the most dynamic solution around for interactive authoring available today, period. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I'm a huge fan of hybrid Flash/QuickTime movies. 
Fig. 8: LSP lets you add QScript (in blue) to your Flash buttons, which will run side-by-side with any ActionScript (in gray) present in the SWF file. FastTracks. FastTracks refer to a set of "tracks" that Totally Hip has included in LSP to ease the creation of some of the more vexing tasks associated with producing interactive QuickTime, like custom media skins and progress bars, as simple as dragging and dropping (fig. 9). I enclose the word tracks in quotes here because FastTracks are not native QuickTime tracks; rather, they are a neat little moniker for a set of specialized functions proprietary to LSP. Once you compile your finished .mov file, though, FastTracks are converted into their respective native QuickTime features. 
Fig. 9: The Skin FastTrack makes the normally cumbersome process of custom media player skins in QuickTime very simple. Other FastTracks include player controls, progress loaders, and QuickTime VR controls. Prev 1 2 3 4 Next Related sites: • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Media Designer • Digital Producer • Digital Webcast • Presentation Master • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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