Behaviours - Clock

Created and designed by Vivienne Trulock for ilikecake, 2005

Analogue Clock

It’s very simple to make a working analogue clock in Director. Just follow these step. You should be familiar with a lot of these terms from the Garden tutorial. See completed movie.

Use the vector shape window (Window > Vector Shape) to draw a clock face and 3 hands – an hour hand, a minute hand and a second hand. This is the second hand.

image of the the second hand in the vector window

Use the registration tool (looks like a crosshair) in the vector window to change the registration points of the hands to the bottom centre of each hand. This is the point around which the hand will rotate. Don't change the registration point of the clock face - it should be in the middle.

image showing the registration point in the vector window

Create Numbers

Use the text window (Window > Text) to create the numbers 1 to 12 for the clock face.

the number 1 in the text window

Pull the clock face, the hands and the text cast members from the cast (Window > Cast) onto the stage (Window > Stage) and arrange them. Use the ‘View > Guides And Grid > Show Grid’ option to help you align the sprites correctly.

image of clock with grid turned on in the stage window

Aligning Elements

Select the 3 hands and the clock face and align their registration points with the ‘Window > Align’ tool. First align the horizontal reg points and then the vertical. This is necessary so that the hands rotate around the centre point of the clock.

how to align horizontal reg point how to align vertical reg point

Open the Library palette (Window > Library) on ‘Controls > Analogue clock’.

analogue clock button in library window

Drag this behaviour onto each of the hands in turn, setting each hand to the appropriate option on the dropdown menu that pops up.

image of pop up analogue clock parameters

Open the Library palette on ‘Navigation > Hold on Current Frame’

hold on current frame button in library palette

Drag this onto the last frame of your movie. This loops the movie on the final frame and stops the movie ending.

movie score - final frame

Save your clock (File > Save)

Publish Settings

Open up the Publish Settings (File > Publish Settings')

Create an executable version which will play from CD-ROM without shockwave, by ticking the Projector checkbox. Create a shockwave version for the web by ticking both the Shockwave File checkbox, and the HTML checkbox. You can use the browse buttons to the right of each option to tell Director where to save your files.

publish settings options

Completed Movie

The final clock movie should look like this... You will only be able to see this file if you have shockwave installed.