Shockwave Rocks Multimedia Development

Sending tremors through your Web page

In the beginning was the Web. The people looked at text, hyperlinks, andgraphics and saw that the Web was good. But the people were not satisfied. "Wehave seen interactive multimedia: audio, video, and animation. Multimedia is onour CDs. Surely we can put this technology on the Web!" The ground trembledas multimedia sprung forth, sending a Shockwave resounding through the Web. Atleast, this scenario is what Macromedia would like to see happen with its newShockwave products.

Shockwave is about delivering interactive multimedia over the Web--adifficult proposition if you think about it. First, multimedia informationrequires a lot of bandwidth to download, challenging the throughput capacitiesof not only most modern analog modems, but also other, high-speed connections.Second, creating, manipulating, and displaying interactive and multimediainformation requires great sophistication in the authoring and viewingsoftware--sophistication that goes beyond the capabilities of today's HypertextMarkup Language (HTML) editors and Web browsers.

Many different approaches, technologies, and products are available toaddress these difficulties. Shockwave by Macromedia is one of the most recentand most promising technologies. Released in December 1995, Shockwave is acompression technology for integrating multimedia in a Web page for deliveryover the Internet or corporate intranets. More than just another passive mediaplugin, Shockwave can make the media interactive. For example, you can zoom andpan through an illustration and select embedded universal resource locator (URL)links. You can also interact with net-aware, interactive presentations. Inshort, Shockwave extends multimedia interaction to the world of the Web.

To create shocked--compressed and optimized for Web delivery--Webpages, you first create content using Macromedia's established tools: FreeHand,Authorware, and Director. You then shock the content with a utility calledAfterburner and integrate it into an HTML document. To view shocked Web pages,you must download and configure Shockwave plugins for your Web browser.According to Macromedia's latest update, the plugins are compatible with version2.0x of the Netscape Navigator Web browser only, not with Navigator 3.0 (Atlas).Support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) 3.0 is in the form of an ActiveXcontrol. (The Shockwave ActiveX control for IE 3.0 is publicly available fromMacromedia's Web site.) Once the plugins are in place, the browser detectsshocked information in a Web page and activates the appropriate plugin toprocess and display that information. The plugins and Afterburner utilities arefree to download from Macromedia's Web site.

Shockwave is available only for Macromedia's FreeHand (digitalillustration), Authorware (education-oriented multimedia development), andDirector (presentation-oriented multimedia development) products. However,Shockwave for Director won't support NT until later this year. Macromedia plansto extend Shockwave technology to its other products: Extreme 3D, SoundEdit 16,and a forthcoming video production tool. Eventually, Shockwave will also deliverstreaming QuickTime video and other yet-to-be-announced file formats.

To see how Shockwave performs, I created test Web pages with shockedcontent from FreeHand 5.0B and Authorware 3.5 on a 166MHz Pentium with 32MB ofRAM running NT 3.51 (an NT 3.51 version of Shockwave for Director was notavailable when I performed this testing). Experience the results for yourself onWindows NT Magazine's Web site. I created the Web pages with NetscapeNavigator Gold and tested them with Navigator 2.01 and the latest plugins fromMacromedia's Web site.

Shocking Illustrations
The first Shockwave-enabled developmentapplication I tested was FreeHand. As Macromedia's illustration tool, FreeHandcompetes with Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Shockwave for FreeHand integratesFreeHand graphics onto Web pages where you can zoom, pan, and link the graphicsto URLs.

Shockwave for FreeHand includes the URL Manager Xtra (a plugin for theFreeHand application), which lets you assign a URL to almost any object in anillustration, even if that object's shape is irregular or other objectspartially obscure it. Unfortunately, the URL manager doesn't let you attach aURL to grouped objects. Screen 1 shows FreeHand's URL Manager palette and theAfterburner compression menu item.

After creating the illustration, I compressed it with Afterburner, reducingthe file size from 196KB to 93KB. My only complaint was Afterburner overwrote anold file without asking. I then created an HTML document and integrated theshocked FreeHand file with the EMBED tag. Macromedia's information is correct:Navigator Gold consistently crashed with an application error when I tried topreview the page. With Navigator 2.01, however, the FreeHand graphic loads anddisplays properly. Screen 2 shows the shocked FreeHand file as it appears inNetscape Navigator.

Shockwave for FreeHand is a downloading technology, meaning the Web browsermust download the entire graphic before displaying it. This approach is not aproblem even for complex illustrations because FreeHand graphics are vectorbased. They contain less data and download faster than their bitmap counterparts(.gif, .tif, etc.). Also, you can create FreeHand graphics in 8-, 16-, or 24-bitcolor without significantly affecting file size.

The best part about shocked graphics is interactivity. By holding down thespace bar, you can zoom in (up to 26,500%) on a graphic, and by holding down thecontrol key, you can pan around the image with the mouse. The lines in theillustration stay smooth regardless of how far you zoom. In panning around theimage, I noticed that the screen updated only when I released the mouse buttonrather than as I dragged the mouse. I had trouble identifying where I was in thegraphic. In addition, the graphic did not appear when I printed the page.

Despite these shortcomings, content providers will find Shockwave forFreeHand useful for embedding complex graphics such as maps, schematics, orengineering illustrations onto their Web pages. You can make these illustrationsas detailed as necessary to let users zoom in on the most important or mostinteresting aspects. You can link parts of illustrations to other URLs, givingusers quick visual access to related information.

Shockwave for Authorware
Authorware competes against multimediaauthoring software products such as Quest and IconAuthor and is geared towardtraining and education. Authorware uses an icon-based flowchart metaphor forcreating multimedia content. With Shockwave, you can deliver Authorwarepresentations via the Web.

To test Shockwave for Authorware, I developed a three-part presentationshowing URL links, audio, and a relatively complex interaction. Authorware 3.5has a pseudo-scripting language, updated to include several net-aware functionsand predefined variables. For this presentation, I limited myself to theGoToNetPage function, which assigns URLs to user actions (other functions areavailable for downloading files, jumping to other shocked Authorware files, andreading the contents of Web documents). I created the remainder of thepresentation, including a complex user interaction on the second page, usingstandard Authorware development techniques.

To prepare my Authorware file for Web use, I packaged it inAuthorware, a process similar to compiling. Next, I launched Afterburner, whichcompressed the file and split it into segments for the Web browser to downloadas needed. To track these segments, Afterburner creates a map file that tellsthe Shockwave plugin when and where to retrieve each segment. Afterburnerprompted me for the map file's location and the size of the segments. Screen 3shows where you set the segment size in Afterburner.

Afterburner defaults to 16,000-byte segments, but you will probably want totailor your setting within the range of 4000 bytes to 500,000 bytes, dependingon the size of the Authorware presentation and available bandwidth on yourtarget network. Smaller segments load quicker than larger segments, but theyload more frequently. Large segments take longer to load than small segments,but occur less frequently. For my demo, I used the default setting.

As with FreeHand, I used the EMBED tag to integrate the map file in an HTMLdocument and set the width and height to match the dimensions of mypresentation. When I previewed the document, the presentation loaded andoperated properly in both Navigator 2.01 and Navigator Gold. The last step wasto transfer the files to the Web server and configure the server to recognizethe map file and segment MIME types.

Screen 4 shows the shocked Authorware file as it appears in NetscapeNavigator. As my shocked Authorware file was loading, I got a quick glimpse ofthe Macromedia logo. Behind the scenes, the plugin launches a runtime version ofAuthorware, nearly 1MB in size, to run the shocked presentation (keep thisrequirement in mind when calculating how much RAM an end user will need). Aftera couple of seconds, the presentation appeared as an integrated part of the Webpage. Everything looked and functioned exactly as it was supposed to.

Because of the large amounts of data in a typical Authorware presentation,Shockwave for Authorware is best suited for high-speed intranets. However, withsome good authoring techniques for reducing file size, Shockwave for Authorwarecan also be effective for content delivery over the Internet. Although contentproviders can create entire presentations by embedding one shocked Authorwarefile, a more effective approach can be to integrate small Authorware applets aspart of a page, while the static content remains in HTML. These applets cancontain animations, interactivity, simulations, questions, or test banks.

Shockwave for Director
Macromedia doesn't yet support Shockwavefor Director on NT Web browsers, even though Director was the first Macromediaproduct to be shocked. This lack of support is unfortunate because Director isone of the most powerful multimedia authoring systems available. It combinesexcellent paint and animation capabilities with superb control over colorpalettes and synchronization of media. It also has a powerful scripting languagethat includes net-aware commands.

People usually choose Shockwave for Director to create animated banners andlogos, navigation bars, or interactive animations on Web pages. Because Directoris a full-blown authoring system, you can also create custom multimediaapplications (power applets in Macromedia terms) for Web delivery. Forexample, Macromedia claims that you can use a shocked Director 5 movie on theWeb as a secondary, self-modifying authoring system. Macromedia also plans toadd other compression algorithms (such as JPEG) to Director. These will run ontop of the Shockwave compression.

When I tried to create shocked content under NT 3.51, the Director 4.0.4,Director 5, and Afterburner utilities ran fine. However, the pluginsconsistently crashed both Navigator 2.01 and Navigator Gold. Macromedia is awareof this problem and promises that the next release of the Director plugins willcorrect it.

Just for the fun of it, I set up a test machine running NT 4.0 beta 2 withIE 3.0 beta 2 and a beta version of the ActiveX control for Director 5(Beta+Beta+Beta=Alpha) and tried to browse some Director-shocked sites.Amazingly, I had no problems, and the movies performed properly! This was thefirst time I had ever seen a shocked Director movie running in an NT browser.Screen 5 shows Macromedia's home page, which contains a Director movie runningunder NT 4.0. (Watch Windows NT Magazine's Web site for a demo as soonas Shockwave for Director is stable under NT.)

Shockwave vs. Java
So how does Shockwave compare to Java fromSun Microsystems? Envision a spectrum with interactive multimedia on one end andcustom applications on the other. Java is a tool for building client/serverapplications that can contain varying degrees of multimedia. In contrast,Shockwave is a tool for creating multimedia content that can contain varyingdegrees of interactivity. Shockwave and Java have some similar capabilities, buteach is built for a different task. Macromedia recognizes these differences andis focusing on how Shockwave and Java can work together. In fact, Macromedia iscreating many of its power applets in Java for use in Director. If you want aWeb client/server application, stick with Java. However, if you wanteasy-to-create interactive multimedia, Shockwave is a better bet.

Shockwave's Future
Shockwave is in its infancy and suffers fromsome implementation problems, most notably a lack of compatibility with manypopular Web browsers. Shockwave's future as an Internet and intranet standarddepends on the extent of its integration into Web design tools, managementtools, and browsers. To this end, Macromedia has worked out a deal withMicrosoft to include Shockwave with the final release of IE 3.0, the MicrosoftInternet Starter Kit, and future versions of Windows 95--no mention of NT 4.0.

The Internet will have an impact on the future of Shockwave­Internetbandwidth sets limits on what's practical to download. The Web is full ofnetwork-hogging, painstakingly slow Shockwave examples--try Castle RockEntertainment's City Hall site at city-hall.com/castle.html. Developers willhave to use traditional data-reducing techniques (1-bit graphics, minimal audio,low sampling rates) to keep download times short and audience attention engaged.As Internet bandwidth improves, this limitation will fade away.

Macromedia still isn't giving much thought to NT support. The focus remainson Win95 and Macintosh, with NT a distant third. For example, Macromediareleased the Shockwave for Director plugin for Win95 in December 1995 and forMacintosh in February 1996; the company has still not released an NT version.

Although Shockwave's acceptance can in no way be guaranteed, it is anexciting, practical technology that can figure prominently in how to delivermultimedia content on the Web.