A sprite is an object that controls when, where, and how cast members appear in an Adobe Director movie. Multiple sprites can use the same cast member. You can also switch cast members assigned to a sprite as the movie plays. Use the Stage to control where a sprite appears, and use the Score to control when it appears in your movie.

Sprites appear on the Stage layered according to the channel in which they are assigned in the Score. Sprites in higher-numbered channels appear in front of sprites in lower-numbered channels. A movie can include as many as 1000 sprite channels. Use the Movie tab of the Property inspector to control the number of channels.

Sprite properties include the sprite’s size and location, the cast member assigned to the sprite, the sprite’s name, and the frames in which the sprite occurs. Different properties can alter the appearance of a sprite. You can rotate, skew, flip, and change the color of sprites without affecting cast members. You can change sprite properties with the Property inspector or Lingo or JavaScript syntax.

The Filters property of a sprite enables you to apply effects to any non-Direct To Score sprite, using the Filters tab in the Property inspector. For more information about filters, see Bitmap filters.

You can also give each sprite a unique name. You can assign a name by using the Property inspector, and then view the sprite by name in the Score and on the Stage. Assigning a name lets you refer to the sprite by that name in Lingo or JavaScript syntax and not just by the channel number that it occupies. You can move a sprite to a different channel and not worry about changing scripts. Editing scores and code scripts is much easier when you refer to a sprite by its name.

In Lingo or JavaScript syntax, some properties are available only for certain types of sprites. Such properties typically are characteristics that are related to the specific sprite type. For example, Lingo or JavaScript syntax has several digital video properties that determine the contents of tracks in digital video sprites.