Hi all, I am new to this forum and relatively new to Flash.
Anyway, onto the problem…
I am currently trying to build an online portfolio for my work. Since most of my work is in 3D animation, I will need to display various animated sequences. What I love about Flash is that I can compress my animation files to very small sizes, yet the quality is still superior (far better than .avi or .mov files of comparable file size). I have already gone through the process of converting most of my animations to .swf files using Adobe After Effects 5. These animations range in size from 3mb to 10mb (which is small for animation, but I’m guessing rather large for a typical .swf).
I want to externally load these animations to a predetermined location on the page when the user clicks the corresponding link. I followed the instructions in the “Loading movies into target: Flash MX” section of this tutorial http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/loading.htm, and I was able to load the movie with no difficulty. However, the animation plays at a very slow rate, probably 1/3 of what the true framerate should be. Now, I find this odd because if I open the .swf of that animation directly, it plays perfectly.
Now, in the final product I intend to use preloader bars due to the relatively large size of these files, but would this actually be an issue when I’m loading the 3mb .swf file directly from my hard drive (and not from some server)??
Also, I was trying to figure out a way to include a preloader into the tutorial mentioned above, but have not been able to figure it out (unfortunately I don’t have much programming background). If anyone has an idea of how to do this, or any clues to why the animation plays back in “slow-mo”, it would be much appreciated.
It sounds like your main swf has low fps set. Try to set it to something like 30 o 40 frames per second. U find the fps setting in the property panel when no object is selected.
Hi
A bit of info please, like which browser and what resolution is the display size?
FireFox has some issues with certain Flash movies, making the processor overload and thus the movie runs slower than it will in the player loaded seperately. Even IE takes up a percentage of your system processor and when you are near the limit it pushes it over the edge compared to the plain player.
You may want to start up taskManager or such and watch the process speed during parts of your movie playback to help identify intensive scenes that may need particular attention.
Intense graphic rendering, like 3d animation is likely to slow the movie also. This can be altered by resizing the display movie to a smaller size, which FLASH can process better. Optimized Vector Graphics can help speed up this playback also, while in other cases it is better to have a simple .jpg. Converting a complex bitmap into a raster can make for a larger file and slower performance if every pixel is converted seperately(too much detail).
Some types of code use can hog processor power as well, things like “onEnterFrame” or complex ineffecient loops may be adding to the problem if you have alot of these items running at once on top of a large image tween.
3- 10 mb is large for a single download except on broadband, and most FLASH movies are broken down to load in parts if possible; Using loadMovie or MovieClipLoader to attache seperate portions of a larger movie.
I’m using IE6 and all of the movies are 320x240 or lower.
The simple scene I made consisted of a blank scene with one button, which loaded the external .swf when clicked…so, the culprit is not complex code. Also, my machine has a P4 2.4ghz processor and 512mb of ram, so processing a 3mb .swf with nothing else running shouldn’t have been a problem (yes I know, when I upload my site to the web I need to be very mindful of this, but for now I’m just trying to get the darn thing to run well on a GOOD machine).
As for the large file sizes, it really can’t be changed because of the material I am trying to show. You can’t cram a 40 second long 24fps animation into a 500kb file, unless of course you want it to have 16 colors and look like absolute garbage, which kind of defeats the purpose. This is why I fully intend to use preloaders and WARN the user on the HTML splash page that cable/DSL/T1 is highly recommended for viewing my site. This site is being made to be viewed by potential employers in the field, so I’m going to have to assume that they have access to broadband in their work environment.
WoGk7 has a good point, and one that I most likely overlooked. A very simple problem, but one that would definitely cause havoc in this case. I will go check it out and post later…
Well, it seems like WoGk7 had the solution, and I feel like such an idiot for overlooking something as basic as the framerate. For some reason, though, I had to set the framerate of the movie to about 1.5x that of the external .swfs, or they would still play slow (36fps). I’m not sure how this will affect the overall file size of the site, but I’m guessing this shouldn’t be too much of a problem … if I’m wrong, please let me know now so I don’t have to redo it later =/
Would anyone know how to add a preloader to the tutorial in the “Loading movies into target: Flash MX” section of this tutorial http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/loading.htm? I want it to work so that a preloader bar appears in the container until the movie is fully loaded, and then the movie appears in the container. At first I thought this concept would be easy, but after thinking about it (and with very little flash scripting knowledge), I’m kinda stumped. :h:
