Let me see if i get it

1

okay… i have a scripting question, but when i went to the scripting section everyone was talking abount functions, physics, varibles and == and other out-of-reach-at-the-moment kinda stuff… so if it’s okay with the mods… i’d like to post my question here… if it’s not… i’m sure you guys will move it… i just feel a little more comfortable here at the moment…

first of all i’m using flash 5, not mx… be aware of this one… the extra confusion could give me a heart attack…

i just want to understand the concepts used behind scripting a flash site… this is the example for my first two questions…

www.anovadesign.com

my questions begin with…

  1.  how is a site like this "traditionally" "set up"? does he have the buttons "going to" new scenes?... or do the buttons "load" new .swfs?...

  2. how would the script "traditionally" be set up for something like this?...

okay now here’s a few more questions… (i’m trying to avoid making five hundred new thread topics…)

  1. say i want something happening in the background of the site... and then at a particular time i want another movie clip to appear above the "animation" already in progress in the background... would levels be nessesary to use when "calling" the new movie?... to do this type of action would the second movie clip need to be called by a frame event, since i would want it functioning totally independent of buttons or the interactivity properties of the site?...

  2. in applying sound effects… do you apply them to a button directly or do they play in the main time line itself?.. where can i go to get information about button sounds and applying sounds?

  3. let’s say i wanted to have a picture of myself fade in to interact with the background of my site… the picture had a masking effect on it that was a sort of animated ripple… in creating the movie clip for this would tweening be sufficent and wise to use?..

it was said to me a few days ago to be minimalistic with tweening… this seriously kicked me in the head, because up that time i had already came quite a ways with my website… but i really didn’t understand the navigational structure… and when it was said that tweening should not be used if it could be helped… i basically stopped dead in my tracks and quit working on the site…

i realize now that there is some learning to be done… i have spent the last three days soaking up every piece of basic actionscripting i can get my hands on… and for the first time… i’m beginning to understand…

i appreciate the feedback. i know beyond any shadow of a doubt that within a few minutes someone here will respond… though don’t get to comfortable… i’m full of questions and i guarentee that before the day is over… i’ll have a nother one… =)

oasis

2

…and phil said questionful wasn’t a word:sigh: it ■■■■ well should be;)

I’ll see if I can answer the bits one at a time so as not to overload my puny mind, unless someone else comes along to rescue.

  1. First, if you can avoid using scenes, this is better. It’s common practice to load new sections of the site using loadMovie, this way the user only needs to wait for what they need, rather than everything loading at the start.

  2. A simple set-up for this would be your buttons down the side and a blank movie clip on the stage with the instance name “contents”(for example).
    each button would have the action

on (release) {
contents.loadMovie(“whatever.swf”);
}

where whatever.swf is the particular page you want depending on the button pressed.

…more when I get some time…

3

excellent… it’s a little clearer now… i will wait patiently, my friend… time is trying to take us all out it seems… =)

4
  1. If you want something to happen at a certain point in your background animation then yeah, you’ll need an action at that frame.
    so if you want to load an external movie at that point, put the loadMovie there.
    if you just want a movie clip to appear and start playing at that point, the easiest way would be to have the first frame of the clip blank, with a stop(); action. then have gotoAndPlay(2); on the last frame. then just use :

myMovieClip.play();

when you want it to start.

  1. http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/buttonsound.htm

  2. I wouldn’t be too concerned about using tweening. the main benefits for using actionscript for motion is if you want interaction.
    I would say it’s perfectly acceptable for situations like you described. imorted images and sound are what will boost the filesize most.