Optimizing Vector Graphics Drawn in Flash

programming flash
1

This is the first time I have tried this, I drew (used the paintbrush) an image of roots in Flash and I am using masks to give it the appearance of growing. Trouble is it seems so slow, and of course when I see how many points the object is made up of, I see why. Rather than taking the time to go through and delete many of the extra, unnecessary points myself I was testing the Modify > Shape > Optimize option. It says it is reducing the curves by so many, etc, but my fla size keeps getting larger and when I re-export my swf the file size is staying the same and the animation does not seem to be getting any faster.

Oh the reason for the slow down is because of the number of masks I am using…I have copied and pasted the “root” object (which I did make into a mc) in each masked layer in order for it to show properly.

Advice I am looking for: Do I take the time to keep optimizing (will it help my animation speed)

here is a screenshot of the root image:

and here is the swf

2

Just in case anyone looks to this thread for a reference I did figure some things out. I renamed (resaved) the file and saw that optimizing the shapes was helping and did reduce, but not enough to make it much faster. I then tried removing the gradients, but again not much faster. I tried doing both, and that did improve speed but looked bad.

Finally, I did what I should have to begin with. Under each mask, I was using the entire root image (as instances of a mc) rather that just the pieces I needed exposed under that mask. I went in and just used the pieces I needed for that part and it made for a much smoother (faster) transition. So by trying to do it the easy way I ended up spending much more time =)