Preloader Fundamentals ... I think

[michael1]

Sup All //

@senocular.com

Why does my preloader start at 40% (or some other unnecessarily high value)?

The Quick: Items in your library such as movie clips and sounds set to be exported for ActionScript (exported in first frame) are loaded before your preloader is loaded even if your preloader is placed on the first frame of your movie.

The Details: When a Flash movie loads into the Flash player, it loads in a progressive manner that loads all content at the beginning of the movie before any content later on in the movie. Doing this allows for movie playback to begin prior to the entire movie having been fully downloaded. Flash knows how to do this because everything on the timeline is static and doesn’t change. Just by looking at the timeline, you can tell which content comes first (which is loaded first) and which follows it (and loads later). When dealing with the use of library items through ActionScript, there’s no real way to tell just when exactly those items will need to be addressed. It could be the first frame of the Flash movie or it could be the last. Because the use of ActionScript allows for such usage to be dynamic, Flash has no way of knowing when to load the library items utilized by ActionScript. As a result, by default, Flash loads all library items exported for Actionscript in the first frame, and actually this means at the very start of the first frame prior to anything you actually use in the first frame, such as your preloader.

http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/faq/#preloaderstart

Wanted to clarify this before I go and mess with my site. I’ve been building my site for a while now, and it’s just about complete.

I’ve ran into this issue with several of my sites in the past where the preloader wouldn’t “show/start” until 40% or some other number.

I now know this is due to embedded library mc’s, buttons, etc … exporting even before the preloader starts. Thus once they are exported, the rest of the movie begins and shows the preloader, well around 40%-ish.

My questions are:

If I were to do this, and dump all the library items into the 2nd frame, well … will this work?

(This is the designer in me talking now, it’s tricky for me to think logically)

Will the file size increase at all in doing so—by dumping all those library items in the 2nd frame?
What items should I dump? All of them? or just mc’s and buttons?

I try to read and understand as much as I can, but sometimes especially when it comes to things of this sort, I need it spoon-fed to me.

Thanks all

-m