Transition Effect for Dynamic Images

programming flash
1

I’m working on a slideshow that is pulling random images from a database (with the help of php) and displaying them four at a time. Two questions:

  1. Is it possible to apply a transition effect from one image to the next – current image fading into the one after it or something like that?
  2. Do you think a transition effect will hide the fact that there is a delay between the images? For example the next image is being loaded as the current one is fading out.

Here’s the url:
http://cbsr.obinet.net/home/welcome.html

Here’s the actionscript for one of the images - the rest are pretty much the same, just different clip names, coordinates, etc.:

loadVariablesNum(“http://cbsr.obinet.net/flash/images.html”, 0);
createEmptyMovieClip(“pic_holder”, 1);
pic_holder._x = 7;
pic_holder._y = 172;
pic_holder.loadMovie(external_image);
_root.onEnterFrame = function() {
if (_root.pic_holder._width>0) {
delete _root.onEnterFrame;
_root.pic_holder._height = 150;
_root.pic_holder._width = 200;
}
};

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/actionscript