RE: FLASH: Site check:http://www.dentalportal.com/flash/tmj.html

[Marc Hoffman, Poison Dart Frog Media]

At 12:52 PM 1/3/00 , you wrote:


>I just got John's book and have to go over all the options for graphics.

>There are bitmaps, some traced.  I've got a lot of symbols - at least that's

>on the right track.


Hi Larry,


I didn't even pay attention to your file size. To analyze what's going on, 

when you export the movie select the option to generate a size report, then 

look at it (it will be a *.txt file in your movie export folder) to see 

what's contributing to such a large file size. I noticed the hand was 

auto-traced but my guess is the resulting symbol is probably larger than if 

you'd imported a .bmp and just used Flash's jpeg compression on it 

(experiement with different degrees of compression). Someone with basic 

drawing skills (and, ideally, a drawing tablet such as a Wacom) could 

create your graphics from scratch and cut total file size to under 50 k if 

they're careful. In the case of the hand, it could be rendered with large 

areas of shading instead of all the irregular little lines -- I know it's a 

nice style, but each little node on each of those lines spells "bytes." 

Also, I didn't pay close attention to your fonts but you can save file size 

by sticking to just one font and one face (bold or regular, not both).


You don't use a lot of geometric elements, but be sure that when you do you 

re-use the basic components. For example, each of your navigation buttons 

can be made up of the same circle and triangle graphic symbol, resized and 

with color effects added.


Hope this helps.

Marc Hoffman


Poison Dart Frog Media: Specializing in Flash Animation and Digital Audio 

Production

Our latest Flash job is on display at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/rickfrnd>

See our Flash portfolio at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/sampler>

(featured in Flash 3 Web Animation, by Ken Milburn)




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