Re: FLASH: Scripting

[iNtRePiD]

At 02:25 PM 7/13/99 -0400, you wrote:

>I am making a preloader scene.  The movie that will play while the rest of

>the stuff loads looks something like this:

>

>|||||||||||||||||||||||||

>

>where each bar would represent 4% of the total frames in the entire movie.

>I want to have an animation called "bars" in the preloader that would "light

>up" each bar when it's corresponding percentage value is reached.  (Geez, I

>hope you can understand what I'm trying to say..) For example, if 12% of the

>entire movie is loaded, then only three bars in the animation would be

>"lighted up" and the rest would remain "off."  Does anyone know how to write

>a script that would check how many frames are loaded, convert that into an

>integer value, and then call the appropriate frame from the "bars" movie.

>

>Thanks for any input on this, or if you know of any sites with tutorials on

>scripting please send them my way.

>

>Thanks,

> 

>Arthur G.

> 


Unfortunately, I don't usually get enough time to post full messages on

mailing lists regularly, but here you go.


Let's say your actual movie is 1000 frames long, and you have 10 bars in

that preloader to be lit one by one as your movie is loaded through its

frames 1-1000. Here's a simple technique for that:


Make a preloader movie clip and light each of the bars up one by one in

frames. Say your preloader spans 100 frames, so you might want to light

each bar at every tenth frame. All the "unlit" bars lie on the stage

already in frame 1 of the preloader. Also, each successive bar will be lit

up as every 10% of your movie is loaded. This is all for the setup.


Now, all you do is pick up a frame before frame 10 of the preloader and put

an "If frame is loaded" action statement in that frame. The frame will

check if frame number 100 of the actual movie is loaded (200 of the overall

movie as it contains first 100 frames of the preloader as well), and if the

frame is loaded, it will go and play frame 10 of the preloader, which

lights up the first bar. Similarly, between frame 10 and frame 20 of the

preloader, choose a frame that checks if frame 200 of the actual movie (300

overall) is loaded, and if it's loaded, goes and plays frame 20 of the

preloader (that lights up the second bar). And so on.


As you can see, this is a very basic technique and, thus, has a lot of room

for fine tuning and customization. Now that you can drag movie clips around

in Flash and drop them off with custom actions, you can do a whole lot of

other stuff with it, like letting the user "rewind" or "fast forward" the

movie, etc.



iNtRePiD

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