Re: FLASH: load url or movie better?

[Jefferis]

>

From: Marc Hoffman <marcdartfrogmedia [dot] com>

Thanks for the input Marc...

>

>

>Hi Jeff,

>I had to look  at the site to see what you were referring to. It is

>confusing to talk about "pages in Flash" since Flash doesn't contain html

>pages but rather is contained within html pages.  


Doyou think his suggestion of the last frame loading another html page 

then was legitimate or off? 


>  I think the

>criticism you received is that when entering the Flash introduction page

>for a repeat visit, the viewer must wait through the "ship arrival"

>sequence, which is too slow even the first time through.

>

>I see you already have a preloader with an If Frame Is Loaded loop to

>control it.  What you need is a second If Frame Is Loaded loop before the

>existing one.  It would test to see if the movie has been loaded up to the

>point where the menu has been presented ( or perhaps check to see if the

>last frame of the movie has been loaded) -- if that condition is met, the

>movie should go right to where the menu is visible.  If not, it should go

>to the existing preload loop which will hold things up until enough of the

>movie has loaded to show the "ship arrives" sequence smoothly.


I currently have the up to the last scene loaded before the play command 

is given, so to do what your suggesting, If Frame Is Loaded #1 will only 

work if the entire movie has already been seen? Right now I have the ship 

and waves preloaded before the play begins, but it still doesn't seem to 

help the choppiness that is seen.

>

>On a 56k connection (in reality, 48k), the ship arrival sequence is not

>smooth because you haven't preloaded enough frames.  


Right now I have the ship and waves preloaded before the play begins, but 

it still doesn't seem to help the choppiness that is seen. In other 

words, all the ship and wave motion should be preloaded!!


>But I would not hold

>up the preload longer if I were you -- instead, I would optimize the movie.

> The water motion is very file size and processor intensive. 


I gotcha here...

> I'm sure it's

>lovely viewed locally on a fast machine, but it's deadly for web usage.

>Make the water image a whole lot less detailed, and just have a little

>movie clip with a few ripples of light that dance on the surface, instead

>of varying the entire image.  

>

>The ship could also be simplified to tween

>faster. Then you can add more frames to the tween to reduce jerkiness.  As

>it is,  the complexity of the tween (and the resulting processor demands)

>is slowing things down as well as the fact that download isn't keeping up

>with the frame rate.  A fast connection compensate for bandwidth problems

>but not for the complexity of tween. That is, even if the whole thing were

>loaded it would still be jerky on slower machines -- I viewed this on a

>P166 and modest 2-meg video card.


Okay, here is where I had the problem.  I found the only way I could get 

the sails to move independently of the ship and billow in the wind was to 

create 3 separate movie clips of the 3 mail sails. and then link them to 

the ship as another movie clip.... and then to tween the single resulting 

clip in scaling motion on the timeline... There seems to be no other way 

to do that.


How can I simplify it to make it more acceptable?  Do I need to remove 

details from the ship itself? I tried to optimise the curves, but it 

seems to work only on the sea and sky, not on the ship or clips.

>

>If you can handle a bit more critiquing -- although the little toggle

>switches on the menu are nifty, they don't relate to the nautical theme and

>are not intuitive.  Usually I expect to click right on the text to make

>something happen. Perhaps the items could be contained in a series of flags

>or smaller sails, something to integrate it with the ship theme and also to

>give a larger hit area.


I was checking this out today, since he also mentioned the toggle 

switches. Right now, all the words were part of a single text box.  To do 

this, I need to create 5 different text boxes and make them button 

symbols?  Perhaps if I just use the words as links, I can dispense with 

the buttons all together... eh?


>The frog, too, is cute but not relevant to your site or theme.  I think

>your visitors will be better rewarded, and more inclined to wait, if you

>give them some material that increases their knowledge of the company.


Good idea,  I was just playing...and having some fun...


>Text, if you limit the number of fonts used, consumes very little file

>size.  If you stick with the frog, give the viewer a way to turn off the

>sound, or have the sound fade and disappear after the first three or four

>"boings."


If you loop the sequence, the sounds auto restart... right? So if an IF 

Frame Is Loaded loop is taking place, how do you avoid the sound 

restating?


>

>Hope this helps.  What you are doing is complex and requires a lot of tools

>and tricks, so keep at it.

>

Thanks again.


Jeff



Peterson Sales

Web Design and Marketing

410 Woodland Ave.

Grove City, PA 16127-1824

http://www.PetersonSales.net


Tel. 724-458-4160

Fax. 724-458-7169


ICQ 19112253



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