Re: FLASH: load url or movie better?

[Marc Hoffman]

At 03:05 PM 5/10/99 -0400, you wrote:

>

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

>then was legitimate or off? 

>


I don't understand why it would be needed. But it's not entirely clear to

me what the suggestion was, due to confusion of HTML and Flash terminology.



>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?


that's right, and it's geared for those who have seen it all.


 >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.


Then you're attempting too much tweening at once.  Think in terms of how

many pixels the processor is having to change at one time.  Although not

entirely accurate, it will give you a model for thinking about it.  The

other big aspect besides raw pixel redraws is calculations based on symbol

tweens.



>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!!


You must optimize more (simplify graphics and redistribute tweening load).





>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.


In principle, it's fine to tween movie clips along with the motion of the

ship on the main timeline.  But it may get too procesor heavy. Frankly I

didn't notice the sails changing shape -- I think the motion of the ship

should be enough for the eye to focus on.  Remember this is not video, and

what's needed is the illusion of motion, not absolute realism.


>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?


If you want the text to respond to mouseover (for example, to change color)

then each button needs unique text. An alternative is to have a universal

button (such as a sail that changes color on mouseover) and just put the

text on top of copies of the button instance.


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

>the buttons all together... eh?


Not sure what you mean here, but nothing works as a button unless it IS a

button.  A proper button will not use text for the hit area, because it

will not respond properly, so at the very least if there's text in the

button you must also go into edit and create a solid grahic in the HIT frame.



>

>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?


Put the boing sound in the frames of its own movie clip.  Start that clip

with an empty frame, followed by another empty frame that has a stop

action. Then place the boing sound in three or four consequtive frames,

each time getting softer. Put a stop action in each frame.  Add two blank

frames at the end, the first with a stop action, the final frame with a Go

To Previous Frame action.  Place this movie clip in the timeline before the

frog loop begins.  It will reach frame 2 and stop for further directions.

Have it last beyond where the frog loop ends.  This way it won't be reset

when the frog loop repeats.  To make the "boing" sound, have each relevant

frame in the frog loop TellTarget the sound loop to Play.  Each time it's

told to play it will advance to the next, softer sound, and play it, until

it reaches the blank frames at the end, at which point it will loop.  The

key is to make the sound movie clip not reset when the frog loop resets,

and you do that by having it current from before the frog loop begins.





Marc Hoffman

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

marcdartfrogmedia [dot] com (mailto:marcdartfrogmedia [dot] com)

Play a virtual marimba at: <www.dartfrogmedia.com/dartfrog> (featured 

in the book Flash 3 Web Animation by Ken Milburn).

Flash3 samples: <http://www.jps.net/dartfrog/sampler>.


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