Just a quickie about file size

[astrevens]

Is it true that if you code everything in actionscript rather than animating it with tweens, it will keep the filesize down?
as an example, zooming in or shifting a graphic on screen will be smaller file size if you set the x axis and y axis in code rather than animating in the time line?
also how can i keep filesize down if im animating imported gifs/jpegs?
p.s
many thanks to everyone on this website, they really are the fourth emergancy service!

 

[oldnewbie]

Just a quickie answer...

I've never seen a "clear-cut" answer to your question regarding actionscripting vs tweens. I guess it would all depend!
As for general cutting down the size of your movies, maybe this (from the help files) will shed some light:

Optimizing movies

The larger your movie file, the longer the download time and the slower the movie will be. You can take a number of steps to prepare your movie for optimal playback. As part of the publishing process, Flash automatically performs some optimizing on movies, including detecting duplicate shapes on export and placing them in the file only once, and converting nested groups into single groups.

Before exporting a movie, you can optimize it further using various strategies to reduce the movie size. As you make changes, test your movie on a variety of different computers, operating systems, and Internet connections.

To optimize movies in general:

Use symbols, animated or otherwise, for every element that appears more than once.
Whenever possible, use tweened animations, which take up less file space than a series of keyframes.
For animation sequences, use movie clips instead of graphic symbols.
Limit the area of change in each keyframe; make the action take place in as small an area as possible.
Avoid animating bitmap elements; use bitmap images as background or static elements.
For sound, use MP3, the smallest sound format, whenever possible.


To optimize elements and lines:

Group elements as much as possible.
Use layers to separate elements that change over the course of the animation from those that do not.
Use Modify > Curves > Optimize to minimize the number of separate lines that are used to describe shapes.
Limit the number of special line types such as dashed, dotted, ragged, and so on. Solid lines require less memory. Lines created with the Pencil tool require less memory than brush strokes.


To optimize text and fonts:

Limit the number of fonts and font styles. Use embedded fonts sparingly, because they increase file size.
For Embed Fonts options, select only the characters needed instead of including the entire font.


To optimize colors:

Use the Effect panel (Window > Panels > Effect) to create many different-colored instances of a single symbol.
Use the Mixer panel (Window > Panels > Mixer) to match the color palette of the movie to a browser-specific palette.
Use gradients sparingly. Filling an area with gradient color requires about 50 bytes more than filling it with solid color.
Use alpha transparency sparingly; it can slow playback.

ldnewbie
Hope that this
was helpful!

 

[astrevens]

cheers.
1 other thing do you know of a way to up the refresh time of a movie?
i have a dragable movie clip but it seems to jerk around a bit, just wondered if there is anyway to make it a bit smoother?

 

[oldnewbie]

Make your framerate higher! But I wouldn't go over 30! Some processors, if not but your's, can badly handle higher framerates. But drag will create such problems anyway.
Depending in what kind of drag you're doing, you can allways have a look at this:

Flash Kit : Movies : Multiple Draggable Objects (Crosshairs)
... Version, Flash 4. Description, Shows: (1) How to "drag" multiple objects at one time.
(2) How to achieve the smoothest drags possible (regardless of FPS) (3) the ...

http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Effects/Mouse_Trailers/Multiple-Ryan_Whe-1972/index.shtml

This is another way of doing drags... Without using drag!
Don't let the Flash 4 throw you off, it will import fine in Flash 5!
Might be of some help!

ldnewbie
Hope that this
was helpful!

 

[oldnewbie]

For some reason... The above link as a hard time!
Try pasting it in the address box... Works much better!

ldnewbie
Hope that this
was helpful!