oh, look, another worm!

[PantherRun]

Speaking of opening a can of worms...

This problem I don't even no where to begin, but it's probably real easy to fix.

As you may recall i've just split my 1 movie filled with movie clips up into 10 independent movies all strung together by this example script...

on (release) {
loadMovieNum("chpt 6 B.swf", 1);
}

(there's a button on each page, (each movie), that triggers above script to load the next movie)


Works fine, every movie loads, but there's a catch...
A brief shot of the first movie (I almost want to say the very last frame of it because every image is on stage) shows for an instant before the next movie loads and takes over.
So, I'm done say with movie 4, i hit the button, leave movie 4, there's a quick flash of movie 1, and then movie 5 starts. I get this flash at the start of each new movie.

What the hell is all this about?

Any help will bring me in off the ledge, i promise officer.
Hoss

 

[pixl8r]

I know this has been asked before... but is there any way you can post a sample. I'm sure any of us would be glad to help you work this out, but this kind of thing is hard to debug if you can't see it.

??

 

[oldnewbie]

Is movie 1 you're referring to on the main timeline, and not loaded on level 1 as the other following movies are?
Then the Flash you see, is that main timeline movie that's still there in the background. Just move that main movie to a black (or whatever color...) frame, once movie 2 is loaded and running...

 

[PantherRun]

Ohhh, hmmm, Old, though it's late at night here and my brain's not quite tight, i think you're on to something. That first movie (that first MC of the old main timeline) is all that's left of the old movie, i.e. it still lives on the original timeline, and everything else is a new movie.
Okay, in the morning I'll reread all this and start anew.

Here's a joke...

Why can't men get mad-cows disease?...






... Because men are pigs

thanks there...
Hoss

 

[oldnewbie]

Ok! Here's another one!

Difference between a man and a snow storm?

None! You never know how long it will last and how many inches!

 

[pixl8r]

That.... is funny!

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!

 

[PantherRun]

Nothing like a "little" humor...

Okay, morning out there. Old, i don't understand this: Just move that main movie to a black (or whatever color...) frame, once movie 2 is loaded and running...

But i'm sure its the solution cause here's what i did this morning. I took another movie, copied out each frame/MC from the main timeline movie and made them all seperate little movies all strung together, then published.

Movie 1 plays great. Hit the button and movie 2 plays great. Hit the button, and trouble starts -movie 1 flashes but then movie 3 plays great. ECT.
(Of note, why does movie 2 always plays nice, but it's all the movies after that that won't?)

Anyway...

So, on the button, instead of loading movie 2 and three to level 1, I gave then each their own level - no more irritating movie 1 flash... but now of course all the damn VOs clash as they all play at the same time.

So, I'm assuming I want all movies to load on level 1... right?, (because that kicks out the previous movie and thus no overlapping sound problems) but now I need to under stand this- "Just move that main movie to a black (or whatever color...) frame, once movie 2 is loaded and running..."

and life should be wonderful.

Right?

Hoss

 

[oldnewbie]

Is movie 1 in fact on the main timeline? Isn't the flash frame you see when loading movies, the last frame of movie one? So what I really meant was to add a last frame to your movie 1, with only a black background (or whatever color fits in your set up...), and when the second movie is running, to simply send the playhead on level 0, to that "neutral" frame and stop there, so that when you load the next movie, you'll see a black background, rather than your first movie. Get it?

Are you preloading these movies?

 

[PantherRun]

Hey out there;

Okay, Old let me try and answer your questions first and then let me ask new ones.

Movie 1 is its own movie; I've cut and copied everything out from the original long movie.

Yes, the flash frame I am/was seeing was that very last frame of movie 1. It never showed up in movie 2 (why?) but always showed up in movies 3, 4, ect.

From there i don't get what you're saying, I'm sorry... BUT you did give me an idea - ("send the playhead to" ) - and maybe that was what you were talking about!

So here's what I did...

on (release) {
loadMovieNum("chpt 6 E.swf", 0);
}

I change level 1 to level O for every movie after movie 2.

Remember Movie 1 and movie 2 play together just fine (again why?) but to get movie 3, 4, ect, to play wihtout movie 1 flashing. I had to change the level to "0". Does this make sense and what does it mean?

Also, when i changed levels, it screwed up my soundtrack. It plays just fine through movie 1 & 2, but once i load in movie 3, onto new level 0 - dead silence from the soundtrack. So how do i fix this?

Also, as to your question on am I preloading - yes to movie 1, but now that that I'm breaking this movie up into 3-5MB movies do I still need a preloader for broadband?

Thanks...
Hoss

 

[oldnewbie]

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to stop giving us all of this in bits & pieces and as Pix8lr already requested, you're going to have to give us access to let's say the first 3 movies' .flas so that when can come up with better suggestions...
In my case, .flas would have to be zipped up and in a MX only format, not MX2004. You should upload the package on some web space and provide a link to download it from there...

 

[PantherRun]

I know it’s frustrating. I guarantee you more so for me than for you. I’m sorry but I don’t have the capability where I am to upload anything, and because of confidentiality agreements, I couldn’t do so.

But let me ask you one last time to just think a moment longer about what is going on here. If it’s impossible to figure out, I’ll use my workaround.

I have some new key pieces of the puzzle I think.

1)It’s all about MOVIE 1. If I ignore movie 1 and start with movie 2, leaving all levels loading at 1, the 10 movies play perfectly together, with no flashes of movie 1. But start the string with movie 1 and the flashes come into play at the start of movie 3 and continue till the last movie.

2)It’s all about the BUTTON on movie 1 – the very same button that I use on every other movie in the string; the generic gel button that comes with flash.

I have changed nothing about it, hits states, ect, nothing.

Now…

During the watching of movie #1, wherever I press the button to trigger the loading of movie #2 (start, middle, end, you pick it) the next, roughly, 15 frames that would have been seen of movie 1, WILL SHOW UP as a brief flash at the start of movie 3, 4, 5, 6, ect.

(interesting the movie’s set at default 15 frames per sec)


AND this “future flash” trouble will be triggered when I hit the advance button starting on movie 2… Again, when you hit the advance button on movie 1 you will NOT see this brief 15 sec flash on movie 2, it only affects movies beyond movie 2.

Both movies that I have broken up now have this maddening feature.

The overall set up of each new movie is that I copied each movie clip out of the old long movie, and retaining it as a movie clip, placed in into a new file, on a new timeline. ( I could have done away with the movie clip concept, I’ve just been too lazy)

And to reiterate a point made earlier about my workaround: if I change the loadmovie levels for movies 3 – 10 from level 1 to level 0, no flashing will occur.

I hope this helps. If you can’t do a damn thing with it, you can’t do a damn thing with it. But I’d appreciate a few moments of deep thought.
Thanks
Hoss

 

[oldnewbie]

If you can't provide the real thing, then at least provide a mockup main.fla, zipped up and in a MX only format, not MX2004. If you can't upload it somewhere, couldn't you mail it? Or at the very least, post all your main movie's code...

I still believe that the problem is because your movie1 is on the main timeline at level 0, and sits there underlying under movies loaded on level 1...
When you load a new movie, for example when you load movie3, it automatically clears movie 2 out of level 1, and there's a small delay between this clearing out and the point where movie 3 shows up, and I suppose that's exactly why you're seeing movie1 which is still below.

Now I did suggest that you at least move that level 0 movie on a last no content frame, when you load the second movie.
Thus if movie 1 is stopped on some black frame, you can't possibly see a Flash of it... All you will see is a black background, better than seeing the movie...

Makes me thing about something... Are you actually stopping movie1, when you start loading the movies on level 1, or are you letting it continue to play?
If the latter, I'd really have it stop, and directed to a last black frame...

 

[PantherRun]

Good going Old;

We're closer. I knew the answer had to be simple.

You made me realize movie 1 sits at zero - obvious I know. When i load all the others into level 0, the brief flash vanishes.

That's great, it = my workaround.

But it still rears the soundtrack problem - it now cuts out at the start of movie 2. And i'm loading the soundtrack movie in a higher level.

This sound problem may be something completely different then what i've been dealing with here.

I have the mp3 in its own movie and i do the loadmovie command to level say 2. It worked fine when the mcs were all one movie, but since the break up, it wouldn't play past movie 2- now past movie 1.

Any advice?

ps- "Are you actually stopping movie1, when you start loading the movies on level 1, or are you letting it continue to play?"
I was assuming movie 1 would automatically be stopped when a new movie is called to stage, if not, how do i stop it, and i guess whatever the command is, i should put it on every button right?

 

[oldnewbie]

Ya know, that's really why I've been asking for a .fla, be it an empty content mockup one... I couldn't care less about your confidential content, but if you want the appropriate answer, we need to have a look at all of your setup, or at least that you give us the full picture, which you haven't been doing.

At the present time, and with the info I have, I suggest you keep your movie1 on level 0, loading the other movies on level 1, and your sound track(s) on another higher level.
There's no reason if sound is loaded on a higher level, for it being interrupted by a change of movie on a level below it. The problem will certainely occur if you load all of your movies on level 0, since that clears out the main movie, but also all other movies loaded on other levels of that movie that was on level 0, thus clearing out your soundtrack even if it was on another level.

Last (I'm sure this still won't stop here...) but not least, no, if you don't specificly stop a movie looping on the main timeline (your movie1!), it will continue to loop in the "background" even if you had 200 movies loaded over it!
Thus, basically what I've been saying from the start, add a last frame to your present movie 1, with no content on it except a black filled rectangle shape, and also add a stop(); action on it. That will ensure that movie 1, at least stops looping when it reaches that black frame.

Now, if the user can select movie 2, before movie 1 is finished, you'd also need to add a line of code on that button, to take movie 1 to that black ending frame, with something like...

on (release){
// Change 675 with the actual black frame number
_level0.gotoAndStop(675);
// Other code you already had...
// to load movie 2...
}