Advice on best way to structure flash movie

Hi,
I'm a little mixed up on the best way to approach this movie I need to make. Basically it includes a loading screen, some narrative sections, and a few interspersed interactive sections (a couple of quizes and some forms to fill out).
I'm thinking because of the complexity I should seperate it into "scenes" but my understanding is scenes are bad, so I'm thinking I should be using movie clips for each major section?
I also want to have a controller for skipping forward and backwards, so let me see if I have this correct.
Would I have one master timeline with all my actionscript and what not and my navigation controller, and would each major section of the animation be a movieclip that would be trigger by a frame in the master timeline?
I pretty much have the whole thing storyboarded out, I'm just wondering the best most efficient way to do it.
One other question: is it bad practice to have a raster visual asset with an alpha based mask on the main timeline that overlays on top of all the nested clips? For example I have a "frame" with is an png with a abstract white border with the middle masked out that remains static throughout the entire movie. Or am I better off applying it to each movieclip.
Thanks.

It will probably be easier to manage if you make each section a moiveclip by itself, That way you aren't always manipulating the main timeline to fit in or adjust for changes in each section. You can either spread them out along the timeline, using frame comands to navigate to the different sections, or you can have them all in one frame and control navigation by controlling the visibility of each section.
If the frame you mention is to be applied to each section, then having one on the main timeline to cover all would be easier to manage in most cases.

Similar Messages

Best way to export flash movie for JAVA

Here is my dilema. I get all kinds of flash movies to post to our site. I had been asking for a final output of .swf, whenever possible. Occassionally I get some videos that have a player and I wind up with .swf and some related FLV files, which we always have problems with in our JAVA environment. We have issues locating the player files, sometimes they don't play for people with particular browsers etc.. The coders tell me that it is a problem with the "base" locations, and recommend that we get a single swf file and have the videos and players embedded into the .swf. They tell me that the browser sometimes cannot find the supporting files, and that it forces them to post the flash files on the root directory. Any ideas what might be happening here?
One other thing - I currently have an embedded swf file on one of our sites. It seems pretty heavy and skips - our Flash Developer did not include a loader. I sent it back to him to compress the file and include the swf. The developer is telling me that compressing the file won't do anything for me an that we should export it as an FLV file or have the FLV load into the swf. For one thing this is not a video - so I am not understanding why we would need an FLV. Am I misunderstanding something here.
Thanks!

Thanks again Winston. (You helped me out in the past).
In my playing around, I was leaning toward AIC with a compressor pre-set of 1080i or p would give me decent results on export. I'm still a little confused over a number of the other options, and this seemed simplistic. (I'm still learning here as I go).
One question on that though if you would. Am I best off leaving the FPS settings to current? I am assuming I can experiment with that if I want to keep a computer copy, but for back to tape purposes, that seems to make sense to my simple mind.
On a side note, I was quite surprised at how good the default "large" export looks when viewed on the computer. I may keep that as my default for iTunes\Front Row.
Thanks again.

HT1364 I just bought a new PC and now have ample space on my C drive to house my music Library which is currenlty installed on a external drive. What is the best way to install and move the itunes library to my C Drive?

I just bought a new PC and now have ample space on my C drive to house my music Library which is currenlty installed on a external drive. What is the best way to install and move the itunes library to my C Drive?

If the entire library is on the external drive then simply copy the iTunes folder into <User's Music> on the new computer, then install iTunes. If you've already installed iTunes you will want to remove the empty iTunes folder in <User's Music> first.
If it turns out you only have the media folder on the external drive then take a look at this post...
tt2

Best way to obtain flash developers.

We are a fortune 500 media company in mid-town Manhattan.
What would be the best way to obtain flash resources for our
flash video project?
Should I get a macromedia consultant, or look for someone
from the outside?
I agree that macromedia consultant may not get us the most
bang for our buck, but I would like to make sure I cover myself. If
something happens, I could at least say I had macromedia involved.
I was thinking of maybe a part-time macromedia consultant,
and another developer outside of macromedia.
What our my options?

Not sure why a consultant would not get the most bang for
your buck!
Measuring in dollar per hour or dollar per productive hour is
the question
there.
The age old debate between consultant and employee will go
on, but a general
decision criteria is do you need a long term full time
employee or staff
that you will see gets professional development in this
rapidly changing
field of technology or do you have specific needs that will
expire in a
known time frame.
As for looking for a "Macromedia Consultant", you may find
looking for
"Flash Developer" or the new title "Adobe Developer" with
experience in
Flash Video and Flash Communications or Flash Media Server
development.
Also you can post to the adobe.general.job.opportunities
forum (might still
be macromedia.general.job. opportunites as my news reader
still reads it
that way) for candidates who might want some short term
assignments as well
as long term and permanent.
Lon Hosford
www.lonhosford.com
Flash, Actionscript and Flash Media Server examples:
http://flashexamples.hosfordusa.com
May many happy bits flow your way!
"kevinsb1" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:e6mj08$esr$[email protected]..
> We are a fortune 500 media company in mid-town
Manhattan.
>
> What would be the best way to obtain flash resources for
our flash video
> project?
>
> Should I get a macromedia consultant, or look for
someone from the
> outside?
>
> I agree that macromedia consultant may not get us the
most bang for our
> buck,
> but I would like to make sure I cover myself. If
something happens, I
> could at
> least say I had macromedia involved.
>
> I was thinking of maybe a part-time macromedia
consultant, and another
> developer outside of macromedia.
>
> What our my options?
>
>

Best way to embed an Mov file into interactive flash game?

Hey,
just a quick query. I'm creating an interactive flash game for a university project. It's along the lines of Guitar Hero, Tap Tap Revolution, Boom Boom Rocket etc..
At the moment the game comprises of streaks of notes generated by Actionscript which the user much hit the corresponding key when notes are in the receptor. The background at the moment is an audio spectrum analyser created using AS based on the music playing.
I want to add loop movie file as the very background of the stage and was just wondering what was the best way to place it there with the least ammount of overheads. At the moment I have it in a child movie clip placed on the stage, in which I use File -> Import and embeded the FLV file into the time line. This works, however lags out quite badly.
Any help would be appriciated.
Thanks in advance,
John Minns

Have you tried this method?
1. Save as new file.
2. With your usual color management preferences selected, run Xtras>Color>'Name all colors'.
3. In color swatches list, select all colors. From swatches pop-up menu 'Make RGB'.
4. In Preferences>Color, set color management settings to 'None'. The RGB colors should look about the same as they did with color management on.
Now you should be able to export to Flash with RGB colors that look quite close to your CMYK version of the file.
This should work the same in FH9 or FHMX. I hope it does the trick for you.

Best Way to Embed Flash in DW??

What is the best way to embed a flash movie in Dreamweaver
w/o messing up cells/rows of a previous creation?
I have a site together & want to insert a movie on a page
& keep the nav bar the same from all the other pages , when I
insert the Flash movie it royally messes up all the rows &
cells
here's the site
www.castleblak.com
just want to keep the nav bar same on all pages!
thanks!

tommypenngotti,
> What is the best way to embed a flash movie in
Dreamweaver
> w/o messing up cells/rows of a previous creation?
"Messing up cells/rows" could mean quite a few things. For
example, you
would certainly have trouble trying to pack a 550 x 200 SWF
into a cell
whose dimensions were 50 x 22. Is that what you mean?
> I have a site together & want to insert a movie on a
page &
> keep the nav bar the same from all the other pages ,
when I
> insert the Flash movie it royally messes up all the rows
& cells
I checked out your URL, but didn't see any Flash on the home
page. In
fact, I didn't see Flash on any of the pages, but admittedly,
I only clicked
into a a few. I wonder if you mean that Flash content appears
*on top* of
your drop-down navigation -- is that it? If so, there's an
Adobe TechNote
on this issue, described here ...
http://www.quip.net/blog/2006/flash/how-to-position-flash-beneath-other-content
David Stiller
Adobe Community Expert
Dev blog,
http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."

Best way to watch flash videos??

Hey so I really would like to watch flash videos for either movies or clips, what is the best way/app to watch flash videos whether the app is free or not it doesnt matter.
could someone tell me the most effective app and has experience with it? Thanks!

Search the app store. There are several alternate browsers that advertise the ability to play Flash content. However many people report very mixed results since the way these browsers work is to send the Flash content to a server to be converted to iOS format and then sent back to the browser. The bottom line is that Flash has never been supported on iOS so take that into consideration.
Most of the big web sites have long since supported iOS for video. I watch video clips, YouTube, etc. all the time on my iPad and don't really run into many sites that won't work. I'm sure there are and the best course of action is to encourage those sites to get with the plan and support mobile platforms like iOS and Android.

Best way to archive HD movie (Raw, events, projects, etc.)

Hi everybody,
I've been using iMovie for the last 12 months, to make small family movies (shared on internet and via DVDs).
I am having more and more footage and the question comes about the archiving of all this.
What's the best way to keep all important files ? (keeping the quality, and saving space if possible)
How do you proceed ?
I have the different ideas, found on internet, but not sure what is the best.
I can directly make disk image from the camera memory cards. If at later stage I need to import again, I can do it from that mounted image. And this is keeping the original quality. (I think.. right?)
After finishing a project, do you still keep the imported files ? (the events, I think it's called).
And, do you also keep the final version of the project, accessible in iMovie ?
I usually send the movie on internet, and burn on DVDs. Is there a need to keep this project, in my archives ?
I am very curious to learn how the advanced users, with tones of footage, are doing to archive their precious movies.
Thanks a lot for your help and information.
Thierry.

Hi Thierry,
I am using AVCHD, on MSDuo. Until now, I was doing disk image, from the Apple disk utility. I saw the back up feature in iMovie, but never tried it.
Is it doing the same ? You prefer to use the integrated back up from iMovie ?
Yes, the built-in archive feature in iMovie works much the same as the disk image method you have been using. iMovie can't use the .MTS files on their own, so the archive replicates the camera contents, including the full directory structure. Full quality is preserved, just as recorded by the camera. The only downside is that each time an archive is performed, iMovie archives the full camera contents, irrespective of the fact that some content may have been archived previously. In other words, you can't selectively archive individual clips - it's all or nothing. So, if you do an archive then record further footage without deleting the previous content from the camera (or card), the full content (including the earlier clips) is archived when next performed.
To get around this limitation, I use RevolverHD from Shedworx - found here: http://www.shedworx.com/revolverhdmac (this allows selective archiving from the camera, but there are issues with retaining the timecode when importing from the archive to an Event).
John, you are using external drive for the Events and Projects, meaning that you are working directly from external drive? (or you were refering to the storage, after you are done on the mac?)
I'm working directly from the external FireWire 800 drive for the Events. My Projects are all on the MacBook Pro's internal drive. My understanding is that iMovie works more efficiently with this set-up. My archives are also on the same external drive as the Events - this is probably not a good idea, but I do back-up the drive frequently, and also copy the archives to a portable drive as added security.
Note that my exported Projects are stored by default in the Projects package contents folder on the internal drive (I use Share>Media Browser). But I also copy these exports to a separate portable drive which I connect to a Western Digital Media Player for playing through my widescreen LCD TV. I also produce DVDs from the exported files (but only as required).
And what about the final versions of your movies ? (the one in the media browser, or on the DVD that you burnt) Are you also archiving the final products ? (it's not too heavy to keep all ?)
As I mentioned above, by default iMovie places the shared movies (via Share>Media Browser) in the Project folder (on my internal drive). To access the shared movie, go to your User/Movies/iMovie Projects folder and right-click (or Control-click) on the Project name. From the pop-up menu select "Show Package Contents". Click on the Movies folder and you will see the shared movie, labelled (for example) as 720p.mov or medium.m4v and so forth. The main reason for copying this shared move to a portable drive is to view it through my Media Player. I just unplug the drive from my Mac and plug into the Media Player. I don't need it as a back-up as I'm running Time Machine - this backs up my internal drive, so all my original Projects and exports are covered by Time Machine.
Hope all this makes sense Thierry. I'm probably keeping too much, but have plenty of storage capacity so prefer not to get rid of anything at present. Things may change as storage runs down, of course! I may need to do some housekeeping then.
John

Best way to embed playable movies on website?

I have a video clip that I neede dto break down into pieces
and put in viewable form on a website. The file is currently a .wmv
file.
My plan was to use flash to make files that I could embed in
the website, and the end user could click on it to play it in the
web page. In reading how to do it in flash, it looked like there
was some action script requirements, I am not sure best how to make
it happen.
What is the best way to get my videos on the site? Should I
stick with flash, or get a reasonably priced 3rd party program that
automates the process, or go another route?
(PS- what would be the best format of movie to use as
well?)

"Dannoman88" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:g7q9b8$a70$[email protected]..
>I have a video clip that I neede dto break down into
pieces and put in
>viewable
> form on a website. The file is currently a .wmv file.
>
> My plan was to use flash to make files that I could
embed in the website,
> and
> the end user could click on it to play it in the web
page. In reading how
> to do
> it in flash, it looked like there was some action script
requirements, I
> am not
> sure best how to make it happen.
>
> What is the best way to get my videos on the site?
Should I stick with
> flash,
> or get a reasonably priced 3rd party program that
automates the process,
> or go
> another route?
>
> (PS- what would be the best format of movie to use as
well?)
Hopefully your WMV is not already compressed/downsized from
the original
video. If it is, go back to the original file first. Take the
video file
into the Flash Video Encoder and make an FLV file. Then you
can either use
DW's built-in Insert | Media | Flash Video or you can use a
3rd party like
the JL FLV Media Player -
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Media_Player

Advice on best way to setup Disaster Recovery for SOA Suite 10.1.3.4

Hi Everyone,
I need some advice on the best way to setup Disaster Recovery for a SOA Suite 10.1.3.4 install deploying JSF/ADF OC4J applications.
The way we are trying to do it at the moment is manually copy the "applications" and "applications-deployments" folders for the OC4J application on the production server, then compress and ship the files across to the DR application server nightly. (We don't require high availability).
In the event of a disaster we then extract the files and copy to the OC4J instance (pre-created and configured) on the DR server. Unfortunately to date we haven't been able to reliably setup a DR application (seem to mostly get 404 errors etc), even though the OC4J application has its connection pool resolved to the DR database and is showing as "up" in the ASConsole.
My question is, is there a more "native" way to do what we are trying to do. We do not have Enterprise version of SOA Suite or 11g database so any advanced recovery features are not an option. The setup is also stand alone, i.e. we are not using clustering or RAC etc.
Any ideas would be really helpful.
Thanks,
Leigh.
PS we are also running the production apps server with Oracle Application server 10g 10.1.2.3.0 as the HTTP apache server (with Forms, Reports and Discoverer deployed) and the SOA Suite 10.1.3 applications use the 10.1.2 HTTP server via the HTTP to AJP bridge. So the 10.1.3 OC4J instance is configured to use AJP on port range 12501 - 12600.

For enterprise solutions, AS Guard would work.
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25221_04/core.1013/b15977/disasrecov.htm#sthref303
However, since advanced recovery options are not available (as you said), then what you are doing should not be too bad.
AMN

Need some advice on how to make this Flash movie

I have 5 flash movies which are all exported swf files from Camtasia. Now I have to design a Flash movie which has 5 Icons on a blank screen which point to each of these movies. When the user clicks on one movie the exported swf from Camtasia should play and when its finished it shoudl go back to Main Menu page.
a) Is it possible to include a controllable progress bar for a SWF movie
I am just looking for advice , like do this and do that. I shall try and write the code myself.
cheers
peanutlife.

You may find the VideoPlayer class helpful:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/video/VideoPlayer.html#includ eExamplesSummary
There's some sample code there which shows you how to put a video player on a movie and play something. You would just need to add some buttons and stuff. That example is Actionscript 3. Things will be different if you have an older version of Flash.

What is the best way to reduce a .mov file size

I had a music DVD that I converted to a .mov so that I could cut and paste in QT pro which i have done.
Now I have a .mov file that is 46 gigabits in size and I want to reduce it considerably without ruining the quality of sound or visual.
Whats the best way to do this.
Thanks

punt

Best way to structure Business Logic

Hi Experts,
I am using Web Dynpro for my front-end and application services for the back-end. Which of these is the recommended way to structure the layout of my business logic:
1) Keep everything in the 'src' folder of the CAF ejbmodule. Structure through the use of packages.
2) Create an external Java DC, keep all code in there and call the code from the application services. Structure code through both packages and the use of multiple DCs.
3) Create a child Java DC in the CAF ejbmodule project, keep the code there. Structure code through both packages and the use of multiple DCs.
4) Some other way which I do not know of???
I think that (2) is the best way to to this, but I'm not sure and I also don't know how to make the code in the Java DC accessible from the CAF in 7.1. In 7.0 one was required to assemble the Java DC into a J2EE Server Library project and then create the required dependencies. How does this work in 7.1?
Thanks,
JP

Hi JP,
> When you refer to "regular reference stuff" I take it
> you mean the application/library references in your
> 'application-j2ee-engine.xml' file?
Correct.
> Is there an easy way to discover which
> application/library to reference, for example, if I
> wanted to make use of 'com.sap.security.api.IUser'?
>
> It was always very difficult to find the correct DC
> containing the required classes in 7.0 (usually one
> had to use a JAR class finder). Is there an easier
> way in 7.1?
Hmm, I guess it would be a rather tough task to have a mapping between all classes (or even packages) and DCs. However it should be fairly intuitive to infer the DC from the class / package name. If still in doubt, you can search for its usage on help.sap.com - most probably you'll find the DC name as well therein.
> Finally, how about Web Dynpro classes (like
> com.sap.tc.webdynpro.services.sal.um.api.IWDClientUser
> ): I'm not sure if it will ever be necessary, but can
> they be accessed from Java DCs?
According to the <a href="https://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/javadocs">NW public javadocs</a>, the classes in the com.sap.tc.webdynpro.* packages are "Services in the Web Dynpro runtime environment that can be called by custom coding in Web Dynpro applications", so they're not intended for general use in any type of app.
HTH!
-- Vladimir

Best way to watch a movie with stereo headpho

What is the best experience I can get from watching a movie using standard stereo headphones. I realize I need to test with my ears but I ask because I might need to buy cables. I have the X-fi Platinum with the console. I use a standalone dvd player to watch on my tv. The sound is currently sent to my stereo where I use headphones and was thinking of sending the sound to my X-fi and using the headphones there. Should I use a digital connection for 5. from the dvd player to the X-fi?. Will cmss utilize true 5. signals or will the signal just be wasted. Does cmss only upmix stereo signals?Basically, can I get a decent surround experience while watching a movie with a surround soundtrack on stereo headphones and what is the best way to set that up. My cheap Coby?standalone ?player decodes Dolby and DTS if that matters?Thank youTrenzMessage Edited by trenz on 0-4-20070:53 PM

Hi
both ways would work, and I'm not sure which one to recomend.
Importing image by image wouldn't be so hard, and could give
you the advantage of being able to even ad interactivity like
moving layers or fading them and and and...
Making a flv and a slider is maybe a bit easier (btw i made a
sample some days ago I could provide you with if needs be), but not
as flexible.
Filesize will be an issue, and I guess the flv is bettr in
that respect, but compression might damage the quality, wich might
also be of importance.
Importing all as pngs with trancparencie might lead to other
issues, as discuessed here in a recent thread about pngs (the
number of png that can be stacked one over an other is limeted but
it seems the information about numbers is inconasistent,one of the
programmers of flashplayer talked about 24...)so there might be an
issue there.
But I think ist's a great idea, and it is doable in either
way, maybe it's wise to make sone test with - say 10 layers and
decide then which way to go for the rest.

Advice please, best way to handle creating X number of input / edit forms

Hi folks,
Like the subject says, looking for a bit of advice. Let's say on page 1, we select a customer, and this customer has X number of pets (usually < 4). They click a check box for each one they want to schedule, and submit. The next page reads the collection and needs to display an input / edit form for each of the pets. What is the best way to go about making this happen?
Thanks very much,
-Adam vonNieda

Why not use a tabular form and when you call the form, create how ever many rows you need for the number of pets selected?
Thank you,
Tony Miller
Webster, TX

Advice on best way to structure flash movie

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for