Large SWF files

I was playing around with ID's interactive features and came across the large SWF problem.
In fact, last month, I posted here whinging about a 13mb SWF file it created despite my having sized all the images (12 of them) to the exact pixel size they were being used at.Adjusting the compression ing the SWF export did nothing.
I revisited that project today and did something different.
Instead of placing PSD images I swapped them out for a JPG of the exact image - no re-sampling (except JPG medium compression). The SWF file went from 13mb to 3mb!
I had used the main images as thumbnails - reducing and cropping them in ID. So I recreated the thumbnails in PShop at the exact pixel size and replaced the cropped reduced images.
Created the SWF - 1mb.
Still a bit large but an incredible difference.
The lesson is, for interactve ID work don't use PSD and don't reduce the size of an image in ID, the SWF apparently does not do the re-sampling for you.
Thought I'd pass this on and hopefully it will help someone.
Brian

Graham
Interesting.
Here is a link to the file I have been playing with (albeit not frequently)
http://www.wgdesigngroup.com/10/elaine/elaine.html
(Still in the ugly, awkward grey ID html file)
On the Art page I had used the full images to create the thumbnails.
When I did this the SWF was over 3mb
But when I cropped in PShop to thumbnail size, the file went down to 1.1mb. (much better than the 13mb when I was using PSDs)
Brian

Similar Messages

How to load large SWF files?

I have created a flash game which is about 11 MB in size and i have created the progBar in the first frame of the swf...
But it only shows the loading process after few MBs of data beign loaded...which might take some time and cause the user to close the tab..
I dont want this to happen...How i could tell the user at least that the swf is loading without any percentage and all the animations..
Like putting a <div> tag at the back of swf file..so until the swf load the div tag with "loading" message can be shown...I tried this method but it wasnt working for me and i dont know why.
I hope flash masters at this forum could help me.
Tq

gameLoader.source="MapleCity0.1.13.12_800.swf";
gameLoader.load();
gameLoader.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, progressHandler);
gameLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);
gameLoader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, catchScoreIOError);
function progressHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void {
    var uiLdr:UILoader=event.currentTarget as UILoader;
    var kbLoaded:String=Number(uiLdr.bytesLoaded/1048576).toFixed(1);
    var kbTotal:String=Number(uiLdr.bytesTotal/1048576).toFixed(1);
    ui.myLabel.text=kbLoaded+" of "+kbTotal+" MB"+" ("+Math.round(uiLdr.percentLoaded)+"%)";
    ui.myProgressBar.setProgress(event.bytesLoaded, event.bytesTotal);
function completeHandler(event:Event):void {
    ui.visible=false;
    gameLoader.removeEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, progressHandler);
    gameLoader.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);
function catchScoreIOError(event:IOErrorEvent) {
    if (event.type=="ioError") {
        ui.myLabel.text="Cannot establish a connection to the server. Please try again later.";
    } else {
        ui.myLabel.text="ERROR : "+event.type;

Migration to IIS6 causes large swf files to not play

So I had a FLV that was being played through a SWF on one of
my clients sites. The server got upgraded to Windows 2003 and it
stopped working. I didn't originally create the SWF or FLV so I
wasn't sure what it was doing. I used FLV2SWF to convert the FLV to
SWF (the unlicensed copy) and it created a 6mb (truncated) version
of the file, and this file was now viewable. So I got the full
version and converted the entire FLV, and I still have the same
problem it looks like its downloading but then never plays and if
you right click on the player it says movie not loaded. If I just
create a link to the SWF and download it and play it local it works
no problem. You can see the non-working version here, in case this
helps
http://cwbtechnologies.com/about2.htm
Any help would be much appreciated. I have a feeling this is
something in Win2003 but I couldn't find anything on MSDN.
Thanks,
Pete

Thanks for the suggestion Pat. I checked it out but I do not have any path issues. The problem is ONLY with swf files that I have had on my website for a year. They worked perfectly before December 3rd and stopped working after that time. They still work fine if an older version of Flash Player is used. I'm pretty sure that there is an swf file backwards compatiblity issue with version 11.1.102.55. I have spoken with others who have the exact same problem.
I recompiled one of my swf files using the latest version of Object2vr and it will show properly on my site. I am now in the process of recompiling the remaining 50 swf files in order to make my site work again.
I would still be interested in knowing if there is a fix for this issue other than recompiling the swf files.

Can I combine two methods of code to load various SWF files into the same location

I presently have a set up where a large SWF file brought on the stage by clicking small icons from the scrollable thumbnail menu on the bottom of the stage. All of it happens at the same frame with .xml loading file.
Here is the code for constructing the ImageLoader(for thumbnails) and SWFLoader for (bigger SWF files)
[CODE]
   function _xmlCompleteHandler(event:LoaderEvent):void {
   _slides = [];
   var xml:XML = event.target.content; //the XMLLoader's "content" is the XML that was loaded.
   var imageList:XMLList = xml.image; //In the XML, we have <image /> nodes with all the info we need.
   //loop through each <image /> node and create a Slide object for each.
   for each (var image:XML in imageList) {
    _slides.push( new Slide(image.@name,
          image.@description,
          new ImageLoader("loadingAssets/appThumbnails/slideshow_image scroller greenSock_mine/assets/thumbnails/appThmb_imgs/" + image.@name + ".jpg",
               name:image.@name + "Thumb",
               width:_THUMB_WIDTH,
               height:_THUMB_HEIGHT,
               //centerRegistration:true,//messes up the code as places SWFLoader in the upper left corner which is 0,0 coordinates
               //x:260, y:320,//doesn't work here but works in line 69
               scaleMode:"proportionalInside",
               bgColor:0x000000,
               estimatedBytes:13000,
               onFail:_imageFailHandler}),
          new SWFLoader("loadingAssets/appThumbnails/slideshow_image scroller greenSock_mine/assets/images/" + image.@name + ".swf",
                name:image.@name + "Image",
                width:_IMAGE_WIDTH,
                height:_IMAGE_HEIGHT,
                //centerRegistration:true,//messes up the code as places SWFLoader in the upper left corner which is 0,0 coordinates
                x:0, y:144,
                scaleMode:"proportionalInside",
                bgColor:0x000000,
                estimatedBytes:820000,
                onFail:_imageFailHandler})
[/CODE]
Here is what I would like to resolve. I have another section on the site with an image collage. Every image is a button. I want to script this each image on click to go to the label with ImageLoader and SWFLoader AND TO OPEN A UNIQUE SWF (ASSOCIATED WITH AN IMAGE CLICKED) ON THAT PAGE
Previously this is what I did to achieve it. I would specify a String:
[CODE]
var sourceVar_ProductsPopUps:String;
[/CODE]
and then all my buttons will have their unique SWF assigned for them which opens at another labeled section ("prdctsPopUps" in this example):
[CODE]
function onClickSumix1PopUp(event:MouseEvent):void {
sourceVar_ProductsPopUps="prdcts_popups/sumix1-popup_tl.swf";
gotoAndPlay("prdctsPopUps");
[/CODE]
Then in the "prdctsPopUps" section I would specify that var string to bring up SWF files. The value of sourceVar_ProductsPopUps allows to load mulitple SWFs from the previous page.
[CODE]
loaderProductPopUps = new SWFLoader(sourceVar_ProductsPopUps,
[/CODE]
But I need both of them to be working at the same time. First there is a sectionA from where a user can navigate to specifically targeted SWF to section B's SWFLoader. Then in the section B a user has an option to bring up other SWF files into SWFLoader from the scrollable thumbs menu. Is there a way to combine these two lines into one:
[CODE]
          new SWFLoader("loadingAssets/appThumbnails/slideshow_image scroller greenSock_mine/assets/images/" + image.@name + ".swf",
[/CODE]
and
[CODE]
new SWFLoader(sourceVar_ProductsPopUps,
[/CODE]

Thanks for looking into my issue.
Unfortunatelly I am not so advanced in AS and do not complitely understand the logic of the problem. I will try to decribe my set up more precise.
So, my main flash file is broken into labeled sections on the main time line.
One of the sections is "Applications" It has an animated collage of images. Each image acts as a button and once clicked brings a user to a section called "ApplicationsPopUps".
"ApplicationsPopUps" section has small image thumbnails scroll menu at the bottom of the screen and a large SWFLoader in the middle of the screen. User can click on an image in the thumbnails scroll menu and a corresponding SWF file will load in the middle of the screen in SWFLoader. User can click on left/right navigation buttons and preceeding/following SWF file will load in SWFLoader.
Everything works fine (with your previous help)
Here is the working code for the ImageLoader and SWFLoader (please let me know if you need additional code on the page):
function _xmlCompleteHandler(event:LoaderEvent):void {        _slides = [];       var xml:XML = event.target.content; //the XMLLoader's "content" is the XML that was loaded.        var imageList:XMLList = xml.image; //In the XML, we have nodes with all the info we need.        //loop through each node and create a Slide object for each.       for each (var image:XML in imageList) {         _slides.push( new Slide(image.@name,               image.@description,               new ImageLoader("loadingAssets/appThumbnails/slideshow_image scroller greenSock_mine/assets/thumbnails/appThmb_imgs/" + image.@name + ".jpg",               {                    name:image.@name + "Thumb",                    width:_THUMB_WIDTH,                    height:_THUMB_HEIGHT,                    //centerRegistration:true,//messes up the code as places SWFLoader in the upper left corner which is 0,0 coordinates                    //x:260, y:320,//doesn't work here but works in line 69                   scaleMode:"proportionalInside",                    bgColor:0x000000,                    estimatedBytes:13000,                    onFail:_imageFailHandler}),                 new SWFLoader("loadingAssets/appThumbnails/slideshow_image scroller greenSock_mine/assets/images/" + image.@name + ".swf",                   {                     name:image.@name + "Image",                     width:_IMAGE_WIDTH,                     height:_IMAGE_HEIGHT,                     //centerRegistration:true,//messes up the code as places SWFLoader in the upper left corner which is 0,0 coordinates                   x:0, y:144,                     scaleMode:"proportionalInside",                     bgColor:0x000000,                     estimatedBytes:820000,                     onFail:_imageFailHandler})
Thumbnails in the section "ApplicationsPopUps" and images in the image collage in the section "Applications" represent the same photographs. So when a user clicks on one of the images in "Applications" section it would be natural that that image will load in the "ApplicationsPopUps" section. However "ApplicationsPopUps" section presently has a working code (as sampled above) It looks too complex for me and I do not know hot to implement this feature. I do want to keep the functionality of the thumbs image scroller in section "ApplicationsPopUps" as it is now. But I want to add that when a user click on an image from section"Applications" then that particular SWF file will load in SWFLoader in section "ApplicationsPopUps" and then the present functionality can as well be exectuted. Presently it just opens on a first image in xml order.
P.S. I see that you had a download link in your answer. How did you do it? I could also upload a small sample file with my problem. This way you could see all the set up right away.

Linking between SWF files

I need to general advice while protyping my website. I'm
creating separate somewhat large swf files for each page of my
website. Therefore, each will need its own html file if I don't
want it take 3 years to go between pages. I'm confused how to link
between the each page using a button in flash. Is this an action
script thing? My links will be static text buttons. Thanks.

Thanks. I think I get it, but I want to be sure. I think I
need to be a little clearer:
One SWF file inserted as my entire index.html page. Right now
I have a static text button in the SWF file home page that says
"About Us". I'm designing a new page that will also be its own SWF
file for "About Us". I have a new www.xxxxx.com/aboutus.html page
that I plan to put the file in when finished. In the text button on
the homepage, do I use AS3 URLRequest("
http://www.xxxxxxx.com/aboutus.html")
to navigate. Thanks.

Captivate 5 not rendering large exe files properly

Have imported large swf files into Captivate % (with seperate .wav files for audio). They all synch on the timeline at 24fps. for each slide. They look great in preview and when published to .exe they look fine on some computers. But we have encountered on at least 1 computer that the audio is out of synch with the video, and the video lags behind.
Would have not thought that this would be a problem with Captivate 5 exes.... Does anyone know a solution?
For preferences, I used Flash Player 9.

Sounds like the issue is something to do with either the specs or the codecs of the machine having problems.
The larger the SWF file and the more video you have, the more some machines will struggle to keep up with the decompression cycles.
Is the problem box of a lower spec (CPU speed etc) than the machines playing the content OK?
What version of Flash player is on each of the machines? (FP 10 handles video better)
Are the codecs up to date on that machine?
Find out what the differences are and you'll have your solution.

Rotate swf files

Hi. i need to rotate swf files. I have a movie that displays
logos. Currently, there are 29. We will wind up with about 140. I
would like to beak it down so the viewer doesn't see the same logos
over and over. I was thinking of 7 logos per movie, 20 movies in
all. I'm not that much of a programmer. So, I need some help. I
think I need to randomize which movies are displayed? When I google
this question, I get PHP solutions which I can't use. Is there a
javascript solution that will call the an individual movie? Or do I
make a larger .swf file and use actionscript to call the movie to
display? Thanks.

I would use one Flash document with all of the logos
(assuming they're vector and small in size) in the library. Then
use a random number generator to pull them out of the library. That
way you don't have to keep track of where all the logos are.
Place all of the logos in one flash document. Make them all
symbols (movieClips) and take them off the stage. In the library,
right click on each one and choose "Linkage". Click "Export for
ActionScript" and give it a name like "logo1". Repeat this process
with a couple more to get the idea and add a number (logo2, logo3,
ect).
Now use the actionscript below to bring one to the stage.
this.attachMovie("logo1", "logo1_mc",
this.getNextHighestDepth(), {_x:100, _y:100});
Highlight "attachMovie" and right click, choose Help to see
what this line means. This will pop up a movie from your library
essentially. The first thing in the parentheses is the name you
gave the logo in the linkage window "logo1".
Now you want to create a random number generator to pull up
random logos.
Delete the actionscript you just placed and replace it with
this one:
var rndNum:Number = Math.round(Math.random()*20);
this.attachMovie("circle"+rndNum, "logo1_mc",
this.getNextHighestDepth(), {_x:100, _y:100});
You'll see the first line creates a random number between 0
and 20 and rounds it to a whole number and attaches it to a
variable called "rndNum". We then on the attachMovie line removed
the number from "circle1" and added the variable. Now everytime you
run the script, it will randomly pull up any logo you name from
"logo0" to "logo20".
Hope that helps.

Program to compress swf file?

hey there,
so i have a rather large swf file that is having trouble
loading...it takes about 10-15 seconds to actually start to load so
i've come to the conclusion that i need the help of a swf
compression program but i'm wondering if anyone can give me advice
on a reliable program to use? have any of you had a similar problem
and used a good program to compress?
let me know thanks so much!!

I don't know of any programs that compress, but I can give
you a few tips.
1) Under your publish settings, make sure that "compress
movie" is checked.
2) If you are not doing so, use 90% jpg compression on your
bitmaps, as opposed to 100% or default. It doesnt seem like a big
change, but it makes a world of difference.
3) Under publish settings > flash tab > options
section, click "generate size report". Then when you publish, you
will get a size breakdown of everything in your file and you can
easily pinpoint where the majority of your file size is coming
from. Then you can make adjustments accordingly.
Hope this helps,
GAMBRKER

When do you think a preloader is necessary? How large should a swf file be to justify it?

I'm looking for opinions on preloaders. When do you use a preloader? How large must a swf file be before you to put a preloader in it? I am working on a small program that is 80kb in size right now and I'm not sure if I should add a preloader.

About 500kb, you should use a preloader.
Below? It depends on your file. If everything is on frame 1 , maybe it's better to use one.
You can test it with "Simulate Download" (Control - Test Scene -> View - Simulate Download)

INDESIGN CS5 .SWF files to large

So, I thought with Indesign CS5 it would be a great idea to do a website with full idesign. This was working great until I realized that as i exported to a .SWF it was 49.9mb. Now i know that this is a large website (almost 70+) pages long. But is there any advice anyone can give me to shrink the file size or was it a bad idea to begin a website in INdesign right now. I know that using flash and .css and all that is the traditional way of doing a website but at the same time I don't like messing with all that code and thought this would be a great way to build a website.
ANY help would be great because i can't afford to have a 3 and a half minute download time on a website.
Thanks,
Justin

I think I may have responded to this in the community help section, but I'll repeat what I said there. InDesign has some impressive Flash capabilities but using it to create an entire website....no, not a good idea at all.
The size of the SWF files is a major issue and they are quite simply not suitable for this purpose. Additionally, an entire website in Flash is an SEO nightmare so it won't matter how long it takes to load since nobody is likely to find it.
Flash should be used judiciously on the web. In fact, I never use it. All that said, the only advice I can offer if you decide to ignore the rest of it, is to export to FLA, open it in Flash Professional and finish it up there.
Bob

Flash site - swf file too large

Hello,
I have created a website using Flash CS5 using AS2. The site was completely custom designed using Photoshop and in then imported into Flash. The site has all of the pages in the main timeline on different keyframes, so say frame 2 is home, and frame 3 is services, etc. This is a site for my design portfolio so I have probably 5 galleries that I have made, but they are very simple, one frame will have the first picture, the next frame will have the second picture and so on. I have gotten my site exactly how I want it and works how I want it... but in the end the .swf file when published, is over 9MB which I know is wayyyyyy too large for a flash site that works fast for everyone.
So how can I make this file size smaller. I am fairly new to this, although I had no problem getting my buttons to navigate with actionscript no problem, but my actionscript knowledge is very limited beyond that. I'm not sure where to go with this site to make the size smaller, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
I can send someone the fla file to look at if needed.
Thanks

Thanks for the reply.
Maybe you can help me a little more.
I looked up some tutorials having to do with the AS2 xml galleries, and I found that almost all of them were for galleries with fancy scrolling options and slider bars, etc.
My galleries are very very basic, thumbs are layed out on the left, click one and the image appears on the right. I'm not the best at using the actionscript and knowing what to do with all of it. So some of the tutorials made sense about getting files to load dynamically, but I'm not sure what code to keep in for my gallery, and what code to take out that I dont need for all the fancy effects.
my site is http://www.mrolfedesigns.com
as you can see, the galleries are pretty simple, I would like to keep them that way, and not have any complex scrolling or slider bars. Ive searched a lot into looking for some more simple tutorials, but am not finding any great ones that I can use.

Using swf file for very large static image

i have a large photo that i need to use as a banner image in a website. i have tried optimizing it for the web in fireworks -- to reduce the file size obviously -- but the client isn't happy with the resolution. i haven't had this issue come up before but i see his point (to a degree), as the detail and sharpness of the original is far superior.
i have almost no familiarity with creating with flash, but i remember reading somewhere that swf files do not have the same sizes as jpeg images.
would it be feasible to include the single static image as a swf file to preserve its original resolution? i mean, would that image as a swf file be smaller than the image as a jpeg?
mille grazie.

There are two things at play here... image quality (often harmed by compression) and image resolution (# of pixels width by height). What is the real problem?
Whether you render your image as a GIF, JPG, PNG or SWF file, they will all have the same resolution.
Packing an image in SWF should be a last resort as not everyone has Flash installed. For example, iPhone users cannot see SWF.

Large number of swf files causes Flash plugin to fail

I'm displaying up to 700 swf files on a page as links to launch an AIR app. These appear within a worklist with one swf for each worklist item. This causes the Flash plugin for IE to fail. Any ideas what causes this and how it can be addressed? We are already looking at reducing the number of swf's as a short-term fix.

There is no limit that I am aware of, but you should keep mindful of what is reasonable. Chances are your viewer will lose focus after about 15-30 min, so anything longer than that may not have the effectiveness that you are looking for.

File size of .swf files exported from Indesign CS5

I have made a basic file (728 x 90 px) in Indesign, which is the size of banner ads we produce. I have not put on any effect or animation yet. When I export it as a swf file, the file size is 139kb. This is way too large for any banner advertising on websites where the highest is normally 100px and the smallest is 30kb.
I have tried exporting at a lower resolution, but it has no effect on the file size, rendering this useless as a flash export option for me.
Is there something I'm missing or is Indesign just not the right tool for flash banner ads.
Thanks

Mr Met
{swf file that's 13MB. What are your images, 200MB each?}
As I said, I resampled the images to be 500px wide so each PShop image is about 1.4mb (single layer). There are 12 images used.
Here it is if you care to see i t- 11mb so it will take time to load
http://wgdesigngroup.com/10/elaine/elaine.html
Jongware
{The Right Tool for the Right Job ...}
No doubt you are a 100% right here.
But I think it is a bit disingenious to blame the InDesign user for the feature. It would be like Abobe putting Drop Shadows and transparences into ID and then saying you should use PhotoShop to for that feature!
Brian

How to bundle a .FLA and multiple .SWF files in one .EXE?

Hi,
I have a .FLA file which uses loadMovieNum() to load various
.SWF files when each one is called by the user clicking on a
button. Each .SWF file also uses loadMovieNum() to call a second
.SWF file. When I publish the .FLA file as a .SWF file it all works
beautifully.
Now I need to package the entire project into a Windows
projector .EXE file for offline use on a computer without the Flash
Player. When I publish the main .FLA file as a .EXE file, the .SWF
files still load, although they blink before fully loading and
displaying steadily.
What I would really like to do is to bundle all the .SWF
files into the .EXE file so when I send the finished project to the
end user, they only have to deal with one file, rather than a
folder with the .EXE file and multiple .SWF files.
Is there a way to do this?
I am using Flash 8 Professional.
Thanks,
Cam

Since this isn't going to be web-based, why not include all
the external swf files into the same Flash file and then use
attachMovie?
This will allow you to create one .exe file that would
contain EVERYTHING. Since you aren't worried about loading speeds,
you don't have to load the movie clips, but can simply create one
large Flash file.

Large SWF files

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for