Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Ian: > setting the #commonPlayer property on the Flash members should help > considerably (all the Flash sprites share the same instance). Forgot about this...thanks for the reminder! Ross [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: Sound queueing
No, that's how I know about it; these are clips that have audio right up next to each other. I know how to work around it, but it'd be much easier to see if there was a special tweak I'm missing to the sound settings; I suspect when the sound queuing was tested, it wasn't tested for this level of granularity, but for this particular application it needs to be consistent with zero breaks. - Tab At 03:44 PM 8/21/04, John R. Sweeney Jr wrote: on 8/20/04 10:29 PM, Tab Julius at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Anybody come across this and any insights on how to work around it? > > - Tab Do you have variable silence at the end of each clip? I've gone in and trimmed down the dead area at the end of an audio clip and that smoothes things out. L8R, John [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Great test! Did you use lock-step for the flash member(s), by the way? I suspect not, but right now the behavior is quite realistic, with fewer girls moving more quickly to cover more ground... Yes, I used lock-step, otherwise it wouldn't have been a fair test. The bitmaps were film loops, so neither the Flash or bitmap versions needed any scripting to make the walk cycle loop. [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: Sound queueing
Anybody come across this and any insights on how to work around it? What is your sounddevice set to? [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Great test! Did you use lock-step for the flash member(s), by the way? I suspect not, but right now the behavior is quite realistic, with fewer girls moving more quickly to cover more ground... Bertil Flink Creative Media - Original Message - From: "Colin Holgate" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 5:18 PM Subject: Re: flash members vs. bitmap members > I was tempted to do a quick reply earlier to give an opinion, but I > decided to try making something first, to see if I was right. Here's > what I made: > > http://staff.funnygarbage.com/colin/walkers.html > > The walk cycle you'll see is seven images long, made up from 360x240, > 32-bit with alpha channel bitmaps. There are 30 of them at the stage > at the same time, all of them scaled to different amounts. It's > probably as hard a test for bitmaps in Director as I can think of. > > When the page loads you'll be seeing those 30 sets of seven images > scaled, and depending on your machine it will be sluggish or slow. If > you click somewhere, or type 2, you'll switch to a 30 Flash sprite > version, which will be a bit smoother. You may also notice that the > scaling on the Flash sprites is slightly cleaner than the bitmap ones. > > That might seem like a win for Flash, but click again, or press 3, > and you'll see a bitmap version where I scaled the bitmaps to 180 x > 120 before using. That takes them closer to the intended use size. > You should see a noticeable improvement in speed. > > So, even in a fairly worse case of 32-bit sprites with alpha > channels, bitmaps of about the right size for the job should perform > very well. [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: Sound queueing
on 8/20/04 10:29 PM, Tab Julius at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Anybody come across this and any insights on how to work around it? > > - Tab Do you have variable silence at the end of each clip? I've gone in and trimmed down the dead area at the end of an audio clip and that smoothes things out. L8R, John === John R. Sweeney Jr.([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Interactive Multimedia Developer/ Digital Media Specialist OnDemand - Interactive, Inc. 847.651.4469 (cell) 847.310.5959 (office/fax) === [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
RE: flash members vs. bitmap members
A couple of extra thoughts for you. Ross suggests that the number of Flash instances will be an issue - setting the #commonPlayer property on the Flash members should help considerably (all the Flash sprites share the same instance). I've had a couple of problems with this, but only with heavily-actionscripted movies - for simple animations it should be fine... Secondly, we do a great deal of our graphics in Flash, and then when fine-tuning for performance we sometimes decide to turn members into bitmaps, and it helps a great deal. However, we don't do it manually - you can easily get Director to either create on-the-fly or precreate a set of bitmaps from a source Flash member. In a nutshell - we create it in Flash first (for flexibility) and then nail some of it down into bitmaps as and when necessary. Cheers, Ian -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ross Clutterbuck Sent: 21 August 2004 15:29 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: flash members vs. bitmap members Andrew: If deadlines are tight then stick with what you know. My only concern about using Flash members for all your sprites is the significant load you're going to be putting on Director with so many instances of the Flash Asset running at once - hence my suggestion to create the entire thing in Flash and how only 1 Flash instance running. Are your sprites going to be animated in any way? If not then bitmaps for sprites will be sufficient (and depending on your target system and sprite size you might be able to get away with using PNGs so you've got in-build transparency even with a Director Copy ink). If you do have animated sprites then with the numbers you've given so far then you might see a performance hit regardless of the approach you take. Exactly what is this animation you're doing? Once I got a clearer idea of what you're trying to achieve I can better offer suggestions. Ross [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!] [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
That is a great test Colin. Even on a high end machine the differences are noticeable. I had gone through a similar type of test earlier where with six basic images I wanted a random animation of. I tested with six PNGs and six single frame swfs. There was a similar noticeable difference as between your 1 & 2. The deciding factor, though, was a loss of crispness in the rastor images because of the scaling (max x2.5). I went with the swfs, but it was more of a pain to implement. The rotating was no problem, but the scaling and member swaping with swf members was more "involved" as I'm sure your are aware. Anyway, earlier I posted what it took to accomplish. Your number 3 is what caught my attention. As an after thought, my test might have been better scaling down, or from the middle. So often we (or at least I) miss the obvious :) Lee C Colin Holgate wrote: I was tempted to do a quick reply earlier to give an opinion, but I decided to try making something first, to see if I was right. Here's what I made: http://staff.funnygarbage.com/colin/walkers.html The walk cycle you'll see is seven images long, made up from 360x240, 32-bit with alpha channel bitmaps. There are 30 of them at the stage at the same time, all of them scaled to different amounts. It's probably as hard a test for bitmaps in Director as I can think of. When the page loads you'll be seeing those 30 sets of seven images scaled, and depending on your machine it will be sluggish or slow. If you click somewhere, or type 2, you'll switch to a 30 Flash sprite version, which will be a bit smoother. You may also notice that the scaling on the Flash sprites is slightly cleaner than the bitmap ones. That might seem like a win for Flash, but click again, or press 3, and you'll see a bitmap version where I scaled the bitmaps to 180 x 120 before using. That takes them closer to the intended use size. You should see a noticeable improvement in speed. So, even in a fairly worse case of 32-bit sprites with alpha channels, bitmaps of about the right size for the job should perform very well. [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!] [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
I was tempted to do a quick reply earlier to give an opinion, but I decided to try making something first, to see if I was right. Here's what I made: http://staff.funnygarbage.com/colin/walkers.html The walk cycle you'll see is seven images long, made up from 360x240, 32-bit with alpha channel bitmaps. There are 30 of them at the stage at the same time, all of them scaled to different amounts. It's probably as hard a test for bitmaps in Director as I can think of. When the page loads you'll be seeing those 30 sets of seven images scaled, and depending on your machine it will be sluggish or slow. If you click somewhere, or type 2, you'll switch to a 30 Flash sprite version, which will be a bit smoother. You may also notice that the scaling on the Flash sprites is slightly cleaner than the bitmap ones. That might seem like a win for Flash, but click again, or press 3, and you'll see a bitmap version where I scaled the bitmaps to 180 x 120 before using. That takes them closer to the intended use size. You should see a noticeable improvement in speed. So, even in a fairly worse case of 32-bit sprites with alpha channels, bitmaps of about the right size for the job should perform very well. [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
The general criteria I go by is where I need scalability with crispness and/or compactness in an animation I use vector graphics, otherwise I use raster graphics. The main drawback with vector graphics animations of any complexity in Director, is that MM has never incorporated a respectable vector member because of their marketing “guidance” to rather interface their multimedia-for-the-masses product. So making the best of what there is, where I use vector graphics animations, I use swf. But I never swallowed MM marketing’s hook line and sinker. I create my vector graphics with AI and export them to swf, then sync with any sound in Director. I’ve used AI and PS nearly from their beginning, and they are still the best vector and raster graphics packages out there. Just a Director is still the best general high-end multimedia package - it’s just sad that it could be so much more if it was not for MM’s marketing doodles. As I said - making the best with what there is, until something better comes along :) Lee C Andrew Dempsey wrote: I think you'll see better performance with bitmap animations. Especially if you can use a fast ink (copy or background transparent). That said, you could start with swf sprites. If they begin to slow things down, export them from flash as bitmaps. -- Cole Right. Thanks for the ink tip. I think I'll start with Flash, as you suggest, and see how it goes. Just in case any Macromedia frequent-flyer scouts are reading this, I should note that I am actually creating the illustrations in Freehand, animating them in Flash, and importing them into Director. That's $2000 + worth of MX2004 for ya... (since I just bit the bullet and bought all the new stuff, I have to publically pat myself on the back somewhere!). Did I mention Dreamweaver and Fireworks for the product website? :) [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!] [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Oh, and if your application is writing to the user's drive then Director is the way to go anyway, but make sure you're not using repeat loops or writing a lot of data/continuous data as more of Director/CPU time will go to those operations, not processing your animation. Ross [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Andrew: If deadlines are tight then stick with what you know. My only concern about using Flash members for all your sprites is the significant load you're going to be putting on Director with so many instances of the Flash Asset running at once - hence my suggestion to create the entire thing in Flash and how only 1 Flash instance running. Are your sprites going to be animated in any way? If not then bitmaps for sprites will be sufficient (and depending on your target system and sprite size you might be able to get away with using PNGs so you've got in-build transparency even with a Director Copy ink). If you do have animated sprites then with the numbers you've given so far then you might see a performance hit regardless of the approach you take. Exactly what is this animation you're doing? Once I got a clearer idea of what you're trying to achieve I can better offer suggestions. Ross [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
> > I think you'll see better performance with bitmap animations. > Especially if you can use a fast ink (copy or background > transparent). That said, you could start with swf sprites. If they > begin to slow things down, export them from flash as bitmaps. > > -- > Cole Right. Thanks for the ink tip. I think I'll start with Flash, as you suggest, and see how it goes. Just in case any Macromedia frequent-flyer scouts are reading this, I should note that I am actually creating the illustrations in Freehand, animating them in Flash, and importing them into Director. That's $2000 + worth of MX2004 for ya... (since I just bit the bullet and bought all the new stuff, I have to publically pat myself on the back somewhere!). Did I mention Dreamweaver and Fireworks for the product website? :) [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Thanks Ross. I had considered (briefly) the Flash projector idea, but there is a lot of writing to the user's hard drive going on, and I think that's better done from Director? Whatever the case, all of my experience is in director, and I have good script libraries to do so, which makes me want to stick with Director. I had also considered doing the whole animation in Flash. It's just that since I am feeling like a Flash noob right now(newb, newbie, new-bie... "newcomer"), I am not confident I can pull it off without a larger investment of time than I am able to make before the deadline I am under. If the performace boost were considerable, though, I might be convinced to go for it. What do you think? - Original Message - From: "Ross Clutterbuck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 3:40 PM Subject: Re: flash members vs. bitmap members > Hi Andrew > > What about building the whole animation in Flash itself then importing a > single Flash movine into Director? And if your Director project is only this > animation then you might be better off creating it in Flash and building a > Flash projector anyway... > > Ross > > > [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!] > [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
RE: Sound queueing
No, they're .WAV files. I tried .MP3, and they do have a more noticeable gap, but there's still a short hitch there with the .WAV. - Tab At 09:02 AM 8/21/04, Stany De Roos wrote: Hi Tab, Are that MP3 files you're playing? MP3 files have a small but noticeable noise gap at the start, that why they can't be looped either. Maybe that is the reason why you hear those short breaks in between different members. Stany [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
RE: Sound queueing
Hi Tab, Are that MP3 files you're playing? MP3 files have a small but noticeable noise gap at the start, that why they can't be looped either. Maybe that is the reason why you hear those short breaks in between different members. Stany [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
I don't have much experience yet using flash members (but just bought flash mx 2004 pro, eagerly working my way through the training), but my question is, is it better to use the trusty old way of using alternating bitmaps for this, or to use flash animations (imported SWF files). In terms of performance, memory, and any other considerations. I think you'll see better performance with bitmap animations. Especially if you can use a fast ink (copy or background transparent). That said, you could start with swf sprites. If they begin to slow things down, export them from flash as bitmaps. -- Cole [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
Re: flash members vs. bitmap members
Hi Andrew What about building the whole animation in Flash itself then importing a single Flash movine into Director? And if your Director project is only this animation then you might be better off creating it in Flash and building a Flash projector anyway... Ross [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
flash members vs. bitmap members
I'd like to draw on the pool of experience here as I plan a project. I am trying to decide whether to use animated flash members or bitmap members to create an animation. There will be a screen on which there will be instances of an object being made by a parent script - up to say 50 on the screen at a time. Each of these instances will be represented on screen by a small animation (in the range of 15x15 pixels) of a person walking to random points on the screen. There will be 5 or 6 different people animations available that will be randomly chosen from for each instance. I don't have much experience yet using flash members (but just bought flash mx 2004 pro, eagerly working my way through the training), but my question is, is it better to use the trusty old way of using alternating bitmaps for this, or to use flash animations (imported SWF files). In terms of performance, memory, and any other considerations. thanks, Andrew [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
RE: Shockwave Player Public Beta 10.0.2 Available
What surprisingly is in this compact installer is that it doesn't show in the Add/Remove Programs list on my Win2000 (English). The 10.0.1 one did show up like that. The thing that i don't see it there doens't bother me at all but along that i don't have any quick method of unintstalling it. After this i installed the 10.0.1 installer and it has succesfully overwritten the previous one plus i got Add/Remove Programs list add-in. --- All the best Petro Bochan [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
