Moho 5 beta 4: bug report - swf file not loading in flash

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:00 am

There where bone dynamics on the characters and I turned them off, did some more animation, then exported to swf. tried to load the file into flash and it either 1 craches or 2 only shows the last frame for the entire animation sequence.

here's the swf and work file

http://postality-knights.no-ip.org/MoHo/bf.moho

http://postality-knights.no-ip.org/MoHo/bf.swf

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 1:30 pm

okay found out the reason for the crash.

the image layer has a keyframe at the end of the animation sequence, I added it to set how long the movie was. I removed it and it seems fine now. Still I have no Idea why that would cause it to crash though, very odd.

as for the other problem of it not importing right, it still remains.

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:27 pm

Anyone have a clue what's wrong here?

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:29 pm

I don't know why, but sometimes the Flash player and the Flash authoring tool display SWF files very differently. It makes our job a lot harder, and who knows how much hair I've pulled out of my head over it. But, there's a workaround.

Go to the Project Settings dialog in Moho, and turn on the "Extra SWF frame" option. This will cause Moho to export an extra blank frame at the end of the animation when exportin to SWF. It should make your animation import into the Flash authoring tool correctly - and after importing, you can then delete that extra frame.

While we're on the subject of Flash, have you considered exporting to QuickTime instead? Unless you have a particular need to export to Flash, QuickTime movies can often be much smaller (as in this case), and will let you use a lot of effects in Moho that are not compatible with Flash.

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:43 pm

Thanx, I'll try that.

My prefered format is AVI which I'm very happy that moho supports.

I'm mainly using flash as a "preview" kind of thing for my animations. that's why I need them working. but my final movies will be avi.

I believe AVI gives the best quality doesn't it? If you use a compression codec such as divx or XviD.

The majority of MOV movies I've seen don't look all that good. of coure it could be because I've never used any mov stuff before really... BTW how can I export to MOV (Quicktime) I don't see that option under render animation...

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:24 pm

QuickTime is an output format option in the Export Animation dialog, just like AVI or SWF. Just be sure that you have QuickTime installed, otherwise the option won't appear. You can get QuickTime for free here if you don't have it:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:42 pm

OH, okay that would explain why it's not there.

are there any other "hidden" export options that are available that you need to install something to access?

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:16 pm

Nope, just QuickTime.

kdiddy13 · Post by **kdiddy13** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:31 pm

I believe AVI gives the best quality doesn't it? If you use a compression codec such as divx or XviD.

The majority of MOV movies I've seen don't look all that good. of coure it could be because I've never used any mov stuff before really...

Definitly not a fun topic for most. I'm just happy that my current job doesn't require me to deal with this at all. Figuring out compression and Codecs is usually a lot of work with little reward.

Typically I'll render out image sequences in Tiffs or PNG's and work with them in After Effects in a pristine state until I need to compress them to video. Quicktime (you might need Pro? at $30, it's a decent investment) allows you to view image sequences as video. There are some free ones at download.com I think, too.

If I do need video for some reason, personally, I prefer working in Quicktime using "Animation" codec (it's a lossless compression codec, slightly smaller than uncompressed, but nearly as good) while I'm in Post production phase and compositing. It definitly isn't a codec for the small of hard drive, but it does give great results, keeping your animation in a pristine state until the inevitable happens.... the need to make it a reasonable size and thus add compression artifacts.

When I go to editing, with either Premiere or Final Cut the software dumbs it down to DV (avi DV is what Windows prefers, Quicktime for Apple). It looks horrible until you play it back through a DV device (decompressing it). DV also is the compression scheme that DV cameras capture at and allow the average home computer to edit real time video. Basically, it's a necessary evil. But I avoid compressing it to this level until the last minute.

Then for compressing to the web... well, I have yet to find a good codec for that. I've had trouble getting DIVX to accept my inputs. MPEG has given me some good results. WMV has too, but that usually means it's a big pain for Apple users to view. The mp4 or MPEG4 (very similar to DIVX if I'm not mistaken) has some good potential and plays on the most current Quicktime player. Sorenson 3 is also a good solution for compression with Quicktime. WIth any of these there are numerous settings you can use to tweak the output that I have yet to master (read: it bores me to tears and is very frustrating). My solution so far is to offer several different compressed versions for a variety of viewers. Not great but I've had few complaints so far.

I hope this helps.

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 12:03 am

Yes kdiddy13 that did help me on the technical side, thanx.

Well the heads up on DivX and XviD they ARE the codec of choice, aside from DVD obviously.

but tit for tat DivX/XviD give you the best quality and size overall.

Anyone that is in the movie sharing scene uses those formats, and when it comes to Compressing a DVD, there's no match for DivX/XviD It takes the cake every time.