Flash Export Overhaul

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:39 pm

It's pretty bad to be blunt.

The problems users are having at the moment are:

Audio Export
Users are confused as to what can be exported. I think there should be an audio compression/convertor menu upon export. This will stop the confusion of using WAV's and MP3's in AS, and will also make work flow 10 times quicker.

Frame Restriction
I have experiance, as well as many other users, that AS doesn't like to export a lot of frames. I have done a few, single shot animations where i have used well over a 1000 frames and export to flash is impossible. I've developed a staggered exporting technique in order to export, but why should i/we have to do that each time?

Complex Sequence Export
Also i find the export can be dodgy if i do a complex sequence. I can resolve this by using the batch export, but... again, why should i have to do this?

It's serving a purpose at the moment, and it's doing an ok-ish job. But we don't want to be having to do these awkward procedures each time. So i think the Flash export engine needs a total tweak overall.

I hope this doesn't get over looked as a rant (ok... it is), as there are many people, like myself, who use AS solely to animate in and export to flash entirely and it's important to get this element right.

Thanks for reading/listening.

jhbmw007 · Post by **jhbmw007** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:59 pm

I'd really like to see the swf export keep the "keyframes" the same as they are in AS (instead of making every frame a keyframe). If it treated each element as a group/layer couldn't the tweens transfer over into flash as well (as a motion or maybe shape tween)? This would optimize swf output because as of right now the file sizes get too large for making a web-friendly swf.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Sun Feb 18, 2007 10:15 pm

That can't be changed. That's how Flash imports SWFs.

My inspection shows that AS's SWF export exports to SWF version 5, which is part of the reason the file size is so large. Version 6 was the first version to allow SWF compression.

Something that happens to me, and I don't know why this happens sometimes, but I sometimes get SWF output with strange stretched shapes across the frame. But when I import to Flash, they're not there.

Conversely, often times I'll import a complicated SWF from AS into Flash, and in some of the frames, 1 or 2 of my shapes have disappeared, so I have to recreate them in each frame, usually from the surrounding lines that did not disappear. This sort of touchup can be time consuming, and I don't know at which step this occurs.

jhbmw007 · Post by **jhbmw007** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:33 am

Okay- guess there's a lot about swf import that I didn't know about. I have Flash 5 and Flash 8- If you take an AS swf and import it into Flash 8 and resave it with compression, does that help? I had imported a file into Flash 5 and then resaved, so maybe that's the problem. But I did see someone comment here on the board that they made the same animation in AS and one in Flash, and the flash version was a lot smaller in size.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:41 am

Yes, saving it from Flash 8 with compression will help. Another thing that also helps, depending on how complicated your characters are, is to flatten the shapes on each frame, usually by using "edit multiple frames", select all, and Ctrl-B to break them apart. This cuts the number of separate shapes in half or better (reducing the file size in the process) because AS's SWFs group the lines and the fills separately, but Flash will sometimes misinterpret how to flatten a shape, so you have to watch it and make sure it doesn't leave you with garbage. Also with that method, you can't edit the body parts within Flash anymore, but you can always re-export any frames you need from AS.

This applies only to skeleton-deformed shapes, which aren't made into symbols. Obviously if you have some shapes that were left as symbols, it won't improve your file size to break those apart.

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:51 pm

Also, adding onto what touched is saying, you may want to delete ALL those symbols flash creates upon breaking the shapes/groups apart. This will save Flash from bogging down the CPU with all those horrid symbols cluttering up the library. And Flash 8 is terrible for that. The amount of times it crashed on me for having too many symbols! GRRRRR.

Also, because you've broken up the shapes etc, you can judge the animation and decide to add tweens where you feel is appropriate. Or does this add more to the file size? Considering you've exported layer by layer.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:02 pm

A Flash export API would be great, so you can preprocess the graphics, and thus have more control over the export process, before the internal graphics are rendered into Shockwave Flash format. Perhaps an extension to the LUA scripting interface?