Vector or png?

[RockLou]

What is more optimized in flash, vector graphics or exported image of vector as png/jpg?

[Skeddels]

Vectors, I think.....

[TVK]

Vectors by far

[RockLou]

What if it's a massive vector image with tons of shapes and shit in it?

[Jephz]

Still beats Bitmaps. Unless the bitmap file size isn't very large and you have over 100 mcs in the vector.

[Deadclever23]

At 2/22/09 02:17 PM, RockLou wrote: What if it's a massive vector image with tons of shapes and shit in it?

Also you can cache as bitmap in order to save some processing.

[TVK]

Bitmaps in Flash should avoided at all time unless there's no other choice

[RockLou]

At 2/22/09 02:19 PM, Jephz wrote: Still beats Bitmaps. Unless the bitmap file size isn't very large and you have over 100 mcs in the vector.

ok, you guys have convinced me to leave out as much jpgs as possible. It's weird though, until now I've only heard the opposite. There's still a huge part that'll be made into a bitmap. It's actually pretty much like you say, I think it has even OVER 100 mcs in it.

[Polioman]

Vectors, no question.

[Skeddels]

Whenever I must import an external image I often convert it to a vector beforehand.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

bitmaps render faster but use more memory.

Very simple vector shapes are faster than bitmaps

[Juice-Tin]

Lots of vectors on the screen makes flash really slow. Bitmaps would be faster for this.

But- you can make vectors be rendered as bitmaps, which is good, except if you do, you can't rotate or scale them, because then they would need to be re-cached as bitmaps everytime, making them even slower.

For things that need to be rotated or scaled, if there's tons of them, best choice would be bitmaps.

[LeechmasterB]

Don't listen to the guys. ^^

First of it entirely depends on what you want to do.

Vectors:
- strength smaller filesize
- weakness worse performance / slower rendering time

PNG/BITMAPS:
- strength faster rendering time
- weakness bigger filesize

That simple... the flash renderer can render bitmaps far quicker then vector graphics.

[Denvish]

At 2/22/09 03:53 PM, LeechmasterB wrote: Don't listen to the guys. ^^
That simple... the flash renderer can render bitmaps far quicker then vector graphics.

Agreed. For large detailed/scrolling backgrounds in particular, pngs/bmps are far less CPU intensive, because there's little rendering involved. Vectors are generally fine for the smaller stuff. If you have no reason to use exclusively one or the other, then use bitmaps for the backgrounds/layouts and vectors for the sprites etc.

[RockLou]

Thank you. Now I know what I need to know!

[EvanHayes]

yes,denvish is correct. but if you have something that is a vector and dont feel like exporting it then use

cacheAsBitmap = true

that way it will treat the vector just like an image. vectors are smaller file size wise but run slower during run time in games if it is moving on the x or y axis. such as a scrolling background. but if you use cacheAsBitmap on something that is rotated or flipped it may have an undesired effect :P

[RockLou]

At 2/22/09 08:19 PM, EvanHayes wrote: that way it will treat the vector just like an image. vectors are smaller file size wise but run slower during run time in games if it is moving on the x or y axis. such as a scrolling background. but if you use cacheAsBitmap on something that is rotated or flipped it may have an undesired effect :P

Will that cache every vector in the flash?

[Johnny]

At 2/22/09 03:53 PM, LeechmasterB wrote: Don't listen to the guys. ^^
First of it entirely depends on what you want to do.

Exactly that. Don't listen to the rest of the guys.