Optimizing File Size in Flash 8

[Path-of-the-One]

Hello all, I have a question (well obviously).

I made a stop-frame movie in Flash for my English class last year, and everyone I showed to liked it alot so I figgured that I would post it here. It is about 1600 frames long (10 fps) and all done with individual pictures from a webcam (sans a few fades, stops, and the last bunch of frames which technically are the credits). It has a song playing in the background for the whole time.

Now my problem with uploading it is that it's 16.3 MB large and I don't know how to shrink it down to the 5 MB size limit (or hell if it's even possible). So I present you, the public, with my problem.

How do I shrink the bastard down so that I can upload it here?

My song is .mp3 and at 16 KB/S. I dowloaded the shareware trial version of Swift Optimizer to see if that would work, and it optimized it a whole 0%! Hooah!

Now I think that a way for me to get the file down would be to shrink the size of the movie down (aka each frame, shrink it to like 70% or something), but that will take a crapload of time to do individually for each and every one of my 1600+ frame movie, so is there an easy way to do this in one fatal swoop?

For those who like to crunch numbers, I need to reduce the filesize by exactly 69.4% to make the size cut-off, so 70% reduction in size.

[joeyfichete]

wtf are you talking about

[Dragonman11]

Is it a movie or an animation? Does it have photos in it? Photos or bitmaps or whatever chew up file size. Maybe someone out there may know how to compress it further?

[AxisofIdiocy]

At 1/8/06 09:21 PM, Path_of_the_One wrote: Now my problem with uploading it is that it's 16.3 MB large and I don't know how to shrink it down to the 5 MB size limit (or hell if it's even possible). So I present you, the public, with my problem.

I honestly think that there is no way to cram 16.3 megs worth of jpeg (well, I think thats what you're talking about) down to the five-meg limit.

Now I'm kind of curious, 1600 frames at 10 FPS? What did you make?

[Path-of-the-One]

The pictures are .jpg files. I have 712 items in my library, 7 of which are buttons, drawn components, ect... so I believe I only have 705 images total (only as compared to 1620 frames). Many are repeated and I do have stops going on in between, as well as a couple fade tweens and the credits are a good 200 frames, plus the NG Preloader is frame 1. The images are compressed as much as they can be. For example, Photo 001.jpg was imported as a JPEG at 405.5 Kb and compressed to 24.9 Kb, 6% of original file according to it's properties.

At 1/8/06 09:51 PM, Tweak_Dryerlint wrote:

At 1/8/06 09:21 PM, Path_of_the_One wrote: Now my problem with uploading it is that it's 16.3 MB large and I don't know how to shrink it down to the 5 MB size limit (or hell if it's even possible). So I present you, the public, with my problem.

I honestly think that there is no way to cram 16.3 megs worth of jpeg (well, I think thats what you're talking about) down to the five-meg limit.

Now I'm kind of curious, 1600 frames at 10 FPS? What did you make?

I I had an assignment for my Humanities class to make a creative interpretation of Dante's Inferno, and it was about 2 months late, so I sat down at my computer for about 6 hours one day and made a movie losely based on Dante's Inferno, but set to music by a band from my school that I really liked at the time. The movie kind of follows a guy's trip through the various layers of hell, eventually meeting the Devil encased in ice at the end (well, kinda).

It's all done stop-frame style, AKA take a picture, use that as one frame. Take another picture moved a little, use that as the next frame (how clay-a-mation works, as well as basically any LEGO movie out there). It's 2.7 min long, 162 seconds. The actions in the movie are timed to the song.

here is another question, may be easier to answer. Is there a way in Flash 8 to mass-resize every frame of a movie all at once? Will the nifty Command thing help me (asking while not knowing wtf it does by-the-by)?

And joeyfichete, the question is about optimizing the file size, AKA getting it WAY down.

[Path-of-the-One]

At 1/8/06 09:46 PM, Dragonman11 wrote: Is it a movie or an animation? Does it have photos in it? Photos or bitmaps or whatever chew up file size. Maybe someone out there may know how to compress it further?

And that is what I'm asking, if someone knows how I can compress it further

[Sugggames]

i don't know how to reduce it , but i can tell you how to mass resize.

click on edit multiple frames, the two blue sqares on a button under the timeline,

then drag the frame span indicator over every frame, then highlight them all, click the transform tool, and shrink em all.

might lag like hell.

[Dragonman11]

Sorry, im pretty sure that your not gonna be able to get that below 5MB. Too many Photos. I made something once with 3 jpgs in it and it was 2MB. I dont think i compressed them but photos do take up alot of room. SOrry, wish i could help.

[TommyGun]

Well, you could reduce the filesize per jpeg.
with photoshop, or the free www.paint.net you may choos what percentage of quality each jpeg is.
that way, you'll half the filesize!

[jmtb02]

Take every picture you have, and compress down into smaller pictures. This is just about the only way it will be possible. Taking each picture down to about 320x240 will make for a small enough animation to get onto Newgrounds.

There may be programs out there that will mass-cutdown pictures to size. One that I know off is Picasa by Google, in which you can have it generate a website from your pictures, and it will give you the option to mass downsize your photos for web streaming. Just use the photos from there once they go through and you should have it working.

Hope this helps.

[kinetic-1]

At 1/8/06 09:45 PM, joeyfichete wrote: wtf are you talking about

Stop trying to look cool.

[Josh-B]

This probably isn't a good idea, but breaking apart your movie and putting it in seperate files, then submitting it in parts. This is my best guess what to do.

[Dragonman11]

At 1/8/06 10:45 PM, -kinetic- wrote:

At 1/8/06 09:45 PM, joeyfichete wrote: wtf are you talking about

Stop trying to look cool.

Yeah! noobs tells off bigger noob, well done!
:-)

[Path-of-the-One]

At 1/8/06 10:22 PM, Sugggames wrote: i don't know how to reduce it , but i can tell you how to mass resize.

click on edit multiple frames, the two blue sqares on a button under the timeline,

then drag the frame span indicator over every frame, then highlight them all, click the transform tool, and shrink em all.

might lag like hell.

Thanks much! This was exactly what I was looking for! Let's hope it'll work

At 1/8/06 10:33 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Take every picture you have, and compress down into smaller pictures. This is just about the only way it will be possible. Taking each picture down to about 320x240 will make for a small enough animation to get onto Newgrounds.

Yah I've reduced all the pics as much as I can, the video (and all the pictures) are 350x290, so it's kinda small.

Let's go see if the mass edit works!

[Path-of-the-One]

Ew, reducing everything to 70% (about 250x200 final size) and having the JPEG slider set to 25 only got my movie from 16.7 to 16.2. That is damn annoying. I don't think that I can make the video much smaller than that, and in that case I may not be able to upload the video.
Darn, thanks much for everyone's help though

[Vengeance]

you could put the movie on putfile and then use a loadMovie() to import it into a blank fla and submit on newgrounds.
i'm pretty sure that will cut down alot of the filesize.

[Path-of-the-One]

At 1/9/06 02:44 AM, -Vengeance- wrote: you could put the movie on putfile and then use a loadMovie() to import it into a blank fla and submit on newgrounds.
i'm pretty sure that will cut down alot of the filesize.

As part of PutFile's ToS, it says that no files are allowed to be embedded or directly linked from their hosting, and they specifically mention embeding files into flash movies. While that is an excelent idea, I don't think that I"m allowed to do that because of the ToS.

I'll post a link, however, to the file if anyone is interested in seeing it.

[Newsdee]

Two things that may work.

File Menu->Publish Settings, click on the "Flash" tab, check the box "Compress movie", and reduce the JPEG quality using the slider provided on the same screen. This should reduce the total size of the movie.

If not, then it means Flash is using the original JPEG compression. There's a way to disable that, it will take a while but it should do the trick:

Open your Library, then right click on a JPEG image. Select "Properties" on the context menu. On the panel that opens, uncheck the box named "Use imported bitmap data". Then change the value (default should be 50), it's the % of quality. Try 50 first, 10 will be small but the images will look bad.

[Path-of-the-One]

Here is the file. I'm a bit confused why the loader isn't working as it should (it works fine when I preview it in Flash, but since it's such a big file I guess it just takes a bitch of a long time to load even w/a fast connection)

Anyway, if you're interested, here it is!

[url=http://media.putfile.com/Dantes-Infer
no]Dantes-Inferno[/url]

[Path-of-the-One]

I don't think it uploaded proper the first time, here is the correct link. It takes a long time to load, it bein 16 megs and all
Dante's Inferno

[Path-of-the-One]

I just can't seem to get the file link right
Here it is again
Dante's Inferno

The music timing seems off online but worked fine on my computer, please tell me what you think (You'll know if the timing is off even if it's the first time youv'e seen it)

[AloneInTheDark]

At 1/16/06 12:48 AM, Path_of_the_One wrote: I just can't seem to get the file link right
Here it is again
Dante's Inferno

The music timing seems off online but worked fine on my computer, please tell me what you think (You'll know if the timing is off even if it's the first time youv'e seen it)

did you set the music to 'stream'? When you select the first frame from where the music starts and you see 'event' in the properties box below then the music will go off sync. Setting it to stream syncs it but makes the filesize even larger.

The only way to reduce quality dramatically is to reduce quality of each individual jpeg. Go to file -> publish settings and then click the tab flash. There is a bar there that can make you change the quality of the exported jpegs. It also works for reducing the music quality.

Like the previous guy said, resizing the movie will work alot also. If you did all of these things and it still isnt under 5 meg then there isnt alot you can do about it anymore

[BlackmarketKraig]

You know, I'm pretty sure that most stop motion movies that are put into Flash use a different program to convert all the images into a movie file format beforehand, then import that into flash. It should also help reduce lag, if you're having problems with that.

[Path-of-the-One]

Okay, well first off I had set my music to stream, but when I went to preview it, the music flat out didn't play. When I set it to "start" it played fine AND was synced, but it is no longer in sync now that it's posted online.

As for using a different program to make the movie beforehand, any chance you know what program that is?

[AxisofIdiocy]

Well, I thought of this the day after this thread went under.
At the risk of making a "newb" mistake with this suggestion, I'll suggest it anyway.

Okay, so, after compressing it down to a minimum size and still not making the five meg cut, why don't you just submit it into two parts. You know, submit the first half as "Dante's Inferno" (Or whatever you plan on calling it). Then, about a month later, submit the rest as "Dante's Inferno 2."

That way, you can test the first half, then fix the flaws in the second one around the reviews given for the first!

Plus, having two movies under your belt couldn't hurt, either.

[Path-of-the-One]

Well because (well first someone suggested that already) I already have it perfect as-is (sans for some reason proper syncing online) but I dont' need to do that and, since it is a project all timed to one song, that wouldn't work.
That video is actually timed to the song, so it's actually kind of a music video as well.