TechTV Screwballs...

[TomFulp]

Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all for now.

[Swacker]

Those people at TechTV have got to be friggin' MORONS. I agree with your every statment, Tom.

[Captain-Furious]

hahahahahahah

well tom, i followed all those instructions down to the letter, and guess what, it reduced my file size down AS MUCH AS 75%!! but the problem is, it's basically a picture that doesn't move or has any colour plus it's not a very good one....
Somehow i don't think this person fully understands what flash is, i assume they think it what you put on a camera to make things bright.?
i wish i could get paid to insult thousands of people with my ignorance and stupidity....

[Captain-Furious]

hahahahahahah

well tom, i followed all those instructionsdown to the letter, and guess what, it reduced my file size down AS MUCH AS 75%!! but the problem is, it's basically a picture that doesn't move or has any colour plus it's not a very good one....
Somehow i don't think this person fully understands what flash is, i assume they think it what you put on a camera to make things bright.?
i wish i could get paid to insult thousands of people with my ignorance and stupidity....

[Buddudslash]

Erm.... what IS the difference between setting things on graphics or movie clips? i never knew. i just set everything on graphic o.o;
i hope that not why some of my movie runs really slow and choppy....

and avoid transperancies and tweening? HAH!

thats all i got...

[YoinK]

That dude is definetly a n00bie... well at flash anyway... bitmaps do make games/movies faster... and how could something be 75% lower in file size... that is bullshit!... some kids still think bitmaps slow down flash movies... i just found out that they make them faster... so i was really interested in trying this out! :-)

[Septimus]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies.

They forgot to mention that you can reduce your file size an additional 50% by sacrificing a goat to Satan...

[Splent]

Kick some sense into Marolow Markus' head, then kick his ass.

[TFX]

At 1/25/02 08:56 PM, tabopeteer wrote: Those people at TechTV have got to be friggin' MORONS. I agree with your every statment, Tom.''

I agree with Tom, but who the hell still uses those overly huge (file size-wise) bitmaps in ANYTHING web-related?

[Baldhunk]

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening...
.
BWAHAHAHA!!!
I've had my flash demo for about 10 days now, and even *I* know that tweening is at the very heart of the reason for using flash (unless you are doing some stop-motion movie or some crap).
.
While I am FAR from being a master (or maybe even a creator) of flash movies and games, I would have known to ignore anything further that dude had to say.
.
BTW, I am finding the tutorials on NG and the links (like www.flashkit.com) to be the best help for a noob like me. I highly recommended checking the NG tutorials for any upstarts who will read this.

[amazingamoeba]

Uhmn, okay, first off, the majority of what you are saying is correct. Not only is the tech tv information regurgitated tips that any flash user should pick up on quickly, but it's also very bland and generalized. However, I would like to shed some light on one thing in particular. The mention of not always saving your animations, or layers, as graphics, and instead as movie clips to reduce file size is very....very correct. The idea is that you select all the layers that involve the animation of one particular action, or character, convert it into a symbol, and use that as either a loop if it is something that you wish to repeat later on in the toon/game. However, even if you don't use it as a loop, converting it to a symbol will reduce the file size...."slightly". Now, I am unsure as to what they mean by the 75% reference, perhaps they are talking about the actual "building" file, and not the exported product. But the major difference in saving it as a graphic, or movie clip is this. If you save it as a graphic, when you preview it on the time line (by merely dragging your mouse across the timeline) you can actually see the animation embedded within the symbol. However, if you originally created that symbol as a movie clip, you cannot preview it in the timeline, and must export before you can see the animation take place. This is helpful if you are sure you are satisfied with the animation and timing before you decided to convert it into a symbol. It is also obvious that there will be a file size difference. Because one embeds the animation where you cannot preview it (moveclip) it will obviously be smaller, in export, and in building, but 75% smaller? Well, that's a shitload of difference, and even when trying, I couldn't get it to make even close to that big of a difference.

[RiftMaster]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all for now.

haahahahah! That's hilarious. Reminds me of the time that "self-proclaimed usability expert" weirdo came out against flash saying that it shouldn't be used very much on websites, html should make up most of your site etc... blah blah blah

these idiotic mainstream 45 year old staff writer piggies... trying to steal "our" thunder by trying to make themselves look like high-lords of flash. well, based on stupid articles like this, we have no worry of corporate america stealing the (flash) show from us renegade flash devs.

[Blackmagic]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all for now.

Whoa.
I aint not major flash artist but I do know that that website must have a bunch of loons running it.

[pudgymoogle]

YOu tell 'em Tom!

[Falconrath]

Aaargg. That stuff is bullshit. I am not a very good flash animator but I know that everything over there is bullshit. And those "Screwballs" get payed for utter shit.

[Steve84]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all fine

tech tv is boring as hell i hate it so much these guys don't know shit about flash

[thisisnotmike]

Avoid using preloaders, for it just creates excessive frames and increases the file size. To save valuable bandwidth, instead of actually animating your move or game, just put the text "Use Your Imagination" at the top, but be sure to make it in size 8 times new roman font, in order to cut back on filesize.

[8thaworm]

whoever it was must have been a real asshole
forget it tom you rock anyway

[8thaworm]

whoever it was must have been a real asshole
forget it tom you rock anyway

[Frank2982]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I think I am doing something similar to what this person is saying. What I did, is I made the first scene of my movie, then I took all of the layers and copied then and then pasted them into a movie clip, then placed that movie clip back onto the main timeline. Then I deleted all the previous layers leaving just that 1 movie clip layer on the time line. I find this to be extremely helpful when you are going to have tons of layers. Now affecting the file size, I have no idea if it will or not, and thats not why I am doing it this way. I just find it more organized better.

[Dom-Price]

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all for now.

All the backgrounds for Mobius Fighter are bitmaps. I found that the vector backgrounds were so intricate they slowed the game down to a crawl. How slow? Try paying Quake III on a 64 Mhz processor. That slow... So I converted the backgrounds into bitmaps and now the game runs super fast. The characters are vector images because they are less intricate than the backgrounds...

I really dont care about file size for this game since it will be a downloadable game anyway. I'm going for quality rather than quantity. The guys who wrote that shitty article are probably stick nazis who prefer the later. They give people shitty advice to make up for their ignorance and lack of talent.

These clitmonkies are clueless....

At 1/25/02 08:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Ok, there was a recent article on Tech TV's website about "optimizing" your Flash movies. It was so stupid that I had to comment on it. Below you will see their "tips" in bold, and my comments below each.

Construct your animation as simply as possible. Create characters that are made of objects that can be used more than once.

This is a big "duh" for any decent Flash user, but there are tons of people who still don't get it, so this tip is ok.

Stay away from fancy features such as tweening, or transparency, as much as possible. If you do use them, understand that the feature will affect the performance of your animation.

I agree that transparency will slow down an animation and should be used in moderation (or avoided entirely), but referring to tweening as a "fancy feature" that should be avoided is utter nonsence. Tweening is the backbone for Flash's animation system - it should be used whenever fitting. Of course, the more tweening you have at one time, the slower your movie will run - but that didn't seem to be the point he was making.

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Take advantage of keyframes and the effects menu as much as possible. Draw something once and then tell Flash when you want to use that image again instead of duplicating it.

This is basically a repeat of the first tip... So they should just remove the first one and use this instead.

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Ok, I am just baffled by this one. As far as I know, there is no way to set a layer to "movieclip". Am I wrong on this one? This whole statement just sounds so NUTS and I can't imagine the author has used Flash for more than a day. Especially the whole "this can reduce file size by as much as 75 percent" - where did that arbitrary number come from? Did he perform rigorous tests on dozens of Flash movies in order to obtain that statistic?

The only possible interpretation I can make is that if you use a graphic that is LOOPING throughout your movie, then converting it to a movieclip will most likely cut back your filesize. Graphics and movie clips have different properties, however. You can't simply convert ALL of your graphics to movie clips and expect the movie to run just like it did before. The whole bit is just crazytalk.

I am just amazed that people get paid to write this stuff. That's all for now.

[happySlime]

You know what?
I bet they were talking about Flash WEBSITES, rather than Flash ANIMATIONS.

It seems to me, though, that unless your website specifically showcases Flash animations (like newgrounds does) designing your site in Flash instead of HTML is a pretty foolish thing to do.

I mean, not everyone viewing the world wide web has Flash, but everyone DOES have HTML.
I'm always seeing web sites designed in Flash when HTML and JavaScript could have been used to create the exact same effect with a much shorter load time.

[Armegalo]

The more bitmaps you use, the slower the playback.

MORE BULLSHIT! Anyone who has played my games knows that I use bitmaps when I want SPEED. I used bitmaps for games such as Crazy Shuttle and Wasted Sky - without doing so they would run like a turd. Bitmaps will most likely add to the filesize - increasing the load time - but that is completely different than "playback" speed. Vector graphics require extra CPU power to recreate the images using math - while bitmaps can simply plop onto the screen.

Actually, this varies from machine to machine doesn't it? Some graphics cards and setups are happy to slap bitmaps around, some not (rarer and rarer these days)

Very important: Set all of your symbols' behaviors to "graphic." Once you have everything perfect, set each layer in the final scene to "movieclip," then output it. This can reduce the file size by as much as 75 percent.

Just goes to show what some people believe when they meet things they don't really understand. *sigh*

In case anyone wants to know, I use maybe one graphic for every 200 movie clips. My best game is 60k. Whatever.

[Armegalo]

I bet they were talking about Flash WEBSITES, rather than Flash ANIMATIONS.

Yes, of course, you are right

It seems to me, though, that unless your website specifically showcases Flash animations (like newgrounds does) designing your site in Flash instead of HTML is a pretty foolish thing to do.

You can't say that - every site has different needs.
Most people do have flash though, and everyone SHOULD get it!

[Forever-Psycho]

You do realise that Tech Tv are the smartest people in the whole world and they know more than anyone anywhere! They are so cool!!! I love Tech Tv! I watch Tech TV everyday and instead of sleep, I watch Tech TV! Tech TV can replace meals if Tech TV Zip File is on and I can hardly wait to get a toilet installed in my lounge so that I don't have to miss anything that they show because for me missing Tech TV is like a Catholic missing church!

TECH TV RULES!!!!!!!!

Hahaha poo that I'm just kidding, Tech TV are a bunch of hobo's. They smell. Poo on Tech TV! har har.

Just thought I'd point out that that dweeb on Tech TV with the sorta-afro was talking about gaming emulators for arcade games and it was funny because he insisted on always doing that 'two-fingers-held-up-on-either-hand-bend-them-and-straighten-them-again' thing whenever he said "Emulator" or "ROM" or "MAME"

He's a hobo.

MO'a'X FOR MAYOR!

[MaddJoka]

At 1/26/02 04:05 AM, RiftMaster wrote:

these idiotic mainstream 45 year old staff writer piggies... trying to steal "our" thunder by trying to make themselves look like high-lords of flash. well, based on stupid articles like this, we have no worry of corporate america stealing the (flash) show from us renegade flash devs.

Well, there is a bit of merit to that argument, seeing as a lot of folks use Flash for showy but useless splash screens or to convey information that could just as easily be shown as plaintext. It's just like three years ago when HTML newbies felt compelled to write everything as a marquee or blinking text. It's clear, though, that the TechTV dork doesn't know what he's talking about. However, since I'm not all to proficient in Flash myself, I won't comment.

--
Aaron I. Allensworth
Extreme Banker

[neo-catalyst]

Please take a min of your time to check out my pet in the contest? If you like him then could you please vote? http://www.neopets.com/beauty/details.phtml?pet=Zel_ga_dis

[zipstyke]

At 1/26/02 10:45 AM, thisisnotmike wrote: Avoid using preloaders, for it just creates excessive frames and increases the file size. To save valuable bandwidth, instead of actually animating your move or game, just put the text "Use Your Imagination" at the top, but be sure to make it in size 8 times new roman font, in order to cut back on filesize.

yes. yes i will do that.

[Swacker]

At 1/29/02 03:22 AM, neo_catalyst wrote: Please take a min of your time to check out my pet in the contest? If you like him then could you please vote? http://www.neopets.com/beauty/details.phtml?pet=Zel_ga_dis

What does this have to do with ANYTHING?