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Dear
Friend,
Hello
& welcome back to Firewire,
your friendly guide to the exciting world of web-design
& web-solutions!
This
newsletter covers most important techniques to reduce
the size of a Flash movie and thereby increasing its
speed.
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1.
Group objects and use Symbols whenever possible
to minimize the file size.
To
get a idea about the file size of objects and symbols we have
used the same circular objects in different way. Refer the
image given below,
2.
Backgrounds that continue for several frames should
be turned into a symbol (graphic or a movie clip).
3.
Keep the first few frames of the movie blank, to enhance streaming
performance of Flash movies.
4.
Avoid bitmaps as much as possible:- Use simple vector
graphics rather than bitmap images for better playback performance.
If you are using bitmaps, use them only for still elements
- don't animate them.
5.
Minimize the use of alpha transparency, gradients,
masks, and tweens as Complexity can slowdown
the performance of the Flash movie, even if the movie size
is small.
6.
Break up larger movies into smaller movies and join them together
using the Load Movie action.
7.
Use solid lines instead of dashed, dotted
and other line types wherever possible.
Try to avoid custom line widths as this may slowdown the performance
of the flash movie and also increase the file size.
8.
Create lines with the Pencil tool instead of using
Brush tool as it require less memory.
1.
Avoid custom colors as it occupies more memory.
2.
Use Web-safe color palette.
3.
Use solid fills instead of gradients wherever possible
as gradient fills are more complex for the computer to process
than solid fills.
1.
Reduce the number of fonts and font styles as
much as possible. This can reduce the file size of your Flash
movie.
2.
Don't break apart fonts unless you need to edit the paths
of the characters, because breaking apart fonts will increase
the number of curves which will result in the increase in
file size.
3.
Use device fonts instead of embedded fonts this may
yield somewhat smaller Flash movie file size because device
fonts are not embedded in the flash movie but they are loaded
in the flash movie from the uses machine. If users do not
have a font installed on their system that corresponds to
the device font, then the font may look different than expected
on a user's system.
1.
Optimize curves (choose Modify > Optimize) whenever
possible.
2.
In the Optimize Curves dialog box, drag the Smoothing slider
to specify the degree of smoothing, this may reduce the number
of curves used to create a shape.
3.
Optimizing curves also reduces the size of the
Flash movie and the exported Flash Player movie.
To
reduce the file size you need to compress sounds.
Here are some other ways you can reduce the size of your sound
files:
1.
Don't loop streaming sounds as it increases the file
size.
2.
Keep Background sounds as short as possible.
3.
While looping sounds for Background music, keep it as Event
sound mainly for faster download and smaller file size.
4.
Use the MP3 format whenever possible because it compresses
well.
5.
Set the in and out points to prevent silent areas from
being stored in the Flash movie and to reduce the size of
the sound.
Regards,
Manoj
Kotak.
The author is Director of Image Online Pvt. Ltd.
Developer of Layout Galaxy web site design templates for photoshop
and Flash.
All
accompanying logos, brands and product names are trademarks
of their respective companies.
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