Hands-On: Flash MX 2004 Publishing
Final Tips for Optimizing Your Movies
- Use Symbols.
Artwork turned into symbols can be used over and over again and only have to
be downloaded one time.
- Use Solid Lines wherever possible.
Avoid dashed, dotted, and jagged lines when possible, each segment will be tracked
as an individual item when published. Jagged lines can add 100 times more bytes
to the file size over straight lines.
- Use Alpha sparingly.
Alpha (transparency) will not add to the file size, however is can impact playback
performance. Try not to stack alpha on top of one another too.
- Use Gradients sparingly .
Gradients are not as serious a threat as alpha, but it can also slow down performance.
- Use the Optimize command on your vector artwork and sound files.
By selecting the Modify > Optimize command, you can reduce the file
size of your movie.
- Use Vector graphics rather than bitmaps wherever possible.
Vector graphics are usually significantly smaller than bitmaps.
- Be aware of complex objects in animation.
The more complex and animation, the slower the performance of the page.
- Use device fonts where appropriate.
With Device Fonts, Flash MX 2004 will not embed the outlines for your movie’s
fonts; it will display the font of the user’s machine that is closest to
the specified font, thus saving file size.
- Be cautious of looping streaming sound.
When the sound’s Sync option is set to Stream, it will play the sound at
the same rate the animation is played. If you loop Streaming Sounds, Flash MX
2004 will multiply the file size by the number of times you loop the sound, it
actually will add frames to the Timeline to accommodate your settings.
- Use the Load Movie command.
Rather than creating one really huge movie file, you could create several smaller .swf files
that can load with the Load Movie command when requested by the user, such as
clicking on a button.
- Use the generate Size Report feature.
This report can help you identify places where you may be able to reduce your
file size.
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