Flash :: Large File Sizes

Large File Sizes
I create a lot of detailed Flash animation for broadcast. I am quite unsure of it's abitity to handle any file over 2mb, where it begins to bog down severly. I rarely use it for the web, but got used to it's interface. Now I look at ToonBoom for a solution but am not sure I want to learn that workflow as it looks more clunky than Flash. Is there any way to increase Flash's capabilities or should I look to another piece of software for more detailed Flash type animation. I'm using MX2004 PRO.
Thanx.http://www.taylorentertainment.com

Large File Sizes
Hi there,
This is really just a general question but when would you decide that your Flash site is too big to load as one movie and split it up into external swfs? For example if you have a site over say 800kb, would you need to start making some pages into their own movies or now that everyone seems to be using broadband can you have much bigger movies?
Thanks.

Extremely Large File Sizes In MX
Hi,
I have a very short movie that is 640K.
When I publish it in MX it balloons to 3.3 mg!
Can anyone tell me what bugs in MX to look for to begin to figure out why it is doing this and how to fix it?

Thanks!

Large Image File Sizes - Should I Convert Images Back To Gifs?
I have an animated Flash file with a lot of images that I had to "convert to bitmap" in order to use Flash to clean up the edges and get rid of white artifacts (due to semi-transparent pixels at the edges when the background was removed). The images were originally scanned and have a lot of line drawing in them so I had to use the maximum settings (very tight corners etc.) to convert them. The quality is excellent.

Problem is, the fla file is nearly 8MB now. With all that vector drawing in there it takes forever just to do a test movie. I wonder if I should screen capture each image - take them into Photoshop, resave them as gifs with a transparent background, and import them back into Flash. Any ideas?

Thanks
Charles

Files Sizes To Large?
This is something new that has started happening and I am not sure why. I noticed it cause flash started running very slow and when I look at ram usage it is sometimes 200mb and over. This is know is not right. So I looked at the file and its size and found that is was 1mb, way to large.

I have used flash for a while and all I use it for it to draw in, that is it. So I a buggled as to why it is doing this. I have no graphics, no sounds, I am not making any animation I am just straight vector drawing on the stage. The files should be like in the kb's not mb's.

I have found that if I take the content from the overly large file, copy it to a new file and save it the size goes way back down into the kb's where it should. But as soon as I start working with this file and saving my progress as I go the size goes up again.

It's a real pain an making it hard for me to get things done. I would love any help/advice anyone has.

Oh, I am using Flash Pro 8

Are Very Large Font Sizes Possible?
I am using a dynamically created TextField to display a filmstrip-style countdown, and I need a very large text size for the countdown numbers. I have tried:

textFormat.size = 900;
createTextField("numText",getNextHighestDepth(),
10,10,720,300);
numText.setNewTextFormat(textFormat);

and also:

numText.html = true;
numText.htmlText = "<font size="900"><b>BORK</b></font>";

Unfortunately, either of these methods only sets the text to about a 96 point size. I have been able to adjust the size using the _xscale and _yscale properties, but this causes problems on other (Mac) platforms, as the text is scaled much larger than on my computer.

There is the possibility of using static text and controlling it with AS, but that seems afwully inefficient for what seems like an easy problem.

Any ideas?

Components Make For Large Files Sizes?
I am building a website that uses components on some of the pages. On a broadband (DSL/Cable) connection, the pages load fine, but on dial up, they take forever. The thing is, the SWFs are not that big.

http://www.forever-in-bloom.com/Fresh/index.html

For example, the Partners page is only 8K. Why would it take so long to load on a dial up connection?

I have attached the FLA for the Partners page so you can see how I have it set up.

Or, if someone knows of a scroller (both horizontal & vertical) that I can use other than a component, I would be eternally greatfull!

Please help...My client has AOL on a dial up connection, so it has to load quickly for him.

Thanks in advance!

Sound Clips Duplicated In SWF, Cause Large Sizes
The new Flash CS3 is duplicating identical edited streaming sound clips, creating unnecessarily large SWF files. Basically, if we put in exactly the same streaming sound clip into different movie clips repeatedly, the SWF file size increases proportionally. The new Flash compiler is not smart about pointing to the same clip.

In fact, it is possible to have an SWF file much larger than the original FLA: just put the same streaming sound clip over and over into different movie clips: the SWF file will grow far beyond the FLA or originally mp3 audio file size.

The older version of Flash we were using (MX 2004) did not have this problem.

We are using mp3 files at 24KBS, with clips edited down to a portion of the total mp3 clip, and inserted into the timeline of different movie clips as a streaming sound (repeat 0, no effects).

How Large A Large Of A File Justifies A Preloader?
I want to know some or your thoughts
How large a file justifies a preloader?

How Large Is Too Large For Flash File?
My flash file is already almost 1400 KB, and it's not even close to being done.
I realize this is obviously way too large for a flash website.

As a result, I have to start using the Load Movie action script method.
I hate to think I have to take this thing apart. I am new to loading external movie clips. It seems like a pain!

At what size do you realize that your flash is too large? Have you ever had to take something apart in order to do load movie clips?

Tiny Swf File Sizes. I Add One Word Of Text And The File Jumps 1k?
So im trying to keep my flash movie as small as possible. So far the movie is sitting at 10.4kb. If i go back into the fla and type ONE WORD of just plain white text -no tween, fade or anything, the movie after exported jumps to 11.5k. ???? One word typed in Flash with no tween adds a full 1k??

Is that right? I would think one word of text should be a couple of bytes.

Anyone have any suggestions?

FILE SIZES :(
Ok my site in html is 5k but when i put it on the net it takes fooooooooorever to load anyone have any suggestions why any help will be greatly appreciated

if u wana look at my site LOL! the link is
http://members.tripod.co.uk/jaame/Tsk.html

File Sizes?
i have build a small file that is essentially: 1) a graphic: small square that is 8pix by 9pix 2) a button: up state includes the small square 3) a movie clip: a expanding square 4) another movie clip: that has the button and movie clip #1 in it.
the whole thing comes together to make a rollover/trailing effect.
my questions is:
when i resize the small square symbol to make it smaller 6pix by 6pix. why does it it double the file size afterward? that is the only change made, and the file size jumps from 136k to 272k. what am i doing wrong?
thanks for your reply.

File Sizes ?
Why is it that my fla is 467 KB and the swf only comes to 20 KB? I am aware that there is compression or soemthing with you create the swf file... but that seems like too much? Why is there such a difference in file sizes?

File Sizes
hey all,

im just wondering about file sizez and how big the average flash site is?

i've been making a flash site and its very basic but its all in one file and one scene. then i view it through html. but its massive. im worried that if i put it on the interent itas going to take forever to view.

so i was wondering if anyone can enlighten me about how to organise my filing better and if there a way to buil falsh sites to stop them being massive in file size.

Thanks G

Getting File Sizes
Hello!

I have written an AS3 code which preloads multiple images one at a time and my question is if there is any method to get the file sizes of those images before starting the whole preload process? This way i could get the total size of all images and Flash could display the percentage loaded of all pictures.

The code so far:

Code:
var img:Array = ["first", "second", "third"]; // file names of images
var imgFinal:Array = new Array(); // array to place loaded images

var imgToLoad:Number = 0; // image to load
var imgLoaded:Number = 0; // images loaded

var imgFile:URLRequest;
var imgLoader:Loader;

if(imgToLoad == imgLoaded) { // checks if previous image has loaded
imgFinal[imgToLoad] = new MovieClip(); // putting image to new mc

imgFile = new URLRequest("img/" + img[imgToLoad] + ".png");
imgLoader = new Loader();

imgLoader.load(imgFile); // start loading the image
imgLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, imgLoadComplete);

imgLoaded++; // to ensure that the next image won't start loading yet
}

function imgLoadComplete(event:Event):void {
imgToLoad++;
}
Cheers

SWF And FLV File Sizes
Hello,
I have an flv file and the same flv file in an swf file. Both files are the same size. So, it seems that it doesn't matter, whether you import an flv file or an swf file, to keep your file size small. Is this correct ?
Thanks,
Paul

Swf File Sizes...?
Hello,

I have just added a new preloader to my site which displays the number of bytes loaded so far aswell as the total number of bytes.

http://www.sjmoore.co.uk/

I am using the functions getBytes() and getBytesLoaded() and simply outputting the values to dynamic text fields.

The total number of bytes shows as 401149 - however when I look at the file size of my .swf on my machine it says it is 317k.

Why is this? Surely the bytes counter should be reading the same as the file size? Unless my preloader is including something else? But I don't see how this could be.

Not really a major problem - but I just wondered why...

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

SWF File Sizes...
I'm creating a site for a friend that has a ton of bitmap (i.e. non-vector images) in it. I've knocked down some of the picture quality but can't go too much lower without it looking horrible.

Right now the swf is about 3 mb ... are there any tricks/techniques for optimizing a swf so that you can get reduced file download size without having to reduce quality (or size)?

I've got other elements that will be loaded externally in addition to the 3 mb swf....

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

djjohnnyd

Smaller File Sizes
Please help I am desperate.

I have a website with an intro i made in swish at www.ckyclan.com.
The file size with the background music and images is 1150kb!!! I have used imageready to reduce the image sizes, and streambox ripper to reduce the music size, but is there anything i can do within Swish itself or in its output settings that would reduce the file size?

Symbols And FIle Sizes
I know that using symbols improve file sizes, because the file only has to store the information once....
But what I want to know is if I make a drawing,
resize it so it's really small,
make it a symbol,
and then use that symbol and resize it to how big I want it...

Will it improve the file size??

MX Components And File Sizes.
I've been playing around on a very basic level with components, but it is becoming apparent that the load time for a site even using the most basic of them is going to be too heavy to inflict on people using a modem.

Take the FTree, from Macromedia's second set of components, for example. Although the .swf is only 36 KB, it takes a download of 89 KB, or 19 seconds on a 56 K modem, and that is in it's "virgin" state.

Quite a lot of waiting time for only the navigation.

Have these components been designed for the days when everyone has broadband?

And where does the extra 53 KB come from in the above example, the (Action) scripting?

TIA

Lowering File Sizes
I'm trying to figure out how I can lower my file sizes. I'm not sure what to do. I've tried lowering the jpg quality in the publish setting, but it does not seem to help. I was wanting to get others suggestion on lowering file sizes.

the page i'm working on is located here:
http://www.image202.com/2.0/I202_Portfolio_PR.html

Right now it's at: 1.3MB. I'd like to cut that in half for the old school folks at 56k!

Suggestions?

thanks much.

:: Flash File Sizes ::
i'm making a stop-frame animation using flash MX but the file size is at almost 10MB and it's only 25 seconds through!
the file is consisting of .jpg's which makes the size understandable but is there anyway to make it less so it will be easier for download off my website? i've tried zipping it but this only decreases it by a couple of MB.

if there's anyway of shortening the size, i'd be very grateful for any offers.

thanks

cal

Audio File Sizes
what is the best audio format and is not to big in file size

Compiler, .fla And .swf File Sizes
Hi!
I have this situation with 2 files, all run-time actionscript, accomplishing the same thing but in slightly different ways with these file sizes.

a.fla 112 kb ---> a.swf 23 kb
b.fla 64 kb ---> b.swf 23 kb

Then I have 2 other files, all run-time actionscript, accomplishing the same thing but in slightly different ways with these file sizes.

c.fla 98 kb ---> c.swf 20kb
d.fla 96 kb ---> d.swf 4kb

WHAT IS THE COMPILER DOING? Does the compiler build in efficiencies? Is the goal to shoot for a smaller .swf or is a smaller .swf not necessarily more efficient code? What are the tradeoffs?

Any insight or redirects greatly appreciated.

Thanks much

Bitmap File Sizes
I have a bitmap that I will be using. Would it cut down on the final .swf files size if i use trace bitmap and use that as the image rather than taking the bitmap using break apart and then editing that image throughout the .swf?

Also, is there a standard pixel size for the dimensions of a basic webpage?

thx,
StinkMoe

[F8] CRAZY SWF FILE SIZES Please Help
Im currently slowly making a photography portfolio in Flash 8. Recently, my file sizes are going through the roof! which is making my site pretty unbearable to view! an average size for my SWF files is 1.3MB.... and this is just for menu's with a few static text buttons etc. Anything i try either boosts the files size or doesn't change it. To show my problem, I've attached a file of a BLANK PAGE!!!! from the site (swf) which has a file size of 912Kb! and it has no content! (20fps, 600x700)

What is going on??? anyone else had this problem? Please help, it's driving me crazy! here's the link for this file:

www.darrenwoolridge.com/Blank%20swf.zip

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

darren : (

File Sizes Are Huge
i dont understand hoow to get my file sizes down..... they are huge!!!!! my SWF file is over 5,000kb.... i cant even attach these files for people to look at!!

Can anyone help me

Optimal File Sizes
I am starting to build a site using Flash for the first time and I was wondering if anyone has advice regarding the swf structure? Let me explain a little bit further... the site has some basic/common sections ('master') that are fairly light weight. However, there is a section of portfolios that will be pretty sizeable. Is it best to link out to this as a seperate swf from the 'master' or to continue building with the same scene file and output one large swf?

I don't know what is the best approach.
Welcome any thoughts:)

Ta

Lee

Massive File Sizes >_<
hello, i'm currently making a flash site w/ a pretty large amount of pictures. these pictures average around only about 70-80kb a pic, but this can add up quickly. i'm trying to keep the flash file size as low as possible...ppl hate waiting for a slow loading page... =/

thx

Newbie Question - File Sizes
Hi everyone

This is my first post, and my second day of using Flash, so be easy on me! ;-)

I'm using Insane 3D Flash Animator 3.3, and so far I'm loving it!

The question I have is regarding (SWF) file sizes...

When I export my Flash movies to SWF files, the file sizes don't seem to have any bearing whatsoever on the content of the movie.

For example:

Movie 1: 2 Fonts,6 Elements, 1 GIF. Filesize=58k
Movie 2: 1 Font, 5 Elements, 0 GIFS. Filesize=150k

Is this anything to do with the size of the movie window?

Also, when creating 'Movie 2', I experimented with a few GIFs before ditching them (deleting them from the movie). Insane doesn't keep them in the file, even though I've deleted them, does it?

Any help much appreciated.

Regards

Jay

Flash Movie File Sizes..?
Hi All,

I have just uploaded, to a staging site, my very first flash publication...and it doesn't work (S*%T)

The file sive is about 327kb...is this too big..???

When i email it to someone with the attached html, or view it from IIS, or preview in flash...it all works...

Have i forgot something, am i suppossed to do something special when i ftp it to a site..???

the movie (should) be here http://www.millenniumit.netfirms.com/index2.htm

Please help

Also, can anyone help me with a preloader for this short movie

Cheers guys!!!!

How Can I Reduce Projector File Sizes?
Hello everyone,

The question is:

How can I minimise my projector file sizes?

We are having difficulty getting Flash MX projector file sizes below 800Kb. This is regardless of the size of the Flash.swf file we are creating the projector from.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks

File Sizes-simple Question
I have not even finished the main menu on my new site and allready the SWF icon thinks it is 2.6mb...is this a stupid amount of space for a flash?, or when uploading it does something compress it or something?

thanks

Question On Keeping File Sizes Down.
When you publish a movie, does the whole library get published with the movie or only the elements that are actually used in the movie?

I'm trying to get the file size of a movie down and I am struggling.

Thanks for your help

Graeme
http://www.reebox.co.uk

Acceptable Index File Sizes
What is generally regarded as an exceptable file size for a flash index (i.e. home) page?

And, is it the fla file, or swf file that is used for that measurement?

Strange Behaviour With File Sizes?
Hello all.
I have a project that originally had Photoshop images for the background. I was trying to optimise my movie so I reduced these files down in size by using the save for web option in Photoshop. My .fla file went from 23,514 Kb to 23,024 Kb. However, my .swf file went from 611 Kb to 690 Kb. Why??? Also, these files are still too big, especially considering I still have a lot of content to put in the movie. Any suggestions for further optimisation? Also, how much do different fonts affect file sizes? Would using a plain font like Arial lower my file size significantly versus a more fancy typeface?
Thanks as always for everyone's help!
Tulane

What Is The Trick With File Sizes?:confused:
Hi I am making an animation in After Effects. I expert everything as a picture sequence. Looks great, but for two seconds of animation my file size is half megabite. This is even when I individually set the compression for the pics as 20 % for most of them.

Can anyone tell me what is the secret of having nice After Effects animations inside a Flash Movie with small file sizes?

Regards,
Nicolae
AND HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL

Bandwidth Profiler And File Sizes
hi,
i have a movie that is loaded into another movie and acts as a menu. the menu is made up of 5 buttons, called a, b, c, d and e. each button opens up six new buttons, labelled 1 through 6. so in all, there are 30 buttons in the movie, each with a small jpeg on top of them. every button is an instance of the same button.
the problem is this: when i publish the movie, it comes out at a very reasonable 41k. however, in the bandwidth profiler, the size in the state panel gives the size as around 610k. when i put a preloader on the front of the movie, the preloader runs until it has 'downloaded' all 610k of a file that is only supposed to be 41k.
why is this? it worries me becase i don't want users having to wait for such a big download.
thanks for your help, hope this wasn't too confusing!

Help On Flash File Sizes For Publishing
hi im just finishing off a photography site and the .swf is around 944kb and the .fla file is 2.2mb
i was just wondering if this is an ok size to publish or will it make it run slowly, i know its dependant on the users machines and the bandwidth etc but i just wanted to know if there was any recommended sizes to keep with in and how i could reduce the size of my site...at the moments its displaying around 40 images...any help is extremely appreciated thanks

Actionscript Ballooning .swf File Sizes?
So I ran Flash Optimizer on this .swf I've been working on, and it told me that 80% of the filesize for my .swf file comes from the Actionscript inside it.

Now, I got a little lazy here and there and attached actions on symbols, rather than reference them in actions on frame 1. Does this increase the file size? I don't know the inner workings of Flash so I don't know how it compiles all the actions in a scene. I've optimized everything I can as far as image quality, but my damn .swf is still 280k. The Yahoo Maps take up 100k right off the back, but I can't understand why my actionscript is so beefy! It's only text right??

Thoughts?

Shared Libraries And File Sizes?
To start, here is the site so far. It's very early in development and most of it is placeholder stuff (it's hosted on my PC so if it's down just try back later).

http://68.65.77.123:8080/wowsite/main800x600.html

As you can see, the user can load a number of movie clips into each little window pane, and possibly the same movie clip into two different panes.

Most of the actual data will be loaded from a MySQL database using a PHP backend and flash remoting / AMFPHP (the news pane already does this, the rest don't). The SWF will just be a templates to load the actual data into, so overall the SWF files are going to be fairly small (with no images or text in them).

Right now the main file loads all of the movie clips from various *.fla files via "shared assets during authoring". Right now the filesize is 80.8k, which isn't too bad, but as I develope more window panes (I plan on having probably 20-30 of them) the file size will quickly grow.

The other way I can think to do it, is link them at runtime. My problem with this meathod is that each .swf file has overhead associated with it and I will have to load a lot of the components multiple times, such as the button and list components which are used in many of the windows. So overall, the user will have to download a lot of extra data.

One advantage of linking at runtime that I can see is that I will be able to load the main window first and get the user to start viewing the page while the other window panes load (I could load the news pane first for example).

So, I guess my question is this:
Is there a way that I can somehow link all the components (buttons, lists, text areas, etc.) in such a way that all the SWFs will use them, and therefor I would only have to load each component once for the entire site?

I have been reading up on shared libraries, but I am having trouble grasping whether or not they will help with my problem or make it worse.

I am still unclear on how component loading works. If I have a button component loaded in to an SWF, and then that SWF loads another SWF which also has a button component, do I have to load the button component again?

If I have an asset that I link to at runtime from another SWF, does the user have to download the entire SWF just to gain access to that one shared asset?

My big issue here is that I am worried 56k web users will be driven away from my site due to load times, simply because my site is either A) loading information that they don't see (such as asset sharing at author time) or B) they are loading the same data over and over (components).

Huge Friggin File Sizes
Help! i have dial-up and i can't downlaod the 98-meg demo of flashMX. is there any way i can get it in a zip file or something? or can anyone find me a zipped demo of flash5?anything over 10 megs takes too long, and i don't have the cash to buy flashMX right now.

Embedded Video File Sizes
Hello,
I'm putting some films on my site. I've already compressed them and lowered the size so the .mov files are about 2.5Mb using Sorensson Squeeze that came with our Avid suite.
When I make a SWF file with these 2.5Mb videos embedded, the SWF file reads at being 16.9Mb. Why on earth is this?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Pipkino

Video Importing - File Sizes
Hey guys, thanks for checking my posting.

Need some advice on video importing. I'm rendering up a 3d animation and wondering the best way of putting it onto the web. Its a fly-through which ideally needs to be full screen or 800x600 at least but I'm trying to decide about whether to do a vector 3d (low detail but low file size) or a 3ds max jobbie (high detail but higher file size).

I'm swaying towards the 3dsMax way at the mo as the vector just isnt getting me the detail I want. So I was planning on animating out as a mov or avi and compressing it / optimising it.

As a rough guide, what is the highest compression possible when importing a mov or avi and whats the best way?

- If I had a mov of say, 100mb could I then compress it to around 2mb - small enough to load but keep the size and most of the quality?
- I think the only way to load it is to then import/embed as I need to stop freeze frame the movie at certain points, does this put streaming out of the question. Does streaming enable you to have a bigger file size?

Mucho thanks!

Fox