Flash :: SWF File Sizes...

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

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??

Large FIle Sizes
Hey Everyone.

I've been having a problem with the file sizes of my videos lately. Anytime I add any sort of song (even just a loop from Flashkit) my file size jumps up to like 5000kb! Maybe it's because they they're .wav files, does that make a difference? If someone could maybe point me towards a tutorial on downsizing the file sizes i'd really appreciate it.

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

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

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

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.

Large File Sizes
i've noticed something strange when importing sound into flash. the file becomes a lot larger than it should be and this has happened to me many times before. heres a scenario to describe what i'm talking about:

original file size: 900 kB
music file size(to be imported): 5000 kB

import the music file size, and it should be automatically compressed (usually i get a message at the bottom of the properties window for the sound, saying that it was decreased to 10-15% the size of the original file).
even without the compression, the file size shouldn't be more than 5900kB (900 + 5000), right? well oddly enough, it isn't. it might increase by 3 times this amount from what i've experienced in the past(to about 18 000kB).

this has caused many problems for me including the inability to upload files(due to upload limits) and slow file transfer, which is the reason i decided to bring this up.

ok, does anyone know the reason why this happens (file sizes increase greatly when importing sound)?

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?

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!

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

What Is The Difference Between File Sizes In The Profiler?
I have been working really hard to create a nice looking site with a small file size. I have managed to complete much of it and kept the file size as listed in the profiler to 47k. With much dismay however, I have just noticed that under the state heading in the profiler, that the file size is 100k. When i publish my movie the swf file is 47k. If i use the show streaming feature it simulates downloading the 100k file size - whats going on here?

Can someone please help and explain this - I have searched the net and help files for a discription but to no avail.

Thanks for any help you can give - even more so if you tell me that the 47k is the right one - I'm gonna be gutted if its a 100k!
Anyway - thanks

Pre Loading Multi Levels & File Sizes Mx
Hi,
Im having trouble with the loading time of the 5 swf's loading into a main movie. Can view it here
I changed the load order so its gig is 4k, news is 52k, photo 20k, people 204k, sound 666k. Thinking the text bits would load so youve got something to read while the other bits do their stuff.
It seems to take ages - the news and photos use an xml files to call up the txt and photos. Could that make it slower?
Does it load one then the next or does it try to load all at the same time?

I dont want to wait until all the parts are loaded before you can see anything. Can I put preloaders on each separeate swf?
Im not sure whats best to do.

Also, my sound swf is HUGE. Ive put all the mp3s in one swf using attachsound. There about 168k each, shall I separate them?

Stuck.

SWF Movie Sizes - Dimensions, Not File Size
Picture a swf that is contained in a box, let's say it's 200px x 200px. Somewhere during the movie, something flys out or extends from the side of the movie, outside the dimensions of the movie box. When you create a swf that uses this effect, are the actual dimensions of the swf file bigger than the box you see? For example, does it have to be 800 x 600 if something pops out that takes up a large portion of the screen? Or is there a way to render objects outside the frame of the movie?

Thank you!

Memory Usage MUCH More Than Loaded File Sizes
I'm working on a new website that has a different background image for each page. The file sizes of the images are anywhere from 100-200KB. However, I'm monitoring the memory usage of my browsers, and as each image loads, the memory usage jumps by 5-10MB. Why in the world does Flash need so much memory for an image load?

In an attempt to reduce memory usage, upon each image load I pulled the bitmapData from the loader into a new Bitmap object and unloaded and nulled the loader. Unfortunately that didn't result in any memory decrease (or increase). If I didn't pull the bitmapData and just unloaded/nulled the loader, the memory is released just fine, but obviously that leaves me without an image.

I guess my question is: is this normal? Does Flash just use extraordinary amounts of memory to store image data? Is there any way to reduce the footprint?

A million thanks to anyone who has any insight.

Embedded Movie File Sizes - Any Guides?
I am new to Flash and trying hard to get a .flv movie embedded in a .swf file. I'm importing an mpeg4 video (a Quicktime movie about 17 Mb) into flash video encoder and then trying to encode it into a really small image and file size. This is 'live action' video, actually short interview clips, lasting about 65 seconds, in a studio, so there's not much change in the image. I'm aiming for a movie size around 150x100 pixels and as small a file size as possible. My problem is this: I can't seem to get the file size much below 1.4 Mb on any setting which keeps the image reasonably smooth. Even at 150Kbs, 15 frames persecond and a really small image I still get a .flv around 1.3MB. Can anyone tell me if this is normal, or should I be able to achieve a much smaller file size? I need to run this movie from my website and at the moment it would be way too big! Any thoughts or suggestions would be gratefully received...

How To Have Multiple Font Sizes In External .txt File
I can easily change color, bold and underline and links using simple html code, but how can I change the font size

I have tried using

HTML Code:
READER RESEARCH 06/07
as well as

HTML Code:
READER RESEARCH 06/07
and i just don't understand why it doesn't work.

I have even tried the URL equivalent

HTML Code:
READER RESEARCH 06/07
When it gets to that part of the text it just goes blank. I had a similar problem when i was trying to get the "&" symbol to work in a link, then i had to use url encoding, but it doesnt seem to work this time

Any thoughts greatly appreciated?

Greg

Stop Motion Animation/file Sizes
Hi there,

I'm pretty new to Flash and I'm running into serious swf file-size issues.

I'm working on a site that basically has stop-motion animation for a background. So there is a new jpeg in each keyframe. I tried to keep the filesizes of the Jpegs down (25% quality, but some of the animations are large so the swfs for some sections are about 5mbs! I'm not using actionscript so far, but would the stop motion animations run smoothly if they were loaded into keyframes dynamically (or would each one have to load and ruin the flow of the animation?!)

What size should I be aiming to get my swfs down to so that people dont have to wait forever for them to load?!

Do people still use 56k modems to view flash sites?

Here's a test one if anyone wants to see

http://www.rossharrington.com/bookDiy.html

I'd really appreciate some help as I'm at my wits end and the site is supposed to be live by next week!

Thanks,

Ross