Lesson 18. Loading External Assets

One of Flash's greatest strengths is that it allows you to load all of a project's media assets dynamically bitmaps, sounds, videos, even other movies from external sources. As a result, a greater range of content can exist externally from the movie (such as on a Web server) and be loaded into the movie on an as-needed basis. This means that you can deliver more dynamic content than ever before because the content of your movie is not restricted to what's placed in it at the time it was authored.

In this lesson, we'll show you how the various types of media are loaded into a running movie, as well as how to work with and manipulate this external content once it has been loaded. As a result, you'll be able to greatly expand the content used in your own projects without significantly increasing the time it takes for your user to download and view it.

Loading external video clips is one of the powerful capabilities of Flash that we'll explore in this lesson.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, you will:

• Create a scalable slideshow presentation using external assets

• Create a rotating Flash banner system by loading external movies into a level

• Control a movie from its own timeline and another timeline

• Dynamically load MP3s into a project while it plays

• Script an MP3 playback progress bar

• Load MP3 files based on XML files and display ID3 tag data from the MP3s

• Load an external video into a Media component and trigger actions

APPROXIMATE TIME

This lesson takes approximately two hours to complete.

LESSON FILES

Media Files:

Lesson18/Media/background0.swf

Lesson18/Media/background1.swf

Lesson18/Media/background2.swf

Lesson18/Media/banner0.swf

Lesson18/Media/banner1.swf

Lesson18/Media/banner2.swf

Lesson18/Media/image0.jpg

Lesson18/Media/image1.jpg

Lesson18/Media/image2.jpg

Lesson18/Media/music0.mp3

Lesson18/Media/music1.mp3

Lesson18/Media/music2.mp3

Lesson18/Media/Agent00.mp3

Lesson18/Media/HardCope.mp3

Lesson18/Media/LoungeJam.mp3

Lesson18/Media/Prosonica.mp3

Lesson18/Media/playlist.xml

Lesson18/Media/bluezone.flv

Lesson18/Media/cue0.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue1.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue2.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue3.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue4.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue5.jpg

Lesson18/Media/cue6.jpg

Starting Files:

Lesson18/Assets/virtualaquarium1.fla

Lesson18/Assets/mp3Player1.fla

Lesson18/Assets/video1.fla

Completed Projects:

virtualaquarium8.fla

mp3Player2.fla

video2.fla