Section 35.2. Creating Flash Movies

35.2. Creating Flash Movies

Although it is beyond the scope of this book to teach the myriad information about Flash authoring, this section will give you a high-level overview of creating Flash movies, by reviewing file formats, interface basics, optimization, server configuration, action scripting, and adding Flash movies to a web page. Full-featured Flash movies are best created using Macromedia's Flash software, but I will also show you several third-party software products that allow you to create specific types of .swf files and still use the Flash player. For a more hands-on look at creating movies, I recommend using the tutorials that come with the software as well as support documents provided by Macromedia (www.macromedia.com/support/flash/). For an incredibly thorough book of tutorials and reference material, check out Flash 8 Bible by Robert Reinhardt and Snow Dowd (Visual).

35.2.1. File Formats

The Flash authoring tool saves information about a movie in a .fla source file (also called a "Flash document" or "Flash editor document"). The .fla file contains all the separate elements that make up the movie and its timeline information in a fully editable format.

When the movie is ready to go on the Web, it must be exported to .swf format. The suffix originally stood for Shockwave Flash, but in the face of confusion with Macromedia's Shockwave for Director format, the meaning is more accurately understood as simply a compiled Flash application.

35.2.2. Flash Interface Basics

To better understand the way Flash handles multimedia content, it is useful to be generally acquainted with the Flash authoring environment. Figure 35-1 shows the core features of the Flash interface as seen on Windows XP.

Figure 35-1. The Flash interface

Tools

The Toolbox contains all the tools for drawing, painting, selecting, viewing, and modifying artwork.

Stage

The Stage is the area where you compose and preview the movie.

Layers

The elements on a Timeline may be stored on separate layers (similar to layers in image editing tools). Layers in Flash control the arrangement of objects from background to foreground, support masking, enable motion and shape tweening, and contain guide elements, frame labels, and actions.

Timeline

The Timeline is where you control the timing of the animation and assemble the elements from separate layers.

Frames

Like film, Flash movies divide lengths of time into individual frames. A keyframe is a frame in which you define a change in the animation. Static frames reflect no change and merely repeat the content of the prior frame. Animation effects are added by changing content over a series of frames.

Library

The Library is where you store all imported items (such as images and audio), native symbols (Flash objects that you want to use repeatedly in the same movie, such as a button), and components (Flash objects that you can use repeatedly across movies). When you place an object on the Stage, you create an instance of that object.

Properties

The Properties inspector is where you access and modify all of the attributes of the given object selected on the Stage.

Actions

The Actions panel allows you to create new objects via code and to manipulate the objects on the stage or within the Library during runtime by means of the native scripting language, ActionScript.

Panels

There are several other panels in addition to the Library that appear in the same area of the application interface. These panels include the Accessibility panel, which allows you to make a Flash movie section 508 compliant, and the Components panel, which allows you to reuse Flash objects between movies, among others.

35.2.3. Optimizing Flash Movies

There are several measures you can take up front to make your .swf compress as small as it can. The following are just a few tips:

• Keep your artwork as simple as possible.

• Remove unnecessary points in vector drawings (choose Optimize from the Modify menu).

• Limit the number of gradients (choose flat color fills instead).

• Limit the number of fonts and amount of text.

• Use "tweens" and motion guide layers for animation rather than extra keyframes.

• Minimize bitmap usage and avoid setting bitmap images in motion.

• Use symbols and nested symbols whenever possible. However, do not allow symbols to be too large as they can slow down streaming playback.

• Optimize imported media (images, audio) prior to placement in Flash.

• Use MP3 compression for audio whenever possible. You can select MP3 compression in the library for each asset, or select it in the Publish settings for all audio assets.

It is a good idea to use Flash's Test Movie functionality to check your movie's performance. The Bandwidth Profiler simulates various connection speeds. You can also generate size reports to check the size of media components within the movie (it may reveal elements that could be optimized better).

35.2.4. Configuring the Server

Although no special server software is necessary to serve standard Flash files, you will need to configure your server to recognize a new MIME type. The following information will suit the needs of most servers:

• Type/subtype: application/x-shockwave-flash

• File extension for Flash: .swf

The specific syntax for configuration varies for different servers, so coordinate with your system administrator and see Macromedia's site for further support information.