Re: FLASH: Alpha Channels Messed up?

[John Croteau]

Hi Adam,


> I noticed two things yesterday, Aftershock doesn't perfectly match the

> HTML background to the movie background if you have a custom color. And

> Secondly, if you set the window mode to "transparent Windowless"  Alpha

> Channels fade to the color of the movie background instead of the HTML

> background causing a "ghosting" effect.

> Has anyone else noticed this?  Now it could be because I'm running a 16

> bit display instead of 24 bit..... FWIW though, I noticed too that PNG

> file backgrounds also fade to the color of the original background

> instead of the HTML background when embeded in a Flash movie....

The 216 color safe palette that Flash and other programs works with

perfect color matching on 'most' 8 bit (256 color) and 24 bit (16

million color) computer setups. All the standard colors in the Flash

palette are the 'Web safe' colors. When using a 16 bit (64,000 color)

display 'Web Safe' may or may not match exactly though they will always

be close. In other words a violet will always be a violet but may be

slightly different when rendered by 2 different programs do to the fact

that 16 bit colors are rounded from the 24 bit palette and there is no

standard algorithm for calculating this.

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Ideal Computer Monitor Color Display:


On a 24 bit monitor display a color that is or is not 'Web safe' should

display and match exactly as specified.


On a 16 bit monitor display a color that is or is not 'Web safe' should

display a color very close to the color you specified and different

programs (including browsers and plugins) will rendered the color close

to what you specified.


On an 8 bit monitor display a color that is a 'Web safe' should display

and match exactly as specified.


On an 8 bit monitor display a color that is a not 'Web safe' will

display a color from its 256 palette that it thinks is close to the

color your specified, this can and does result in colors appearing very

different what was intended and huge variations from system to system.

Many times the result on the monitor bears little resemblance to what

the author intended. The 'Web safe' palette was created because of this

problem.


Note the 'ideal' conditions above are also affected by the exact

operating system and how it is setup to use colors as well as by the

video card and how well the particular monitor is setup. On common

problem is for the O/S to steal a color so it is not available to any

other program regardless of the color depth setting. This is a minor

problem for 16 and 24 bit displays but can lead to major differences in

display between 8 bit Displays. Even with 16 and 24 bit displays this

palette stealing does cause problems with exact color matching. 


-----------                               -----------------------

John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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