Re: FLASH: Streaming Load Movie actions

[Marc Hoffman, Poison Dart Frog Media]

At 02:16 PM 2/6/00 , you wrote:

>  that has a nice preloader scene, that displays a

>cute status bar and percent indicator, and it all works well and lovely.

>

>at the end of the movie, there is a frame action to load in a menu system

>(which is quite large in itself) and am wondering wether flash will begin to

>download that movie whilst the current movie is playing (ala streaming) or

>wait until the frame action is executed to start obtaining the daya (which

>will result in a delay between movies, needing another loading movie).

>

>If the latter is true, then does anyone have any ideas how to make flash

>stream some the data?  Is the easiest way to combine the second movie with

>the first in the form of a new scene in the first movie?



Hi John,


First, try to avoid using scenes. They make advanced navigation and use of 

sound and movie clips unnecessarily difficult. Virtually all advanced Flash 

developers will give you that advice.


If your menu system is always going to get loaded (as I assume is the case) 

then it should be part of the initial movie. The only reason to break it 

apart as a separate movie would be if it might not be needed at all, or if 

the user might choose to see something else (of substantial size) first. By 

making it part of the same movie, it will load as fast as the bandwidth 

allows, with no intervention on your part. Even if a frame Stop action 

keeps it from playing, it will still be loading as fast as possible.


You can use If Frame Is Loaded in your preloader to make sure return trips 

to frame 1 do not require the viewer to sit through the preloader again.


I don't know how large is large for you, but usually it's a good idea to 

keep menu systems quite small. Depending how dedicated your audience is, 

they may not stick around for a big preloader just to get to the guts of 

the navigation. So try to keep it trim.


best wishes,




Marc Hoffman


Poison Dart Frog Media: Specializing in Flash Animation and Digital Audio 

Production

Our latest Flash job is on display at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/rickfrnd>

See our Flash portfolio at <http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/sampler>

(featured in Flash 3 Web Animation, by Ken Milburn)



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