Flash, Swish, Sound, Video, SlideShows, Optimizing and Tools

[Flash ho]

In the near future we will be putting together tutorials, downloadable templates for flash, examples and ideas to help you build better web sites.
We will explore the many tools available to build web sites that work. These will include photo/image editors, sound editors, video compressors and html editors, amoung others. It will be a place to share ideas and learning experiences. So, drag your questions here and we will try to drop some answers. Let's Rock!

[Flash ho]

ck this out

http://tantek.com/favelets/

I added the tools to my "links" toolbar in ie6. You can instantly view
pages in any resolution, see js code, see external css style sheets etc etc
. Very cool!!

[Shawn]

Do, you know if there is a way to make videos i make smaller? mine is over 100 MB's!

And i'm gonna start trying to work in SWiSH now. Dad bought it and i've never used it, so i'll make him happy!

Richard, where do you get your Swish tutorials at?
I don't know how to save mine.

Thanks.

[Fred]

Shane is the Swish expert. I'll bet he has some insight.

[Shane]

Hi Shawn,

Start with the tuturials that come with Swish (in Swish go to Help>Swish Tuturials) there are only 4 or 5 of them and a guy like you will fly through them. They give you the basics quickly and a quick overall grasp of simple preloaders, effects, button actions etc etc. Alot of people skip these but they are the quickest way of grasping how Swish works.

As you are working on them just go to File>Save as and rename each .swi (Swish File) with a different name, that way you get to keep whichever one you working on and also keep the original for reference.

In Swish as well go to File>Samples and rip them apart, they show more basic actions. Flashkit has open source Swish files at:

http://www.flashkit.com/board/forumdisplay.phps=0bfed1248912a1f88e0a1d4825022ce3 &forumid=17

The Flashkit ones will say 'Download .FLA' but in the Swish section they are all .SWI (Swish) files. Some aren't great but some are okay here.

Better ones here............
Swishzone (makers of Swish) also has some at:

http://www.swishzone.com/movies.php

& some more Tuturials at:

http://www.swishzone.com/index.phparea=tutorials&product=v2&tab=tutorials

If you need any help, just shout Shawn, have fun with Swish!!

There are a few ways of making your video's smaller, I would run them through Flash MX, compressing them first with the built in Soreson Squeeze

http://www.sorenson.com/

I've also had some success importing the .avi video into Flash MX and exporting it frame by frame as jpeg's, then compressing these and then importing each jpeg into Swish and using a place & remove action frame by frame on the series of jpegs, removing some to squash the file size. This takes forever to do but means the resulting video can be viewed in Flash 4/5 and up. Be warned that way is a painfully long process.

Streaming Flash is the best way to go using Flash MX.

More info here:

http://www.streamingmediaworld.com/flash/

http://www.noloading.com/ (Games etc but same idea)

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/43/index4a.html

http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/mx/flashcom/articles/odopod.html

These are some cheaper tools to create Flash video's

http://www.kibisis.com/

http://www.wildform.com/

I'm sure Richard also has other/better advice/ideas too on video........

[Flash ho]

I think You about covered that by George. Very complete, my man.

As Shane said, compression is key to make videos happen on a site. Flix, by Wildform and Squeeze Pro by Sorensen are in a head to head battle to gain the flash video market and as such are improving their products daily. Both are good, you will need one of them. Both have free trials, both cost about $80 bucks. I use both, but lean toward Sorensen.

Tip - provide a choice, broadband movie and dial up movie.

I've been working on videos since Aug and here are my first tests.
deer movie is 2.8m, butterfly is 1.9m, bee is 688k and cam_ph15 is 5.1m.
These were originals in minidv format, converted to avi and or mov, then compressed with flix or squeeze. What I learned? It all depends on original video on how the final product will come out. In other words, the same setting will not produce the same results on all videos. Ie, talking head vs B ball game. It is trial and error at first. Also, you should edit vids prior to compressing them ( studio 8, premier etc) crop crop crop chop chop chop. All this sounds confusing and complicated I'm sure, but it isn't! It is fun and you can be very creative. I'm working on second generation stuff now and will have something up in a week or two.

http://www.360panoramas.com/cam_phl5.html

http://www.360panoramas.com/load_unloadtest.html

on edit - don't worry about the flash part for now. Get your videos working, then getting them into flash is easy and Shane or I can help if you don't have access to flash mx. Or, you don't HAve to use flash, you could export for quick time or win media player, but flash is much smaller.

On edit once more - First thing you might want to do - go to flashkit.com
http://board.flashkit.com/board/forumdisplay.php?forumid=66
and read the sticky posts at the top. They are about video in general, not just flash mx video.

no more edits, promise!

[Shawn]

I made a video in VideoMach 2.6.3, not using flash and was wondering if you could make a video i made without using any type of Flash.

[Flash ho]

I'm not sure what you mean. You made a video - in what format? If you made it in avi, mov or mpeg, I can compress it for you. Is that what you need. If it is one of the above formats, it will play in the appropriate users player, just won't stream as well as flash, but it will stream. Give me more details, glad to help.

[Shawn]

Yeah, I made a video with music in the backgorund as a .avi format. I need you to compress it, so it's smaller.


Do you need the link to it?

[Flash ho]

Yeah, a link would be helpful. :)

I'll compress it in 2 ways 1. for a broadband connection and 2. for modem

Isn't a black cracka a contradiction? :?: :)

I like your sig btw. You made it? Nice stuff!

[Shawn]

There's a problem though Richard by giving you a link. The file is 144 MB's and i don't have that much space left in my account.

So, what do i do now? lol



Yeah, I made that sig. And my new nickname is Black Cracka because i'm white, and crackers you eat are white and my friends say i act like i'm black.

[Flash ho]

yo yo yo, way too large, and not oinly that, but the best crunching will only get it down to, say 25M, and that will take 83 minutes to d/l on a modem and 10 minutes on bb.
Largest I have worked with is a 5 minute clip, original was 30M, crunched to 4M. Can you chop your vid into say 10 clips? or maybe 7?
Also, to render a large file like that on a fast machine will still take forever.
It must be made smaller. How many Keyframes are you using? ( not flash key frames), try one every 20 or 30. It may be one in every 2 now.

Shouldn't be a Graham Cracka then?

[Shane]

Some quick examples of different (Flash/Sorenson) video compression Shawn..a short clip I'm working on..., no preloaders or anything, just straight to what I'm working on.......be patient these are rough working examples....remember that if you get bored waiting for loading your viewers will have got bored & gone elsewhere 2 mins before........

All the same clip, just using different compression.......

These are from a 1.35 MB avi file, your 144MB file is way to big for anything but CD.

http://www.watfordconnect.co.uk/dance1.html 18.4 kb

http://www.watfordconnect.co.uk/dance0.html 59.8 kb

http://www.watfordconnect.co.uk/dance2.html 123 kb

http://www.watfordconnect.co.uk/dance3.html 181 kb

First one is too compressed for anything but placing/Light Box or Client example use, after that it's a compromise based on viewer connection.

[Flash ho]

Hey, cool stuff. You shoot those? Are you going to make the blue screen transparent? If so, I'd like to know what the options are.

The last one, she jumped into my lap!

[Shane]

Yeah........ssshhhhhhh but that's Hulya's sister.......background can be changed.......filmed 1 hour of this stuff for a new site.........background is that colour for site it's aimed at, but hey tell me what you need 'bro it can be changed of course........got other dancing stuff you can have exclusive on. Some I need exclusive on. (sorry folks this is a Flash Ho type offer so he stops chasing me......... :shocked: )

She only jumped into yo lap to check your wallet & report back to me........

[Flash ho]

yeah know. like the "blue screen" when they shoot special effects or the blue behind the weatherman on tv. Where he is trying to point to New Orleans, but is really pointing at Orlando. Know how to do that? I can't find anything on it. Basically, make Bg transparent.

Hulya's sister huh? see e mail. :lol:

[Shane]

Not sure what you mean, my weather man points at London then says "it'll be cold up North, up there, but they deserve it". (he's right LOL).

Any site examples ?

I can make BG transparent for you no probs, My house is your house; you know this.

I have some .avi's I can send...or maybe easier to do this by mail

(sorry folks not meaning to be rude or insular) :shocked:
we'll always report back and share of course, just ask.

[Shane]

On Edit:

Do you mean a scrolling or maybe change/able background (in simple terms) ? I think I know what you mean & I'm sure we could do this.........

[fuhgedaboutit]

Yo

OMG :shock: WHAT ABOUT A GAL LIKE ME??? I swear if a 12 year old beats me to it...well I'll think of something. (j/k Shawn. Albeit a very talented 12 year old)

I just finished making a SWiSh movie (with a preloader). The SWiSh help says...Creates an .htm and .swf file for uploading to your web site. Both the .htm and .swf files will have the name you enter on the 'Publish SWiSH Movie' dialog box.
Note: Once these files have been created, simply upload to your web server (using FTP or similar). That's it. No other files are necessary to play your SWiSH Movie over the internet. yada yada yada

Naturally it didn't work. I saved it in SWiSH v2.0 as HTML (*.html,*.htm). I went to the Control Panel > public_html and uploaded. (First one file, then I went to WinExp and saw that there were two files (?)) Then I spend the next while uploading/deleting it (them) to every &%$#@& folder that looked close. I'm too tired to try the WS_ftp or WebStudio.

Plus I'm getting just a tad bit irritated because every time I go to the file manager it opens up (I should say minimizes) to 3/4th of a page then I spend time trying to get all the other pages back to normal. Gee if I were married I'd have somebody to yell at, or something.

I'm soooooooooo frustrated! I give up! (well not really) No wonder I don't have a website!!! This is getting embarrassing. :oops:

http://www.fuhgedaboutit.com/Image35.gif

Why can't I have a cushy job dancing? :roll:

Later, Cracka Jackay

[Shane]

Oh poor Dusty......off your knees girl, oh okay stay down there..... "I saved it in SWiSH v2.0 as HTML "........Swish should only save the .swi file.........are you EXPORTING (File>Export>HTML) as HTML ? This will produce your 2 files a .SWF and the .HTML , Double clicking then, on the HTML file will play your Swish movie, so you can test your Swish locally. Then upload these two files the .HTML & .SWF....

Or am I misunderstanding ?

[Flash ho]

Hi Funny One,
Ok, so now that we have a new image of Dusty!!, ......You don't have to get on your knees, I'll help.....I'll hang from the rafters.

ahh yes, naughty and nice.

I don't use the file manager ( to me, it makes something very simple into something very complicated) , but here is how to do it with an ftp program, like ws_ftp. ( forget using Wide Sedan (ws) as that would really complicate manners),

You have a main site which has an index page, find the index page in ws_ftp on remote side (right), in that same list ( being in the same directory) upload the html and swf files. link to the html file. done.

www.mysite.com/yoursupersexymovie.html is where it will be.

If you are putting it with in an existing page, even a wide sedan page, copy the code from object to object and place it in the body of the html page. Of course with Wide Sedan, use the work around $thisfolderurl$/ before the movie name.
Then the url would be
www.mysite.com/pagewithmoviesandpics.html and the swf file would be embedded in the page.
The screen shots show that something is wrong. you should have an ie page (html page), a swf icon (swf file) and swish icon (editable swish file, not for uploading, it is like an ows file) (old wide sedan)

When you publish your movie, it should produce the html and swf files. When you save your file a swish file is created.

Confused? then forget it and get back on your ..............

[Helen]

Dusty... whether you upload with your control panel file manager or WSftp, EVERYTHING goes into the public_html folder. That is the folder Richard is referring to as your "main folder where the index.html is".

All of your WS folders and html pages go in there. :)

[fuhgedaboutit]

I did it! Thanks Shane, Richard & Helen. I see (kind of what you're talking about, it's more of a link. I've been leaving off the .html) Helen you probably get tired of telling me the same thing...Everything goes in the public html folder. (What about the folders in it?) In addition to that I've been trying to load a main page (home) to the p html. that's where I've been having a prob) Last night I made a quick try to load the a swish for the home page. I did Happy New Year.index.html. Didn't work. I was to tired to try again, lol. Man this stuff wears me out more than you guys,lol :shock: I'm probably not making much sense, but I'm rushed.

Thanks I'll be back.

PS....Richard & Shane where are your minds? That's a rap to see if Shawn would know it.:roll:

[Shane]

You can rap on your knees can't ya ? :shocked:

Your swish movie works great !

Just a quick tip I'd use only lower case letters in file names/web address and no spaces! Use an underscore_ if needed or just no spaces. Works fine though, neat stuff!

[Flash ho]

I'm missing something - Where is your swish movie? I don't see a link anywhere.

Let me clarify where your swf files go. If the movie is on the index ( home page) then swf files go in the root folder ( public_html) , but if your swf file is on another page and you have folders for each page then it will go in the page folder. So, if you had a HappyNewYear.html page with swf file on it , swf would be in same folder as HNY.html. Say you put a HNY folder in the public html folder, in the HNY folder you have - HappyNewYear.html, the swf file and maybe other pages HangOver.html, etc. Your link direct to HNY folder is www. mysite.com/HNY/HangOver.html

A "/ "will take you to a folder. A "/ "with nothing after it will look for an index.html.

So....you have Quote - I did Happy New Year.index.html. Didn't work. unquote
That should be HappyNewYear/index.html

and like Shawn says, no spaces. index is a name of your first page. Each folder needs an index OR it needs to be called by a link to an html file with in it. Like ............/mypage.html

Ok Auntie Dusty, I found the link! Good stuff. How come you didn't share those cookies from Kelly? ( Anything you upload to your site can be gotten to! ) Tip - you have an index folder and you have swf files in it and in your public_html folder. You don't need 1. an index Folder ( but you will need and index page, once you need a home page and 2. swf files in your index folder are not needed. tip2 . put up a home page, even if it just says "hi, page coming soon", then it will be harder for people to get to your parent directory ( public_html folder)
I'll send you a screen shot tonight of my ftp set up and all of this will become instantly clear.

[Flash ho]

If anyone wants to add a panotone colour chart to their library or wants a chart to refer to on their hd, e mail and I can send the files. one is the chart 20k and the other is a list with Panotone names and hex numbers. 6k, more info here.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-color-20020219/#x11-color

[spongebob]

Hiya Flash Ho professor,

Is this the place where I can post a question about Flash? I'd like to create a flash panorama viewer like you've done, but I'm really stuck on the vague instructions given at flashkit. Can you help me out? Don't laugh, but I'm puzzeled on instrustion number 1 and 2.

1. To accomplish the wrap-around we duplicate the original image on the same time line.

Before I start to do this is there any special settings that I need to make the movie like size or anything? I guess I would click file, import, browse to the photo, and repeat the procedure twice because they want a duplicate of the origanal image????

2.To move around the image, we feed the doubled-up image into a masked square that acts as our window and push the image within that mask.

This is what really puzzels me. I don't know how to make a mask. I don't see anything that indicates how a mask can be made.

Is this how you create your panos ?

I know there are a couple of tutes, but this ones seems to be the easiest.

Thanks

[Flash ho]

Hi Betts, That sounds like the same one I used to get started. I'll try to explain. In a movie clip, place the image to the right of the registratiion point , copy it, crtl c, and paste it (crtl v) to the left of the registration point, keeping the y value the same. Hope you know about movie clips! :)

On the size of the stage, size it to the image or larger if you have titles , controls etc.


To create a mask, right click on layer name, select mask. This will be a rectangle which will let your image show thru it.Name it "mask" Place a new layer below this mask layer, name it "masked". that is the layer that will hold your image MC.

There is a fla file available for download with that tute, the last time I checked. Down load that, look in the library and see the bitmaps he has used, write down the names of them. save his fla. Save it again as tute2 or whatever. Go to your image folder, right click your images, name them same as his. Open tute2, right click bitmap images in libary and update them or import your images and dialogue box will ask" replace existing images with these? say yes. No puiblish your movie and see your pano, mask size will need to be sized to your image size and grid lines will need to be moved to get the speed control you like ( spread them out for slower pans)

Are you using flash 5 or MX? If you get stuck, I can mail you a fla sized to your image size. Also, make sure you optimize the image! to the max!

Post back with your questions hth

[spongebob]

Thanks Rich!

I'll look into this over the next couple of days and post my questions here.
I'm sure there will be alot of questions as I'm really clueless. It seems all I really know how to do is click and drag and that's about it. :oops: Thanks for your help.

Betts

[Flash ho]

Hi Betts, Hope you didn't spend days on this as I steered you in the wrong direction. The flash tute above has to use a flat 360 vr pano. Using a fish eye won't work unless you edite your stitched images to become a flat 360. Don't generate a sherical or cubical pano, must be flat. Wide angle lens, 28mm, requires 9 shots using the 995.
To use a fisheye image, you need to create a vertical floow mouse action in addition to the horiz. (as above) ( gets complicated) QT ( 50% of users have qt) will be the easiest to use or the applet you are currently using.
Fisheyes use 1/3rd of the image for the sky and another 1/3rd for the ground, by eliminating those, your file size is 1/3rd original size and you get smoother mouse actions, but you pay for it in that it takes longer to shoot. Always a trade off. Do you sill have that Garden photo? The one you made a pano with faries, horses etc. Could I use it? ( the original, with out the faries) Thanks and sorry for misguiding you.

[spongebob]

Hey don't worry, I realized that even if I got it to work, it would look pretty warped. You can use anything I got, unfortunatey, the garden pano was slightly out of focus so I started playing around and painting it. I don't have the original, only the fairy version. I have a beach pano though. Sorry for being absent for a few days.