2advanced smooth tweening

[browzah]

Can anybody tell me how did 2advanced got to tween smoothly the closing door, and how did it suddenly slow down when it is almost to close.

[aa]

frame rate is probably 18 or 24fps, the doors aren't complicated shapes so they tween well, and he set a key frame close to when the doors are shut and moves the doors that shorter distance over a number of frames that gives the slower animation.

[browzah]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. But isn't it that the larger the frame rate, the larger the movie? If so, then I guess it would be better to slice the movie into multiple swfs, so that it would load better and faster. But some says that there's not much difference between dividing the movie or not. If this is true then whats with the load movie?

[aa]

whoever told you that splitting up movies into smaller ones doesn't make a difference probably hasn't tried it, or doesn't even know how to do that.

a faster frame rate won't increase your size very much. at least that has been my experience. the reason is that the symbols, shapes, audio and bitmaps take up by far the most space in your movie than anything else.

flash does store information frame by frame. for example, say you have a symbol in frame 1 and it has some animation lasting until frame 10. flash has to display it in frame 1 which probably takes the most bytes, then stores changes to that symbol in each successive frame, but not the actual symbol as in frame 1. whether your movie is 6fps or 24fps, flash still has to store the symbol in frame 1.

right now i'm developing a new site that has a "main" movie, an audio movie, and a bunch of small movies for content areas that the main one loads when the user chooses. this way, what the user doesn't explore won't even get streamed in the 1st place, making for a faster overall stream. there are about a dozen movies total.

[RUSHVision]

In regard to your question about how he got the doors to slow down as they neared each other.......the answer is found on the Docker Panel that houses the Frame tab. You want to adjust the "easing". Easing in will make it slow at the beginning and easing out is what he did. You can adjust this to any percentage.

Enjoy.........

[browzah]

Thank you guys.

I'm already starting to make my own personal flash movie. Do you think E.Jordan would mind if I try to replicate his animation(how the movie goes)? but not most of his movie. I also just want to try and feel how he did it or how they did it.

Also, which graphic format is better to use with flash JPEG or BMP?

Another one, can you suggest what Flash5 book are best to buy and study with, with concern about the structural and designing technique.

Thanks in advance and more power to you guys

[aa]

well, since a lot of 'designers' blatenly rip off some of the things he does (some of them mr. jordan didn't think of first, but everyone seems to think he does) so i'm sure no one will raise hell if you make a door that opens up and closes to reveal content.

[RUSHVision]

I would heartily recommend that you experiment with these techniques. You are going to want to be careful, however, as to how closely you immulate his work. (Especially if you post your work in the Site Check forum!)

Take inspiration from the quality of his layout, his use of color, his smooth animations and quality content, but make your designs your own. Allow yourself to express your own personal and unequivacably unique perspective of the world. Cultivate your eye for color, form and motion, always looking to improve your craft. As artists and designers, it is our lucky lot in life to be able to explore these parts of ourselves. This is YOUR opportunity to shine, share with us YOUR vision.

And always, ALWAYS, push yourself beyond where you thought you could go.

Keep Flashing!

[browzah]

Originally posted by RUSHVision
Take inspiration from the quality of his layout, his use of color, his smooth animations and quality content, but make your designs your own. Allow yourself to express your own personal and unequivacably unique perspective of the world. Cultivate your eye for color, form and motion, always looking to improve your craft. As artists and designers, it is our lucky lot in life to be able to explore these parts of ourselves. This is YOUR opportunity to shine, share with us YOUR vision.

And always, ALWAYS, push yourself beyond where you thought you could go.

Now that's the best inspirational talk a person ever gave to me. Thanks!

That's what I've been trying to do, ever since I found the Bauty of the Web, until Flash. I been going to many different sites that show quality top of the line designs. And Flashkit is one of them. I also checked this site for other design(for the benefit of the others, here's the address) http://www.coolhomepages.com

I'm also sorry to ask you this again.
What's the best flash5 book that you would recommend that has the design technique and strategies?

[browzah]

Also, what about JPEG vs. BMP which is better to use with flash?

[RUSHVision]

Unfortunately, I can't really give you too many good book recommendations. When I started learning Flash, I started with Flash 4 about a year and a half ago and there just weren't that many good Flash books written yet (to my knowledge anyway). I picked up "Flash 4 for Windows & Macintosh" by Katherine Ulrich, a "Visual Quick Start Guide". The cover said: "Teach yourself Flash the quick and easy way! This Visual QuickStart Guide uses pictures rather than lengthy explanations. You'll be up and running in no time!"


This did a better job of explaining Flash than the manual that came with version 4 (what a joke that was!), but still left me wanting. I read both of those books cover to cover many times, but in the end, I ended up surfing the net and searching myself for most of my answers. I know exactly what you are talking about when you ask about the best way to structure your Flash designs. Working in Flash releases us from a great many limitations, but brings with it a brand new set of rules. These can be challenging to learn because it is a completely new medium. No longer constrained by the many of the previous limitations of html, not only are the new Flash designers struggling to grasp both what this new medium is capable of, but also how to go about achieving it.



In addition to the advice to haunt these boards like a knowledge-hungry spectre, I would suggest that you surf the net looking at tutorials, downloading .fla files, checking out other people's work and when you find something interesting, see if you can make it happen yourself. Every piece of information that you come across is yet another tool in your arsenal of creativity. Knowledge is built much like one puts together a puzzle, with each piece that you add lending a greater clarity to the whole. By combining the techniques that you learn, you begin to evolve a style of expression that will begin to take on a life of it's own. Breath gently on these quiet embers until the flames of your passion for what you can accomplish are bright enough to light the way for others. Let your designs speak to the world about who you are.



There is more than one way to do just about everything, and everyone who uses Flash uses it a bit differently, even if they use some of the same techniques. Take the best of what you find and take ownership of the concepts. You can then expand on them and take them in new directions. How this relates to the structure and design of Flash movies is thus.........it is all going to depend on the result that you are trying to achieve. Determine first what your goal for the project is. What is the scope of the information that you want to convey? A portfolio site is likely going to be set up very differently than say, a major retailer who has tons of products, daily deals, banner ad rotation and online merchant capability.



So having determined your goal for the project, you need to decide how to go about presenting your design to the viewer. The methods you can employ to carry this out are as plentiful as there are birds in the sky, and each has a different destination. You can load your entire movie in one big chunk, you can stream in a sleek and optimized interface for navigation and load each section of your site as separate movies, you can do your entire site in Flash, or you can just use strategically placed Flash elements. Scifi.com is an excellent example of this (you should check this out BTW, if you haven't already ~ now that is what I call some sweet integration between Flash and html!).



So, in closing........(I know, your thinking "so, when is this guy going to shut up?") Always start out with where you want to end up. And here is one you can apply to every part of your life............your results will always depend on how well you visualized your goal.

I hope you find this helpful (even if it was incredibly long-winded!)

Peace

[RUSHVision]

Originally posted by browzah
Also, what about JPEG vs. BMP which is better to use with flash?

Sounds like you are asking if Flash is better at handling one of these formats better than the other. If this is the case, I would say Flash doesn't much care which one you use. I try to use jpegs whenever I can because they are generally going to result in a smaller file size. However, if you are using a relatively small image or you plan on tracing the bitmap (you can also trace jpegs) to edit it or to sever it's relationship to the original graphic (often resulting in a smaller file size), you might want to use a bitmap. You will usually get better clarity using bitmaps, but they are generally bigger files than jpegs. You have to let the design requirements (cap placed on the download time by the client, aka <<"I want the equivilant of a motion picture on my site, and I don't want it to take more than five seconds to load the whole site!">>, or does your client expect mostly high-bandwidth visitors?) determine the best format for each project. Or even each piece of each project (you use jpegs for your larger images and bitmaps for smaller, more detailed ones). The permutations are endless.

Hope that helps