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File Size And Performance

SWiSH is taking a long time to redisplay the Layout Panel. How can I speed this up?
If you have a lot of objects visible in a single Scene it will increase the time taken to redisplay the Layout Panel. To improve the redisplay time, try unchecking the Show All Images and Smooth Edges and Images options on the View menu. This will affect display quality, but should improve performance. You can also improve performance by hiding large objects, such as lengthy text objects and complex shapes. To hide an object select Edit | Hide, or click on the eye icon on the Outline Panel.

How can I reduce the size of the .swf file produced in SWiSH?
There are a number of techniques you can use. These include:

·	reusing similar fonts in similar sizes and colors

·	using smaller image and sound files. You can also change JPEG and sound compression options (e.g. choose MP3 compression)

·	looping short sound clips rather than using a single long clip

·	using vector graphics rather than bitmap (raster) images

·	reusing sprites. Use instances to ensure copies of sprites remain identical.

·	minimizing the use of Effects where lots of objects (or components of objects) are moving at once (such as explode and squeeze)

·	changing the options for 'Text as Shapes' and 'Share Font'. Although the default settings are usually the best, in some cases you can get smaller file sizes by changing these settings

·	checking the 'Do not animate off-stage objects' option on the Export Panel - this removes animation of objects that are outside the 'Movie' window of the .swf file

·	unchecking the 'Allow import of text as text object' option on the Export Panel - this removes some information that is only required when importing the .swf into Flash.

Why do some Effects produce larger .swf files than others?
Effects where lots of objects (or components of objects) are moving at once, such as Explode and Squeeze, require many 'Place' Object tags to be exported in every Frame of the .swf file. Effects that change both color and position will also increase the size. Effects such as typewriter only change the current letter being typed, requiring only one 'Place' Object tag per Frame.

Why does my Movie pause or play slowly when playing from the Internet?
The .swf file format requires fonts, shapes, image, sounds and so on to be defined before they are used. These definitions take up space in the .swf file and time to download. By default, SWiSH will export these content definitions at the Frame where they are first used. This can mean that playing will slow down or pause while the definitions at a Frame are downloaded. You can use various preloading techniques to stop this from happening and to make you Movie appear to load quicker and play more smoothly.

Why does my movie play at different speeds or slows down or speeds up partway through?
The frame rate (fps) is a maximum rate only. The Flash Player will render every frame of your animation. If a particular frame (or series of frames) involves a lot of computation, then that will slow down the play rate. Things that require a lot of work by the Flash Player (and therefore slow down your movie) are lots of objects with alpha < 100% (eg faded), or animating large bitmaps, or having lots of objects animated at the same time. If playback speed is a problem, look for these things and try altering your design to avoid them.

Why does my movie get slower and slower as it plays?
If you fade objects out, they remain on the stage completely transparent (with zero alpha). Even though you cannot see them, Flash Player still has to do expensive transparency calculations on them, and that will slow things down. Also you may end up with grpahic glitches with several transparent objects overlapping non-transparent objects. This is another Flash Player problem.

How can I find out what things are taking up space in my .swf file, and where they are?
Use the File | Test | Report command to see a breakdown of how much room is taken up by various SWF tags in each scene. You can use this to help fine tune the file size and performance.



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