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CreateFlashMovieForMscape
Creating a Flash Movie for Mediascapes
Adobe Flash gives you as the author a lot of different options for your flash movie. You can target different Flash Player versions, use different screen resolutions & framerates, different versions of
ActionScript and more.
The aim of this guide is to help you find the best settings to use for your Flash Movie for use in a mediascape. Note that I am assuming that you are using Flash CS3, earlier versions may have slightly different options available.
Setting up
- Start up Flash CS3
- Select File / New to create a new document
- Choose 'Flash File ActionScript 2.0'.
mscape player runs on
Windows Mobile which currently only supports
Flash 7. This version of flash supports
ActionScript 2.0 only, so this option should always be used. If you want to include any third-party ActionScript code, make sure it doesn't use ActionScript 3.0, or it will not work in your mscape.
- A new blank Flash movie will appear in the interface. Next up we need to set the screen size and frame rate options.
Most Windows Mobile devices are
320x240 in portrait mode, and
240x320 in landscape mode, so these are the recommended sizes to use. For frame rate, remember that the PDA is many times slower than your PC, so try and keep the frame rate as low as possible. We tend to use the default of
12 frames per second.
- On the main menu, go to Modify / Document. Set width to 320, and height to 240. Set Frame rate to 12.
- Next we are going to change the publish settings to ensure the Flash movie is compatible with the Windows Mobile version of Flash, Flash 7.
- On the main menu, go to File / Publish Settings.
- Click the Flash tab.
- Select Flash 7 from the drop-down list by the text 'version'. Double-check that ActionScript 2.0 is selected further down the page. The other default options are fine, though if you're going to use audio in flash you may want to experiment with higher quality audio stream and audio event settings. 96kpbs stereo for these can give excellent results for music and speech.
Speed Considerations
Flash movies will run considerably slower on your mobile device than they do on your desktop computer. It is a very good idea to regularly try out your flash movie on your mobile device during the development process to ensure that it runs at a reasonable speed.
Here are a few tips that can help you keep your movie fast and responsive.
- When using animation, try and confine that animations to small areas of the screen.
- Avoid transparency whereever possible, especially for larger objects.
- When using images, ensure the resolution of the image is as low as possible. For example, if you want a photo in the background, do not import a large image, and then scale it down inside Flash. Instead, reduce the resolution of the photo to the actual size you wish it to be on screen using a tool like PhotoShop, and then import it into Flash.
- Use the lowest frame-rate that is acceptable for your project.
