File: junes.swf-(1.61 MB, 480x270, Loop)
[_] my first swf Anon 3486543 Followed the guide for slowpokes. Have some questions: 1. How do you play two tracks, one after the other? I want track one to be the intro, then the looped audio for track two. 2. Is there a better way to get better audio quality? Got source audio as an M4A from khinsider, then used audacity to loop and export as WAV. 3. Is there a way to change text selection color? Will happily take any other advice for future flashes. inspo: trance.swf :3
>> [_] Anon 3486544 >># nice job anon, saved 1. option A) use actionscript 2 or 3 with an event listener on the first track that triggers when the audio ends, the code then starts the second audio which loops forever. don't know how seamless this is. option B) set first track as streaming audio, have a high frame rate so that you can start an event of the forever-looping audio at the very end of the streaming audio. there will be a little overlap of the end of the first audio and the start of the second audio, how much overlap depends on how high you make the framerate. 2. dunno how much better quality you want. m4a to wav is lossless and then you import it in flash as an mp3, at 128kbps and higher people won't really notice a difference in quality and those that claim they do are lying. you can use "not mp3" (forget what it was called), basically raw format, but then the filesize skyrockets. technically you can embed an array of bytes in flash and load it as streaming audio via ActionScript3, that way it's possible to use AAC music files (and H.264 video) 3. i kinda forget but i think you can change the selection color by setting a glow color? if you don't want an actual glow just set the distance to zero.
>> [_] Anon 3486545 >># in regards to point 1 option B i should mention that if you want your animation to be 30 fps you can set the flash to 120 fps and just increase the distance between keyframes by 4. that way you get very little overlap and everything still looks like you want it. since flash uses CPU rendering it may be difficult to render in 4K at 120 fps if you have very busy visuals, you can enable frameskip by using a completely silent streaming audio on the main timeline, just set its bitrate to extremely low so the silence doesn't bloat the swf file. i think using a silent streaming audio together with a looping audio event was how weebl achieved audio/visual sync in his flash loops ~15 years ago (it's an easy trick on how to achieve synced loops without actionscript, still falls out of sync when repeating several times - if you want perfect sync you can use actionscript to check the timestamp in the repeating audio and gotoAndPlay() the frame that is supposed to appear at that millisecond).
>> [_] Anon 3486551 >># very competently looking flash, OP! for 1. you can take a look at this .fla: https://web.archive.org/web/201805260833 35/https://railgun.ml/flash/I%20Am%20(Not )%20Very%20High.fla it has code that sets an event that plays an intro once and then sets up a different sound as a loop that play MAX_INTEGER times (read: infinite) you can just copy paste the code and name your imported audio files accordingly (not the file name but the AS name) 2. wav to mp3 inside flash is an acceptable way to create loops, be mindful of the filesize for the average joe playing the loops maybe a few seconds increasing the filesize exorbitantly just for an inaudible increase in sound quality is not helpful
>> [_] Anon 3486552 >># I tried it but sadly there still is a silent gap between the songs
>> [_] Anon 3486556 >># Nice SWF, nice to see that people are still making them even after ~1.5 years since the discontinuation.
>> [_] Anon 3486562 >># Thanks for the example project. I tried messing around with the delay field in setTimeout() since I was running into the same issues as >># I noticed that when testing the movie in CS6, the delay was much longer than after exporting as a swf. And when testing after exporting to swf, I noticed that the delay between tracks varied between instances of the swf. (tested in palemoon) Anyone know why the gap between tracks might vary? >># Will try to experiment with option B Thank you all for the advice and help
>> [_] Anon 3486565 >be mindful of the filesize any tips on how to do this? asking for a /f/riend
>> [_] Anon 3486566 >># it's been years but i remember as2 being flawed with timed events, it could be tied to the fps or something. as3 works better.
>> [_] Anon 3486567 >># he just means you need to make sure to use the mp3 audio setting with a balanced audio quality (audio bitrate). many beginners forgets to change audio to mp3 and then the filesize goes up a lot since you basically have a wav file inside your swf. you can also make sure to repeat-use the same resources instead of duplicating them. for example if you import a gif that have the same animation across 50 frames and then have 10 frames of different animation you can delete 40 frames and repeat the first 10 frames 4 times, you get the exact same visuals but less bytes needed.
>> [_] Anon 3486568 >># also be sure to change imported gif frames from lossless to jpg quality, that is also a beginner mistake. unless the gif is pixel art and needs to be sharp, of course. then keep lossless and make sure image smoothing is off (a property of the imported frame). man its starting to come back to me
>> [_] Anon 3486574 >># tried as3 as well. same behavior still occurs. even when refreshing the flash in the same page, varying delay times can be noticed.
>> [_] Anon 3486576 the compressed audio makes it feel more nostalgic
>> [_] Anon 3486577 Realized the audio sounded bad because I was using whatever the default compression AS6 uses instead of mp3. Not sure why I assumed that AS6 would have done that by default. Glad some of you find the compressed audio enjoyable regardless. If I ever figure out how to transition between the intro and looped audio smoothly and consistently, I'll post an updated version of this.
>> [_] Anon 3486582 >># I had the same issue. Can't really tell how to effectively prevent it, but here is what I surmised: It has to do with your CPU processor speed (as usual per flash). As, the second the intro stops, it sets up a loop with actionscript, it needs like a split second to process the code before the audio can actually start. Moreso than the frame options with classical looping (as this is hard coded into how flash operates). Depending on many factors like compression (don't forget that imported mp3 makes silence always), the length of the audio you loop, the time elapsed playing the flash and the notability of the gap. Realistically there will always be a minor gap. The trick is to set the cut in a way where there isn't a sound wave playing at that precise time (like between beats maybe even a short silence in the song before a drop). Last time I ran into the problem I think I made a short streaming portion of the intro that only plays once during the preloader fadeout, then made the rest the AS3 intro and made it so that on the same frame the audio stops and the code gets executed there isn't too much happening like other code or stage changes or a lot of bitmaps on screen. I don't really know if it changed something in the end, but I did notice that the gap tended to disappear when I reloaded the already loaded swf. >># Always check every sound item in library 2 times. Assuming you imported 44khz wav then go to the sound file and set the compression to raw 44khz. It should denote 100% filesize. After you're done with everything go there again and set compression mp3 and a reasonable bitrate around 128kb. The reason for this is that CS will not have to compress the file every time you test the flash, but only when everything is finished and ready to export. Can't hurt to change the default compression also if you have various smalller soundfiles in there. Don't forget to always check your final product in a browser before uploading!
>> [_] Anon 3486585 what is the most acceptable flash size loop?
>> [_] Anon 3486586 >># could it be possible to somehow manipulate .length function of the audio? Because I can trace it and it always gives this value 35232.99319727891 (for this .fla posted here >>#) so if we can somehow subtract like a second off of it then it shouldn't create that gap, right?
>> [_] Anon 3486587 >># well of course I can I just forgot AS3 counts in milliseconds so just setTimeout(introComplete, intro.length - 1000); and the audio loop will start 1 second sooner
>> [_] Anon 3486594 >># imo <1.5 MB is small loop, below 3 MB is a mid-tier size, 3-4 is a large loop and above 4 is a very large loop. above 7 MB feels bloated/waste-of-space for just basic "visuals with looping audio". if you're talking about the swf file size
>> [_] Anon 3486595 lovely