Printable View
Compile certain parts of a game. It should give you an option to update only the script, or instance names, or objects, etc. Cause when you start getting a big project, it becomes annoying having to wait 5 minutes for flash to compile something and then realizing you ****ed up so you have to recompile again after a small change.
Can you tell me the point of all these posts where you think Flash has it's limits?
You should contact MM about these, they won't do much with anything they read in the forum..
Compiling a proper made project takes one minute, max. Unless you're working on a highly advanced game, which I'm sure you're not. So it's proberbly you who's doing something wrong here. Or you have a slow computer.
That's why some Flash sites are imade n several parts (like 10 swfs) so the updates will be faster applied and the visitor doesn't have to redownload the whole site again. Also some games have several parts, but I prefer one whole swf for a game.
Reminds me of my "Final UO Movie" which had 12 mins of animation and over 16000 frames (yes, over 16000 frames, more like 20000 cuz I used 16000 on the main timeline and then more in a movieclip). The fla was 160+mbs and took me like 20 mins to compile (used Flash 5 then). I constantly updated that movie (which actually was an intercative movie)
Somehow I was thinking the same thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by SaphuA
Maybe The_Mercenary should take more ActionScript lessons and learn a bit about the coding language before coming here shouting about Flash's "limits".
:thumbsup:
Sadly, slow compilation is a fact of life in the computer industry. I've worked on some projects running on big Solaris boxes that take 15-20 minutes to compile and I know that some PS2 and XBox games can take hours to compile with all the art assets. It's annoying and there isn't much you can do about it when things get really large.
With that said, I agree with everyone else, 5 minutes is pretty excessive for Flash. I suggest you externalize assets and load them in at runtime. Not only does this make things more flexible, it will dramatically reduce the compile time of specific components.
compile times are largely dependant on number of frames. As ironclaw pointed out, if you have animation over 10,000 frames it can take several minutes. Converting audio will also extend compile times, so you should try to import in the same format / bitrate you intend to use. If you have a 5 minute mp3 that you want compressed in your game, you are better off saving it as a seperate swf and loading it on the fly to avoid converting it every time you compile.
But 5 or 10 minutes to compile a game is not so bad compared to say making a level in quake 1 that has to be left overnight to work out the vis and lighting. Hell, in the amiga days, it could take several days to raytrace animations that ended up as game sprites.
1) My PC can run half-life 2 maxed outQuote:
Compiling a proper made project takes one minute, max. Unless you're working on a highly advanced game, which I'm sure you're not. So it's proberbly you who's doing something wrong here. Or you have a slow computer.
2) My game isnt "Highly Advanced" but its a huge game, the fla is over 100mb
3) 5 minutes was exaggeration, the real time is around 1.5-2 minutes
Well, too much of the game is built in one fla to turn it into several parts. Though, I will be doing this in the future for big games. BTW my game's cutscenes run at 25fps and I definatly have more than 7,000 frames of animation in there. Thats not even counting the character, which has about 1000 frames of animation. It has like 20 some pieces of music and a bunch of sound effects, the library has over 1000 objects.Quote:
That's why some Flash sites are imade n several parts (like 10 swfs) so the updates will be faster applied and the visitor doesn't have to redownload the whole site again. Also some games have several parts, but I prefer one whole swf for a game. Reminds me of my "Final UO Movie" which had 12 mins of animation and over 16000 frames (yes, over 16000 frames, more like 20000 cuz I used 16000 on the main timeline and then more in a movieclip). The fla was 160+mbs and took me like 20 mins to compile (used Flash 5 then). I constantly updated that movie (which actually was an intercative movie)
I'm not some ****ing AS noob okQuote:
Somehow I was thinking the same thing. Maybe The_Mercenary should take more ActionScript lessons and learn a bit about the coding language before coming here shouting about Flash's "limits".
-----------------------------------------------------
And My post was just a damn suggestion, cause I've seen a 3d game compiler that lets you update certain things about the game like lighting, code, etc.
Hey if your game is so heavily advanced how bout you show it to us?Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Mercenary
I had a game with a 100 mb source file then after deleting unnecessarry sounds and images and reducing the sprites to a minimum it was down to 1 mb. There is even a save and compress function in the flash id.
My games take less than 5 seconds to compile except for I put in wavs. The converting takes the most time. So the best would be having your sounds smaller or extern if it takes to long to compile like mentioned.
The game isnt finished yet. I'm gonna have beta version in a few days hopefully. I'll PM it to you. Trust me, I dont have anything useless in my games library. I delete anything unnessacery, how else would I meet the 5 meg swf limit on newgrounds?? The game is only 4.3 megs in the swf form. :P Talk about extreme compression. I can deal with the long compiling times though.
Well it would be cool if that was possible (I think you mean like some 3D gaming programs that can do that), but I think being able to do all the things you can already do in flash is alright. Also, flash is made mostly for web applications so it isn't really needed, but anyway that would be nice.Quote:
Compile certain parts of a game. It should give you an option to update only the script, or instance names, or objects, etc. Cause when you start getting a big project, it becomes annoying having to wait 5 minutes for flash to compile something and then realizing you ****ed up so you have to recompile again after a small change.
P.S.
I thought you could be making this kinda posts to be able to put your avatar but you still haven't so maybe you'd really like to see what others think of those things, maybe making only a thread of 'what would you like flash to have' would be better ;)Quote:
Can you tell me the point of all these posts where you think Flash has it's limits?
I'd like to see it also, could you pm it to me too?Quote:
The game isnt finished yet. I'm gonna have beta version in a few days hopefully. I'll PM it to you.
Mercenary, I've worked on some huge flash projects (100mb upwards)
Here are some things I think are essential:
Make all of your sounds dynamic, have a quick way of switching them off with AS, have them all in one folder, and take them out of the library when working on other parts of the project, if you're compiling several times a day it's worth it.
Go through the library, take out any redundant graphics/mc's then save and compact. This will help any memory issues and speed up compiling.
100mb is huge for a fla. I've seen a high spec pc choke up on a 20mb fla just because it had thousands of movieclips and a few meg of sound. You might want to consider splitting up your game into smaller fla's/swfs. This will make authoring a lot easier, it will also be a huge benefit if the final swf turns out to be a few meg. You want a huge swf even less than you want a huge fla.
As far as flash limits go, they do exist, but they're negotiable. Provided you plan out your projects well and make them flexible for the odd time flash does actually break. I've seen a movie start to inexplicably miss the odd frame after a few thousand on a timeline. Splitting the project into pieces solved the problem, and made the whole thing far more manageable.
phobik: Sure
lesli_felix: All of the sound in my flash is done by code. and all of it is in a folder. Its alright, I can live through compiling it. The SWF isnt too big if you read my other post.
Anyway, right now I cant remove the sound cause I need to see if the sound works right cause its been screwing up and stuff.
4.3 megs, according to your other post, which is huge for a web game.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Mercenary
Not for the amount of stuff it has.
Seriously, how much stuff it has is irrelevant, 4.3 mb is a lot for a single flash file, unless it streams in so you can start playing before later levels etc are loaded.
Well, I've seen bigger movies without a stream option. I cant make it stream because I'm not sure how much stuff is gonna be loaded at what percent, and I cant test this stuff cause I dont have dial up so It'll load really fast. I'll have it downloadable in a zip file which will cut the size in half, but the web version is gonna have to stay that big.
How big are the cut scenes?
Maybe if you still had energy left in you after you've finished your game, you can go back and make those load in externally. That would probably save a heap of file size. But then again, I'm unsure of how your fla is structured.
Oh if you do this, make the movies stream, and make sure to give the user the option to skip the movies. As awsome as they probably are, personally I would rather skip them and play the game.
If you do this, make the game a smaller size, I'm sure you can increase the number of people willing to play your game, as people are hesitant to download zipped games (and I don't know how much zipping a compressed swf really does, can it really cut the size down by half?)
Anyway, look forward to seeing the game.
Arg now that you said you'd send me the game I got even more interested. How long will it take until you send it? :)
zipping an already compressed swf should make it a little bit bigger.
Merc, you do know about choosing a test download speed from the debug menu and pressing Ctrl-Enter a second time when testing your movies right?
Well...some range from a couple of hundred frames to a thousand something. I'm not sure how many kilobytes they are though, I use alot of movie clips so it only has to load alot of the stuff once. Skip buttons are essential.Quote:
How big are the cut scenes?
Well, I'm working on the unlockable minigames right now and clearing up some bugs (flash is being stupid and wont go to the right level after a certain cutscene, even though there is nothing in the code that I can find wrong), and I should be done in 2 days at most, though the voice actor forgot to record one of the lines so I have to wait until he sends it to me, but if he takes too long I'll just send the game anyway. He hasnt replied to my email asking him to hurry it up (cause its been like 3 weeks, its not that hard to record 1 line).....Anyway, if everything goes right, I should have it ready in a couple of days.Quote:
Arg now that you said you'd send me the game I got even more interested. How long will it take until you send it?
Well, it doesnt make it bigger, but it didnt cut the file size in half...oh well...Quote:
zipping an already compressed swf should make it a little bit bigger.
As far as the test options go, I saw those before, they didnt effect my flash when I changed it so I just left it like that (didnt think about restarting the flash). Thanks, i'll test it.
dude, that test thing doesnt work
Yes it does.
On a MAC to test the flash movie under a certain bandwidth you press APPLE KEY + ENTER.
On PC it's CONTROL + ENTER.
What do you have the settings set to? I like to use 56K. Maybe you have it set too high or low.
thats normal. i program for living my compile takes around 20 minutes for a professional application. be happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Mercenary
To compose a demo for the EA Game day, British design group Criterion games (Burnout series) had to compile something for "48 hours". Probably didn't take that long, but they need to do testing.
-pXw
mine was on 56k and i tried even lower and it wont work, it just loads the flash right away when you push control+enter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pugger
Man! Thats long as hell! Criterion is an awsome company btw :)Quote:
Originally Posted by WilloughbyJackson
try control& enter a second time.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Mercenary
or just go to the view menu and select 'simulate download'
k thanks, I'll try that...wait up? So its in mx 2004? damn..alright, I can test it in that. But I cant build my game in mx 04 cause it takes too long to do a certain action (typing 1 letter of code takes loading, and then the next letter, saving takes forever...not sure why, but I cant do it in mx 04, I'll try to publish it in 04 but building the game cant be done in it)
crap! The graph shows that my first frame will take 1000kb to load...WHICH IS VERY BAD! Anyone know how I can change this? The first frame doesnt really inlcude anything that would make up 1000kb.