trying to distribute scripts across frames

[freelance hellraiser]

Hi,
I have a project which involves setting the values of about 12 - 16 variables over the course of 2 -3000 frames. They do not follow a set pattern, so I can't write an algorithm for them. So, what I'd like to do is somehow get a textfile / csv / something and translate that into a swf file so that you would have something like:

frame1:
x0 = 0
x1 = 4
x2 = 8
...
x16 = 3

frame2:
x0 = 2
x1 = 5
x2 = 7
...
x16=0

and so on over the course of a few thousand frames.

Does anyone know how I would go about doing this, or know of a good resource for starting to understand the workings of the swf file format?

thanks

PBH

[Musicman]

Hi,

I am using some perl or php to add actions at the beginning of an existing movie - the mechanism could probably be enhanced to add actions at every frame

Musicman

[freelance hellraiser]

sounds interesting, how does it work?

The other way I am investigating approaching this is via Javaswf ( http://anotherbigidea.com/javaswf ) which is a java interface for the generation / parsing of swf files. Using this, I should be able to convert an XML file into a swf file. May take some working at though....

[Musicman]

Hi,

actually there are two parts to it - you need a way to read a swf in units of tags and you need a way to compile your variables into an action tag.
Now the procedure for adding at the start is:
read / copy file header
read / copy background color
add action
read / copy reminder of file
In order to add actions at specific frames, you would need to count showframe tags and interpret the definesprite tag

Have a look at www.fontimages.org.uk - you will find php and perl source for a "just set variables" compiler

Musicman

[freelance hellraiser]

This looks very interesting, thanks mate - I'm going to take a close look at it over the weekend, and see how I get on...

I'll keep you posted..