Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Unit E: Optimizing and Publishing a Movie

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Objectives Make Flash content accessible Optimize a movie Understand publish settings Publish a movie for the Web

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Objectives Create and export a publish profile Export a QuickTime movie Create a projector file Export image files

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Making Flash Content Accessible Assistive Technologies   Used by individuals with disabilities   Allows them to interact with the document or perform tasks Building Accessibility into Flash Docs:   Incorporate principles of accessible design   Use Flash features to build in accessibility

Making Flash Content Accessible Accessibility Panel Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated

Optimizing and Publishing a Movie Goal: To reduce loading time while preserving quality   Publish entire movie in different formats   Export a single frame from a movie and save it in an image file format

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Optimizing a Movie Modify file attributes to eliminate bottlenecks in a given frame during downloading Goal: To ensure movie plays well regardless of Internet connection speed Gradients take more time to download so removing the gradient fill helps speed up the download

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Optimizing a Movie Modify | Shape | Optimize

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Optimizing a Movie Viewing shape optimization results

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Understanding Publish Settings File | Publish Settings Publish = instructs Flash to create necessary files to display document on the Web or other situations

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Using Publish Setting Dialog Box

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Using Publish Setting Dialog Box Choose output movie formats   Default: Flash (.swf) and HTML (.html) Selecting “Detect Flash Version” checks the user’s computer to see if Flash Player is updated   Prompts user to update if necessary

Using Publish Setting Dialog Box Choose still image file formats   GIF: for drawings and line art Limited quality, but supports transparency Static or animated (e.g., emoticons)   JPEG: for photographs and gradients Maintains image quality even when highly compressed   PNG: supports higher resolution images and transparency Native file format in Adobe Fireworks Does not include background color Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated

Using Publish Setting Dialog Box Choose stand-alone file formats   Projector file Stand-alone application that plays movie without using browser software or Flash Player Significantly larger than SWF files (contain all data needed to run the movie) Can be played from desktop, CD, or DVD

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Publishing a Movie for the Web Open Publish Settings dialog box Adjust the settings Publish the movie Default settings make the process seamless

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Adjusting the Settings Options on Flash tab adjust settings in SWF file JPG quality setting affects image quality/ size   Values of create higher- quality images Viewing publish settings on the Flash tab

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Adjusting the Settings Options on HTML tab specify how movie appears in the browser Set movie’s dimensions   Match Stage size   Fixed pixel width in the monitor   Based on percentage of monitor’s size Select Loop check box to play continuously

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Adjusting the Settings Viewing publish settings on the HTML tab

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Publishing a Movie for the Web Viewing published files (Win)

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating and Exporting a Publish Profile File in XML format that Flash creates, then uses when it exports data Makes publish settings available for use in other documents Can be applied to other movies by importing it; eliminates need to re- create publish settings Streamlines process for creating multiple movie files with same settings

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating and Exporting a Publish Profile Creating a publish profile

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating and Exporting a Publish Profile Exporting a profile

Creating XML Files and Understanding Publish Profiles Process of importing/exporting Flash profiles differs from importing/exporting files in other programs   When Flash exports a profile Transfers data contained in the profile, but not the profile name   When Flash imports a profile Prompts to replace current profile with data in the import profile, but name of the profile does not update to the import profile filename Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated

Understanding Flash Player Options and Mobile Phones If previous version of Flash Player is selected, features from later versions will not work properly or at all when users play the movie Other player options   Adobe AIR, for desktop applications and mobile devices   Applications for iPhones

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Exporting a QuickTime Movie QuickTime movies   Play animation well   Play on both Macintosh and PC computers QuickTime software   Standard with Apple operating system   Downloadable for Windows users

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Exporting a QuickTime Movie QuickTime Export Settings dialog box

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Exporting a QuickTime Movie Viewing results of QuickTime export

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Exporting a QuickTime Movie Playing a QuickTime movie

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating a Projector File Projector files   Stand-alone, self-running applications   Play a Flash movie on a computer that does not have browser software or Flash Player installed   Differ by platform; cannot run a Windows projector on a Mac, or vice versa

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Export Formats Export formats

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating a Projector File Both projector files can be published from a PC or a Mac   Only the one associated with computer’s platform can be opened Selecting projector formats

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Creating a Projector File Playing a Windows projector file

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Exporting Image Files For creating static image from a movie   Export a scene from a single frame   Export one object Three possible image file formats   GIF   JPEG   PNG

GIF Options Viewing options on the GIF tab Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated

JPEG Options Viewing options on the JPEG tab Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated

PNG Options Viewing options on the PNG tab Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Automatically makes background transparent

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Optimizing and Testing Key is to balance file size and download time against image quality No set rules to follow Keep experimenting with different file types and different settings for each type

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Simple Optimization Steps Reduce frame rate Use symbols Optimize and resize bitmap images before importing them Replace gradient fills with solid colors Use alpha transparency sparingly Use tween animation (instead of frame-by-frame animation)

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 – Illustrated Simple Optimization Steps Compress sound files Use solid lines created with Pencil Tool