Loading Flash movies before they start playing

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

I'm pretty new to Flash. I'm quite pleased with the results of some of the movies I have created, but some of them are quite large, and I would like them to load into memory before they start playing. I have searched for this in the actionscript reference, but due to my inexperience it may as well be written in Martian. Can anyone help me?

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:09 pm (19 years, 11 months ago)

Have a look at these tutorials on FlashKit.com

You should be able to determine what you need to look up or indeed follow the most appropriate tutorial.

Hope it helps.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

Very useful. Thank you, Darren.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

I did it. It's actually quite easy isn't it? Duh.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

I've just created an new Flash movie, and used the ifFrameLoaded thingy to get it to load before playing, like this:

I created a simple preloader scene called Preload, and a main movie scene called Moviescene, which is 126 frames in length. On the last frame of the Preload scene I put this:

ifFrameLoaded ("MovieScene", 126) gotoAndPlay ("MovieScene", 1)

Problem is, it doesn't seem to work. The Preload scene loops for a few seconds, but them the MovieScene scene seems to start playing before it has fully loaded, as it stops and starts. This is especially noticeable on a dail up-connection. Could it have anything to do with the sounds I have added to the MovieScene scene?

If you want to have a look at it, here it is:
http://www.twentyeightcostumes.fsnet.co.uk/flash_index.html

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 7:25 am (19 years, 10 months ago)

Have you tried using the Test Movie feature in Flash, in particular the bandwith profiler / show streaming in the view menu. Might offer you some clues as to what is going wrong.

I guess it could be the sounds, how are you loading/playing them? By placing them on the timeline or through Actionscript?
If its the former I wouldn't have thought that was the problem.

Maybe the thing to do is to test the sounds are loaded as well, I'm sure there is a tutorial on the same site I gave you before that tells you about loading and playing sounds with ActionScript.

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

Thanks - I'll have a look. I placed the sounds on the timeline - I didn't realise it would make any difference by loading them with actionscript. As I say - I'm a Flash Beginner.

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:25 pm (19 years, 10 months ago)

I'm not sure that it will make a difference, I'm just using what little I do know about flash and sound to make an educated guess. Laughing

Hope it gets you on the right track...