Animation and Video

Animation and Video Lesson 3 — Publishing an Animation

Objectives • Analyze an animation movie. • Optimize a movie. • Publish a movie for Web delivery. • Publish a movie to an animated or static graphic format. • Publish a movie to an executable. • Publish a movie to QuickTime. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Analyzing a Movie File • Always analyze your movie to identify potential problems in downloading and playing the movie. • The three key terms involved in analyzing a movie are • Bandwidth – The speed at which a network or modem transfers data. • Playback rate – How quickly the computer plays the frames of the movie. • Streaming rate – How quickly the network or modem can download frames of the movie. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Create a Size Report A size report can help you in analyzing the download speed of a movie. A size report tells you the size of each frame in the movie and the total size of the movie as well. This figure shows a Flash MX Size Report. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Use the Bandwidth Profiler Flash MX also has a tool called the Bandwidth Profiler that provides a vi-sual image of how much data a frame contains. You can set various connec-tion speeds and see how download and playback speeds compare to each other. Bandwidth target (red horizontal line) Data for each frame Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Check Playback and Streaming Rates • Both the bandwidth and size of individual frames affect playback of a movie. • If the playback speed of one frame exceeds the download speed of the next frame, the movie will pause. • Many animation programs have a tool you can use to test how an animation streams and plays. • In Macromedia Flash MX, use the Show Streaming option on the View menu. • This adds a streaming progress bar to the Bandwidth Profiler. • The playhead indicator shows the playback rate. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Playhead and Streaming Progress This figure shows the streaming progress bar and the playhead for the given connection speed. Change the connection speed and analyze the results for the new speed. Try several speeds to be sure your movie will work well on a variety of computers. Streaming progress Playhead Bandwidth target Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Optimize a Movie • The purpose behind optimizing a movie is to reduce the size and make it play faster. • Factors to check when optimizing are • Check the type of data being loaded. • Images and sound files are usually large. • Ask yourself whether everything in the movie is really required. • Can anything be moved from one frame to a smaller frame to improve download? Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Using Compression • One way to reduce file size to optimize the movie is compression. • Text, shapes, images, and sound can all be compressed without losing any data. • Compression can reduce quality, however. • The greater the compression setting, the greater the reduction in size, but also in quality. • You can compress individual frames, but you again lose sound and image quality depending on the level of compression. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Optimize Sound Files One way to optimize sound files is to convert them to MP3 format. This reduces their size without sacrificing a great deal of quality. In Flash MX, you can optimize a sound file by accessing options from the Library panel, as shown in this figure. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish Your Movie • There are four ways you can prepare your animation for distribution: • Make it part of a Web page. • Publish it in standard graphic format. • Make it an executable file. • Publish it as a QuickTime movie. • Each of these formats can be downloaded over the Internet or on a CD-ROM. • The graphic format and the executable file versions cannot be streamed. They must be fully downloaded before they can be played. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

The Publish Settings Dialog Box This figure shows the Flash Publish Settings dialog box. You can select one or more formats to publish your movie in this box. For each option that you select, a tab for that format will be added to this dialog box. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish a Movie for Web Delivery • When using the Web as a distribution medium for your movie, remember that size is an important factor. • Animation programs have their own file formats. • Most animation programs offer a free movie player that can be downloaded and installed on anyone's computer. • To play a movie during or after download, a user must • Have a standalone movie player installed on their computer. • Have a plug-in for that movie type installed with their Web browser. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Flash Movie Optimization This figure shows the Flash tab of the Publish Settings dialog box. The user selected both Flash and HTML options on the Format tab. After making the settings shown here and clicking the Publish button, a Flash SWF and an HTML file will be created. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish a Movie to Static or Animated Graphics • Publishing a movie to a graphic format makes it easy to use in some other document or page. • You can publish to three formats: • GIF – Supports static and animated images. Limited to 256 colors and usually used with simple images without lots of color or detail. • JPEG – Supports static images only, but good choice for photographs or images with lots of color. • PNG – New format to replace GIF. Does not lose as much quality as a conversion to GIF and supports more colors than GIF, but cannot be animated. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish an Animated GIF When you select the GIF Image option on the Format tab, a GIF tab will appear in the Publish Settings dialog box. Click that tab, then click the Animated op-tion button. Select the Loop Continuously op-tion as well. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish a Movie to an Executable • When you create an executable version of the movie, the movie is bundled together with a movie player. • This provides the end user with the player to play the movie, but it also makes the deliverable file much larger. • This is not always suitable for Web distribution. • This type of format is frequently distributed via CD-ROM or in DVD format. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Run an Executable Movie Once you have published your movie as an executable file, you can test it by using the Windows Run command shown here. Click the Start button and then click Run. When the Run dialog box opens, click the Browse button to locate your file, select the file, and click Open to run it. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Publish a Movie to QuickTime • QuickTime is a format that works on Windows and Macintosh. • Publishing a movie to this format makes it available to a wide range of computers. • The user must have a QuickTime player. • It is smaller than an executable because no player is bundled with it. • QuickTime movies can also be imported into video-editing programs to be used with other movies. • This format can be distributed via the Web, on CD-ROM, or on videotape. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

The QuickTime Tab This figure shows the QuickTime tab of the Publish Settings dialog box. Note that QuickTime has its own compression method, which you can use by selecting the check box. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Summary • Six factors that affect how you prepare your animation for publishing are file size, movie content, user’s connection speed or bandwidth, user’s hardware and software, network traffic, and streaming capabilities. • Data rate, playback rate, and streaming rate are concepts you use in analyzing a movie. • Streaming animation means that one frame of the animation can be playing while the next frame is downloading. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Summary (continued) • The purpose of analyzing a movie is to identify potential problems with download-ing and playback. • The playback speed cannot get ahead of the streaming speed or a delay occurs when you play your animation. • Optimizing a movie involves reducing its file size so it downloads faster and plays more smoothly. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Summary (continued) • Different bandwidths affect how your ani-mation plays. The larger the animation file, the more bandwidth you need. If you have a large animation file and small bandwidth, the file requires more download time and may cause delays in playback. • You can publish an animation to a stand-alone player, a Web browser’s player or plug-in, an animated or static graphics format, an executable application, or a QuickTime movie. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Summary (continued) • GIF files are the only graphics format that supports both static images and animations. The benefit of publishing to an animated GIF is that you don’t need a plug-in to play the animation. • Publishing to a static JPEG, PNG, or GIF captures only the first frame of the animation. • You can publish an animation to a Quick-Time movie. QuickTime movies are cross-platform, so they can be played on both Windows and Macintosh systems. Lesson 3 – Publishing an Animation

Animation and Video